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My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

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Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#91

Post by finder83 »

adsjhdashkj wrote: post #78
codingdave wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bad woodworker. My furniture has bad joints, gaps between pieces of wood. I don't use good wood. I do a poor job painting or staining it... and everyone still just sits down on my chairs and says, "This is so cool that you make your own furniture." Start small, start bad, improve on each project... and give it time.

Stupid question - would it be sane to get involved in this stuff without having a means of transporting large objects? Every time i look into wood related work, be it home repair or artsy stuff, everything is huge. I have a Prius. I'm not too thrilled at the idea of buying a 2nd car (truck), and i don't want to drive only a truck.. so how am i to get the supplies? Sounds like a silly question, but yea - things are ju…

If you have a Home Depot nearby, they rent trucks for like $19 for the first 75 minutes. Go for a wood run, rent the truck for an hour, buy enough to make it worth it, and return it.

From what I've seen though, wood isn't cheap to have delivered. They can cut it for you in the store, but obviously a prius still isn't best to ship it in.

Maybe find a friend with a truck or light trailer that you can borrow every couple of months?

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#92

Post by dekhn »

gummydog wrote: post #47

My woodworking journey started when I was quoted $2500 to fix my porch railings. $1000 in materials, $1000 in tools mix in youtube tutorials and patience and now I'm hooked. The sliding compound mitre saw was the life changing tool for me. It was what was holding me back all these years from doing my own projects. I was always outsourcing this type of work for simply the cutting of lumber and thought I could do bette…

Miter saw (even without sliding) was transformative for me as well. A cheap table saw complements it nicely (I then splurged and got a CNC router, too, which opens up a wide range of techniques). AFter that I ended up playing with chisels, which I always thought were very primitive, but you can do a surprising amount of nice work with just a chisel and a hand saw.

I'm a computer programmer but I expect that more and more of my hobby time is going to be making things by hand. It's really a job, after struggling with some stupid code, to just go design something on paper, make a few cuts, and see it work in reality.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#93

Post by vba »

blhack wrote: post #57
gummydog wrote: post #47

My woodworking journey started when I was quoted $2500 to fix my porch railings. $1000 in materials, $1000 in tools mix in youtube tutorials and patience and now I'm hooked. The sliding compound mitre saw was the life changing tool for me. It was what was holding me back all these years from doing my own projects. I was always outsourcing this type of work for simply the cutting of lumber and thought I could do bette…

YES! This is why it's SO important to keep this sort of stuff in schools. Sliding compound miter saw is a magic tool. Now just wait until you get a MIG welder and a bandsaw, you'll be UNSTOPPABLE and the world will suddenly look a whole lot different! Sidenote: I'm the program director at a nonprofit where I teach/create curriculum. One of the workshops that I love teaching is a week long where we teach the following…

Blhack do you have a portfolio/website show casing your creations I can see? :)

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#94

Post by mrlala »

Loughla wrote: post #51
codingdave wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bad woodworker. My furniture has bad joints, gaps between pieces of wood. I don't use good wood. I do a poor job painting or staining it... and everyone still just sits down on my chairs and says, "This is so cool that you make your own furniture." Start small, start bad, improve on each project... and give it time.

Woodworking is one of those skills where you can see literally every flaw about your finished product, because you know what greatness looks like and you cannot achieve it. And nobody will notice but you, and maybe another woodworker. But generally they're nice enough not to say anything mean. I like it because it keeps me humble. Just when I believe I have the largest amount of domain knowledge related to my job, an…

Can't upvote this enough!!

And there's no freaking undo button with wood.. it's mentally challenging to not freak out about every little mistake.

Over time I'm learning to get better about this, but it's rough.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#95

Post by dekhn »

adsjhdashkj wrote: post #78
codingdave wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bad woodworker. My furniture has bad joints, gaps between pieces of wood. I don't use good wood. I do a poor job painting or staining it... and everyone still just sits down on my chairs and says, "This is so cool that you make your own furniture." Start small, start bad, improve on each project... and give it time.

Stupid question - would it be sane to get involved in this stuff without having a means of transporting large objects? Every time i look into wood related work, be it home repair or artsy stuff, everything is huge. I have a Prius. I'm not too thrilled at the idea of buying a 2nd car (truck), and i don't want to drive only a truck.. so how am i to get the supplies? Sounds like a silly question, but yea - things are ju…

if you have a smaller vehicle, just stick to smaller sizes. At HD (or any large box hardware store) you can have them cut large stuff down.

The biggest things I put in my SUV are large plywood panels and long dimensional lumber. Those can be strapped to the roof if you have a top rack.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#97

Post by jiscariot »

IgorPartola wrote: post #74
blhack wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YES! This is why it's SO important to keep this sort of stuff in schools. Sliding compound miter saw is a magic tool. Now just wait until you get a MIG welder and a bandsaw, you'll be UNSTOPPABLE and the world will suddenly look a whole lot different! Sidenote: I'm the program director at a nonprofit where I teach/create curriculum. One of the workshops that I love teaching is a week long where we teach the following…

Why specifically MIG and not something like flux core? Also, what resources do you recommend for learning to weld? I wish I could take a class on this but all I see is like two year old programs for becoming a certified welder and I am just looking to do it for random odd jobs.

Not OP, but I learned MIG at my local community college about 15 years ago. It was mostly pipe-fitters getting certified in the class and I was able work on whatever projects I wanted. I started with stick, then went to MIG, and then did a follow on class where I told them I just wanted to do Oxy-Ace. I think now they offer a more variety of classes, for people who want to do art and such.

If I recall, flux core is dirtier, and having a tank of argon on your cart isn't too expensive for a shielding gas. I lived in a studio and luckily my neighbors were cool with me running a chops saw.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#98

Post by mistermann »

sjcsjc wrote: post #54
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a german word for that: torschlusspanik Basically means the unsettling feeling that opportunities will vanish as one ages

Fantastic word. Thank you. I love wiktionary's example usage: "Midlife-crisis-induced Torschlusspanik has driven quite a few middle-aged men into the arms of young women, wrecking countless marriages." [0] [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik

Here's a nice YouTube channel you may like.

https://www.youtube.com/c/obscuresorrows/videos

A compendium of invented words written by John Koenig, that aims to fill holes in the language—to give a name to emotions we all feel but don't have a word for. The author's mission is to capture the aches, demons, vibes, joys and urges that roam the wilderness of the psychological interior. Each sorrow is bagged, tagged and tranquilized, then released gently back into the subconscious.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#99

Post by angelbar »

codingdave wrote: post #30
pen2l wrote: post #5

It seems so fulfilling, being able to make such beautiful things. But also a bit expensive eh... to get the woodworking skills (presumably by taking classes at a technical college?), the equipment, and the time involved. If any folks here are capable of doing this stuff, would you please share details of your journey, I feel inspired to learn some of this myself. Did you feel it was all worth it, what would you do di…

I'm a bad woodworker. My furniture has bad joints, gaps between pieces of wood. I don't use good wood. I do a poor job painting or staining it... and everyone still just sits down on my chairs and says, "This is so cool that you make your own furniture." Start small, start bad, improve on each project... and give it time.

meh... I asssure you a bunch of that its only impostor syndrome... we need only keep doing it. Mastery comes later

It happens to my here and there.

Re: My wife recently passed away. I used my time off to build her a giant bookshelf

#100

Post by nullc »

drm237 wrote: post #68
nullc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, I bought fairly expensive ones but I think what I got were fakes. (Thanks amazon). I subsequently found a vendor that I get reliable parts from -- but the point remains that regardless of how good those strips are, the shelves will outlive them.

You could say that about any lightning source used anywhere. In general, a piece of wood is going to outlast and electrical device.

Right, but if e.g. it were fixtures with socketed bulbs they could be replaced.

I built large bookshelves last year (though not as cool as the posts) and didn't integrate lighting for this reason-- and it's really good that I didn't because it turned out the strip I was using at the time didn't last long.

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