Month: February 2013

Site Updates!

Published on by Mike  (Leave a comment)

The last few days I have been working on making some major updates to the site.  The biggest being the header.  I think the new one has a cleaner look, utilizing a picture I took awhile back to use as my avatar for various social network sites and forums.  My background is I.T., and for many years I did side work doing websites, while working closely with a graphic artist.  While I don’t have the funds to pay a graphic artist to design my site, I knew I could do better.  There was also a lot of unfinished aspects of the site that had been bugging me since I brought it up, and just haven’t taken the time to fix it.  The theme I am using is custom, with me doing my own html, css, and php for it.  I did use one of the built-in themes as a starting point, but there is very little of the original theme left in it.

The site updates include:

  • New header
  • Some color changes
  • Cleaned up comment layout
  • Cleaned up some of the side bar elements
  • New About Me page
  • Update page and individual post layout, now match rest of site
  • Fixed paging issues
  • Improved menu layouts
  • An indicator in the header when my stream is up
  • Various other CSS elements cleaned up

As always, if there is anything you would like to see on my blog, comment, and let me know!

Technology in the Shop – Part 2 – Streaming Video

Published on by Mike  (Leave a comment)

2012-09-10 18.34.04So one of the most popular functions of the Internet is to stream video. With having a computer in the shop there are several ways we can take advantage of this function.  First, streaming how-to videos while learning techniques can be very beneficial.  It is one thing to watch a video sitting in a La-Z-Boy, where you can learn the basic concepts.  However, with having the ability to view a video in the shop, you can work along side the video.  The advantage of this is that it is much more likely small details of the technique are caught that may have otherwise been lost.

One of the online communities I am active in is the one at TheWoodWhisperer.com.  There is a live video and chat room on this site.  The live video is primarily for the live events that is often put on by Marc.  However, something else he has setup is the ability for anyone to add their own streams.  All that is needed is a free account with ustream.tv.

I typically stream when I am in the shop.  You can see it on the live page here.  I do try to send out a tweet when I am streaming.

Part 1

Get Woodworking Week Post – Box Challenge Build

Published on by Mike  (Leave a comment)

2013-01-30 22.44.46 Since my shop is in a garage, and in Ohio, I am don’t know that I will get much if any woodworking done this week.  Much of it depends if my kerosene heater can compensate for cold air outside.  However, I think it is worth talking about my current project, which is part of a box challenge that a group of us are participating in.  The idea of the challenge is to build a box that pushes your skills.

2013-01-19 18.22.49The first skill challenge for me was hand cut dovetails.  I took a class a couple years ago, and made several practice bookends, but never actually did a project with DTs on all four corners.  The answer to the top question is tails first.  🙂  I spent a lot of time being extra careful, with both the DT saw and chisels to get the joints as clean as possible.  The only area that I consistently had issues with were the half pins on the ends.  This is where I had the worse gaps.  The rest of the DTs ended up reasonably tight.  I haven’t glued the box up yet, so I have decided yet how I will close up those gaps.

2013-01-30 22.45.05After completing the four sides, I started working on top and bottom pieces.  The top I ended up doing a square turning to make it domed shape.  The I started working on the bottom.  I couldn’t bring myself to just making it from plywood.  It had to be solid wood.  I started out just rabbeting the bottom piece to fit in the dados in the sides.  I didn’t like how it looked.  So I grabbed my #3 and started working away at it.  I marked some guidelines, and next thing I know, I had a raised panel for the bottom!

2013-01-19 23.04.08I still have some work to do on the box, and any more work I do on it this week, I will update as another GWW post.