Capital Improvements

Your eyes have a remarkable ability to adapt to low light, to a point where your shop might not feel dark but it actually is. At least for woodworking purposes… I had two LED bulbs illuminating my space and they just weren’t enough. Chopping mortises was particularly difficult as I’d just revert to blindly stabbing the mortise floor hoping errant pieces of wood were lurking in the shadows. Enough. Enter hyperikon led lights. Simple to install and enough lumens to give me a nice tan.

Note the auxiliary ikea lamp hanging off the right wall.

I can’t believe how simple and cheap LED technology is these days.

Just kidding about the tan. 4000K bathes you in a off-whiteness as not to be too sterile but white enough to mess up your instagram pictures.

Progress Slowly

If all goes well the shop should be up and running in a couple weeks. An electrician will be by to install a 100amp sub-panel tomorrow, which leaves me with the dust collection ducting to figure out. Haven’t quite decided on whether to use 24g stove pipe single wall duct or to go with sewer piping. The sewer piping is difficult to find around these parts, it seems 6” diameter is only sold wholesale to the plumbing trades…

I’ve landed on machine placement, the layout below seems to have the best feng-shui, however these things tend to change in practice.

Once complete it’ll be time to start prepping stock for the roubo build.

First Steps

I managed to drag two of the six walnut beams into my shop yesterday. A few passes with a hand plane gave me my first look at what was waiting for me. A few checks and cracks but nothing that can’t be stabilized. Moisture is a little on the high side but it’ll come down over the next few weeks. Building this Roubo will be an exercise in timberframing before cabinetry. I still have a lot of decisions to mull over… face or edge grain for the top, cabinets below or open space… who can I trick or bribe into helping me rip them down on the bandsaw.

Carte Blanche

It’s been a while since I’ve written here and much has changed. We now have two little ones in our life and have made the great trek back to Ontario after our experiment in B.C. We have a few acres of land here and a house with ample space for our growing family; something which was an impossibility for us in Vancouver. It’ll be a long winter but building a new workshop should keep me plenty busy.