Woodworking and Me: A Handy Mom's Story
Hi guys! I'm Brailyn!
For many, many years I was a frustrated woodworker. Frustrated because I had not the time nor money to pursue the inner me that craved the creation of nice things of wood. In case you haven't noticed, wood and the tools to make things of wood are expensive.
And jobs and kids and assorted pets of one sort or another do not leave one with a bunch of time or money to pursue such an all consuming hobby. I did make some things, fairly crude furniture pieces and one or another built in for the house and the requisite deck type construction.
But that was not the sort of stuff I wanted to do. I wanted complex joinery, and expensive hardwoods and French Polish finishes. Not the stuff I made from pine because we needed something to put books on or to put the TV into.
But I am proud to say that those things that I made from Pine have far outlasted much of the rest of the store-bought furniture we have had over the years.
Those things were made with the most rudimentary of tools. Basic hand tools and homeowner type power tools, such as a handheld circular saw, a ¼ inch router, and a jig saw. But all of that stuff is for another page and time.
Now things have changed. I retired from my first career and am well on the way with my second one. The kids have all gone away, multiplied, and come back, and have now all gotten back on their own again.
The grocery bills and utility bills have gone way down. The old playroom is now a guest bedroom. We still have to rescue the kids occasionally, but that's alright, too.
So now I've got this windfall of time and a bit of money. What better way to use up some of both than to finally do stuff that I really enjoy.
I've slowly bought better tools to replace or to augment the ones I already had. I've got half of a two car garage to keep them in, and although it's getting crowded, it's better than having to work outside and put everything away each time.
It's not a million dollar shop like the ones you see on the DIY shows, but I do have the basics and even some of the not so basics. I have also learned that we made do with what we have, until we can get more.
My first shop was a big ugly plywood monster that sat on the patio of the apartment in Los Angeles where we lived. The bench folded up to enclose the front of the thing. I had a cheap jig saw, a handheld circular saw and later got a router. I had a few chisels and some other hand tools and some C clamps.
I cut a slot in the bench and rigged up a mount for the circular saw under the table so that the blade extended up above the table top. With a straight piece of wood and a couple clamps, it made a serviceable table saw for ripping. Crosscutting was generally done with the circular saw by hand using a couple of home made crosscut jigs. The router got its own hole in the bench and served as a shaper.
As time went by I got an 8" tabletop table saw and a small 3 wheel band saw, a table drill press and a lathe. I made a lot of small things with those tools, but it was difficult to work because I had to drag everything out of a storage shed, work outside, and put everything back when I quit for the day.
With the exception of the lathe, all of those bench top tools have since been replaced with better equipment. The circular saw gave out after many years of abuse and has been replaced, the router is still in service, but doesn't see much use since I got a new, bigger one.
The chisels still get used, but I've gotten a set of matching ones that I use for wood, the old ones get used for all of those other things we use chisels for. I'm even on my second scroll saw, a tool I did not think I wanted or needed, but has become one of the busiest of all of my tools.
One thing about wood working is that even after you have all of the tools you need, you'll never have as many as you want.
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