Shed Plan

In October of 2008 I created my first real (non-free) website, Sailing and Such. My intentions were to help other sailors and information that I had been looking hard for, easier to find. Mainly, this information was about sailboat project, sailboat maintenance and anything to do with sailboat work.

Once I created the website, people started visiting and complimenting the site and saying what a great idea it was to have a lot ofthat kind of information in one place. I really enjoyed the comments and they made me work harder and make the website larger and larger.

Then, I started reading up on making money online and I registered for Google Adsense which was a great decision. I wasnt getting alot of traffic to my website so I really havnt made all that much money in the first three months but its a start. Making any money online is a great thing to me and the website is something I do not have to actually "do" to make money, it just does it on its own.

Now, I am venturing into something called PayPerPost where I plan to post articles on my blogs about certain products and stuff, and get paid for it. We will see how it works!

My dream is create a steady income online so that I can someday live on sailboat and cruise wherever it is warm!

Hi Everyone,

As I mentioned earlier Ive recently injured one of my knees and Ive had to stay off of it so I havent done any turning lately. So I decided to do a little spoon carving instead.

Heres a photo:


A spoon was the very first thing I ever made many, many years ago and Ive been thinking of taking it up again. The top two spoons in the photo are made out of basswood (similar to lime wood or linden wood for those of you in the UK or overseas) and the bottom one was made out of birch. The spoon in the middle is a large kitchen spoon and it has a nicely curved handle and bowl. Its long enough not to slip into a pan or pot while cooking. The bottom spoon was made out of birch and while its a little shorter in length, I think I prefer this wood for spoons. Its hard and closed grained and it sands smoothly. Im going to need to final sand these and then give them a thin coat of salad bowl finish.

Well re-visit spoon making in future postings as it seems to be a popular activity, especially in Britain.

As my knee is improving Ill probably begin doing some turning next week. I have some platters and cutting boards to make and well do those together.

More later,

VW

saturday was the last class for my green mountain college students above. i thank trevor for helping me to pull this off. i had no idea teaching a one credit course in something that we do all the time would be the challenge that it turned out to be. of course, i didnt anticipate on the fact that both trevor and i would have to learn at least the basics of importing files from the 3d program google sketchup to our toolpathing program, or that since these werent our ideas, in our language, we would have to get into thinking about their projects from their points of view ... anyway, we made it through and got all but one japanese puzzle box project pretty much finished. i think we all learned something ... i for one, learned that 15 kids in a class with five different projects is fun, but a lot of work ... i had to have a nap when they all left ..click the photos to enlarge them ...
chessboard concept, above and below
during the second class at gmc, we got to see and use lucass one sheet design tables that we cut on the cnc for him back in january ... (scroll way down) .. they worked great, both as singles and arranged in a block to form larger work areas ... very clever design .. the photos above are from the second class on march 24th at the on campus design studio. in that class, the groups finalized their project choices and they all worked up a rough cardboard mockup that explored their paper based ideas. that was funand while we were there, we got to see another design class project ... i forget the technical name, but it is on the line of the micro houses you may have seen in the news .. very cool ...
i wish i had had more time to take photos as the models progressed, but i didnt ... the group above learned that they had to do a little more research on angles and dimensions for comfortable seating ...
and the boys above had to do a little more research into lighting ...
there were adjustments on the fly that trevor handled with ease ...
the puzzle box required some fussy assembly and we came up a little short on getting that one working ... well make some revised pieces and send them up so it can be finished ...
im pretty sure a good time was had by all ...

With the decision being made to make a new mantle, Ive taken 3 pieces of cherry and glued them together. Before I did that, I ran everything through the planer and joiner to get as good of a surface as possible for the glue bonds. Upon glueing, I clamped everything together and let set for 3 days. Below is a picture of the clamped piece.
After it has set, Ive removed the clamps, and went to work with the hand planer on the edges. Then, Ive given the top edge a nice decorative edge. This is the same edge I did on the bullnose for the countertop. Then I switched bits and gave the bottom edge a 1/2" roundover. Here are some pics of that.
Now its on to the staining and finishing part of the job!