Wahoo! My post-of-the-month!

Well, figured another month had passed, so I had better post something here.

More of the same, really. The three "W's" have been occupying most of my time lately: Work, Website and Writing instruments. The pens-for-sale website is coming along nicely and I'm starting to even see some folks making their way to me via search engines, which is always a good feeling. I've got a couple more ideas rattling around in my head that I'd like to accomplish, such as allowing potential customers to create their own custom pen, but I'm still tweaking the details and more or less shaking my head while trying to make the concept a reality.

Oy...

Been rather busy lately. I've been splitting my time between turning pens, tracking down orders I've placed (a story in and of itself, let me tell you) and getting the new store put together (which can be found by clicking here...excuse the lame plug). Thought I'd pop over here and do something non-commercial for a few minutes.

Last update of the year!

Welcome to the last post of 2006!

First off, I have added a couple of pictures of a pair of candle holders to the Gallery. These were a Christmas gift for my Mother and were inspired by a picture she found in a catalog from who-knows-where. They were made of a couple blocks of maple burl and finished with five coats of semi-gloss Arm-R-Seal (what else?!).

Next, in an effort to (a) find a home for my ever-growing surplus of pens and (b) attempt to make pen turning a self-sustaining habit, I have opened an internet store. As The Pen Turns will now be the commercial entity of the Amateur Termite shop. I'm still fine tuning things, so be gentle with the criticisms for a bit. I did, however, manage to get my SSL certificate today, so all sensitive transmissions will be encrypted. I'm still waiting for PayPal and Google Checkout to verify my banking information, but if you so desire, you can still make a purchase.

All that being said, I'm heading back out to the shop to build up more inventory. Such drudgery...

Hope you all enjoy a happy and prosperous new year!

Pictures finally!

Just a quick post today...

Amy finally got everything set up to her liking and took pictures of all of the pens turned so far. I've managed to get the gallery set up to my liking and have posted all of said pictures there. Here's a quick link for those interested.

Still Turning...

I'm still obsessing over my new obsession. Been out in the shop pretty much every day since Thanksgiving making pens and trying to decide where in hell to put them all.

No, sorry, no pics of the latest creations for a couple of reasons. First off, Amy, my wife and part-time photographer has come down with some sort of funk that's had her feeling like dog squeeze since Friday. Secondly, some of the turnings may or may not become Christmas presents so I'm trying to keep them under wraps, no pun intended.

Pen turning has turned out to be a very relaxing diversion. While I like doing "larger" projects, the big power tools tend to get noisy after a while. Listening to the stereo while the planer is running tends to become difficult. But when the lathe is running, its generally fairly peaceful, if you discount the occasional expletives spewed when I screw something up. Generally that only happens when I try to be "cute" and try something new.

On a side note, I found an interesting article online about using corn cobs to turn pens (here's a link). The guy who wrote it makes it look much easier than it seems to be. The cobs themselves are fairly easy to work with, but once you turn them to the match the pen kit, well, things don't always work out as planned. I'm determined to make one that looks decent because, well, they just look cool and hell, it's cheaper than screwing up nice wood blanks. I'm sure the squirrels won't complain much either.

A New Obsession

A bit of background is in order, I believe. And yes, I know most of you who know me are probably groaning right now, fully aware that this will end up being a entry of epic length.

I have only just recently returned to the shop after an extended absence. Being the way that I am, I fully believed that I could just jump back into woodworking and be able to work at the same level I had two years ago, such as it may have been. Well, I was mistaken. It started innocently enough... I was trying to build coin banks using old post office box doors. Seemed easy enough, but I decided that I needed a decent belt sander to do the job right as no matter how I try, I can never get my joints to line up perfectly. I figured a belt sander would help me clean up dovetails without rounding things over as I tend to do with my orbital sander.

I'm ba-aack

You may have noticed that the site has changed a bit. What was old is new again. After a rather lengthy hiatus, I'm back in the shop and decided that, well, I was tired of the clunky look of phpNuke and decided to move back to Movable Type. So, stay tuned...more to come!

It finally came to this...

I have gone through all of the entries on the site and disabled the ability for anyone to leave comments. Why? Because of all the damn spammers out there using my site to peddle their crap. So, from now on, until I can move to a different platform, all comments will be disabled.

I'm Still Alive...

Yes, I know it has been a while since I have posted anything. To be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time in the shop recently...until now. As such, I thought I would post a little blurb about and some pics of what I have been up to in the past few weeks.

Got Some Router Bits...

I managed to finish up and hang the router bit cabinet this weekend. Moved all the bits from their various hiding places and stowed away all the miscellaneous stuff that was buried under a pile of sawdust in the router table.

But before we get to the good stuff, let us look back into the past...let's have a gander at router bit cabinet version 0.9beta.

Beauty, ain't it?