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A Beginning Woodworker

My dad has been a woodworker for about as long as I can remember. Our house was full of evidence of his hobby. Kitchen cabinets, bookcases, tables, shelves, bowls, vases - everywhere you looked was something hemade. My wife and I have an entertainment center, a hall table and a couple of end tables he built, plus a jewelry box each for my wife and daughter. Dad tried to get me into woodworking but, short of a baseball bat and maybe a weed pot, I never really paid any attention to it.

Recently, though, I thought it might be fun to try some of the stuff he tried to show me years ago. Now I wish I'd paid more attention back then.

Soon after I mentioned my budding interest to my dad, My parents bought me a 1950s era Shopsmith 10ER, which is a combination table saw, drill press, lathe, and horizontal boring machine. Mine is missing the lathe hardware. Dad had a Shopsmith Mark V when I was a kid and made lots of amazing stuff with it. Dad gave me the smaller of his two wood lathes, a Jet 1014, which is the tool I get the most use out of right now. He also gave me his old Shopsmith bandsaw, which was designed as an addon to the Shopsmith but this one has been mounted to a table with a dedicated motor, and a drill press.

My tools have taken over a large part of our garage, much to my wife's delight . I wish I had more room, though. Maybe one day I'll be able to build a separate dedicated shop.

I've turned a few bowls, some little weed pots, a couple of Christmas ornaments, and a couple of Harry Potter wands on the lathe and made a Padauk box. My wife's favorite thing I've made, though, is probably the simplest. It's a wooden hook made to support the center of a curtain rod. She seemed genuinely surprised when I brought it out of the shop and hung it up. I think she was shocked that it worked!

I hope to learn and grow as a woodworker and document the process here. I've got my dad to learn from but I've also joined the Alabama Woodworkers Guild. I remember tagging along with my dad when he went to guild meetings in the early nineties and now I'm learning from a lot of the same guys I saw back then. It's a great group to be a part of. I recommend any woodworkers or potential woodworkers around Birmingham come for a visit during one of their meetings.

Some of the things I've made, on a table my dad made

My Shopsmith on the stand Dad built for it

My drill press and bandsaw

My lathe