I enjoy woodworking, always have. I began “banging nails” as a kid, when Dear Ole Dad gave me a couple 2 x 4s and some nails. From then on, I was hooked.
When Keith was born we priced changing tables. They were right around $43 or so. Outrageous! So, I decided to build one myself, and I did it for $19! Actually I built a dry sink that doubled as a changing table.
Dad, and Keith, Feb. 1973
Today, Keith has that changing table/dry sink! (Gawd, they grow up so fast!) And it warms my heart to see him use it.
In my family research I read where my great-great grandfather was a carpenter. I would love to have something – anything, that he built. This has been a lot of the incentive for my woodworking today. I prefer to make things for people rather than buy (even more) cheap Chinese shit that’s pretty, and makes noise!
These days I spend a great deal of time in my shop. It is pure enjoyment for me – to make something for someone. Often when I set up my tooling to build something, say a stool or bench, it just as easy to cut out 5 or 6 of them.
These are a couple I just finished:
This one is made of “birdseye” maple.
And this one is made from elm. Of interest, the elm came from trees they took down in De-troit. I had to run a medal detector over the raw lumber before working with it to detect any stray bullets….(just kidding!) Am not sure what I will do with these yet, but they will find a home…