Happy 2015!!

[Chris Hall]

Welcome to the future. We're here, in one piece hopefully. Aren't we all supposed to be living on a space station by now?

My goal for this year, woodworking-wise, is to bring my finishing up to the next level. Hoping to acquire another piece of machinery for my shop this year. Hoping to figure out what to do with my old truck (don't get me started on that topic...).

I also hope to grow this forum a bit more too. We have more than 150 members, I don't see any reason why we couldn't grow to 250 by the end of the year.

What are your goals/intentions for 2015?

[Dennis]

Good luck with your New Year goals, Chris.

I had some distractions last year, I hope for a better ability to concentrate this one. Shop additions, I'm looking for one of those jet or torpedo heaters to make the place tolerable until the wood stove is putting out reasonable heat in the morning. Good in the machine area I'm thinking, a colder part of the shop. Hope not to suffocate. A few new customers would be well received.

[Chris Hall]

You have heat in your shop - that must be nice. Sorta thing I dream about...

[Dennis]

What are the difficulties incurred when having heat in your shop? Not allowed by the landlord? Isn't it an older wooden building?

[Chris Hall]

Well, I rent a space in an old mill building by a river. It's an uninsulated brick-walled two story industrial building, with large single pane rattly sash windows. The room my shop is in is something like 40'x100', however I rent only a 20'x40' area at the end of the room. The room has no partitions, and the landlord doesn't want any partitions put in. There is an oil furnace, but the cost is something like $1400/month to run it. I could deal with the cost, but I guess it seems crazy to waste money heating an entire space when I only utilize 20% of it. There is another guy renting space next to me, but he is a retiree and is only there intermittently, and can't afford to share the heating cost anyway.

I bought a small radiant heater from Lee Valley which I mounted near my planing beam, however i have been spending most of my time of late working on the bigger beams and they are nowhere near the heater, so it is mostly decorative, though it does work well.

I really want to have my own shop building in the next year or two, and have been contemplating various ways to reach that goal.

[Dennis]

Good luck with getting your own location together, that does seem important. If shooting for a permanent long term location, I firmly believe that having the ability to also exhibit your work within a close separate space dedicated for that purpose, will well pay off. With speculative furniture on display and photos of your architectural work in a portfolio or on the wall, it would much help to sell and bring in jobs. You working there makes a good connection for perspective clients, aids in the course of getting on favourable terms.

[Brian]

Well, I rent a space in an old mill building by a river. It's an uninsulated brick-walled two story industrial building, with large single pane rattly sash windows. The room my shop is in is something like 40'x100', however I rent only a 20'x40' area at the end of the room. The room has no partitions, and the landlord doesn't want any partitions put in. There is an oil furnace, but the cost is something like $1400/month to run it. I could deal with the cost, but I guess it seems crazy to waste money heating an entire space when I only utilize 20% of it. There is another guy renting space next to me, but he is a retiree and is only there intermittently, and can't afford to share the heating cost anyway.

I bought a small radiant heater from Lee Valley which I mounted near my planing beam, however i have been spending most of my time of late working on the bigger beams and they are nowhere near the heater, so it is mostly decorative, though it does work well.

I really want to have my own shop building in the next year or two, and have been contemplating various ways to reach that goal.

I vote for the 'building an 18th century japanese house and garden' approach.

There are two very important aspects to my shop which I highly value one is heat and the other is an espresso machine.

[Matt J]

My personal (as opposed to job related) woodworking goals for 2015:

-Continue to improve sharpening skills- focusing on quality of results first, then speed.

-Complete at least 3 of 6 potential household "fine" woodworking projects, which include: a wall hanging cabinet for the bathroom, shelves for living/dining room, a stand or cabinet for stereo gear, shoe rack for front entry, an arbor for the wisteria out back, small shelf for hallway

-Complete most needed utilitarian woodworking projects around the house: shelves for basement, shelves for workshop, tool racks for workshop, overflow pan & pedestal base for washing machine, baby gates in 2 locations...

-Hopefully add a second kanna to the tool kit... Get right everything I got wrong in setting up the first.

-Begin air sealing and insulating the house (does blown-in cellulose count as woodworking?)



I'm trying to keep these goals as realistic as possible. Hopefully posting them here will help keep me accountable.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Brian]

Oh right, I have aspirations that I should post;

I want to build a sharpening station, using the kitchen is getting old. Alternatively I could hire a part time sharpener/barista/chef and they could use the kitchen.

[Chris Pyle]

I'm with Matt on the sharpening: I must work on doing it more and doing it better.

I'd like to get over my fear of failure by plunging through projects rather than getting to the "new-to-me" parts and being paralyzed.

I'd like to have a mostly functional shop put together by EOY.

I hope to contribute more on this forum, continuing with the various projects laid out here.