Category Archives: Woodworking

Trees

Bigger bite for a little saw

I do a little tree climbing, and the saw I take in the tree with me is a Stihl MS192T.  It’s a great little saw, not as powerful at the MS200T, but enough to do what I need.  However one shortcoming it has is the integral plastic bucking spike.  The plastic teeth are too short, ill shaped, and just plain too dull to dig into the bark.

ms192tPartsWhile browsing the parts manual for this saw, I noticed one of the images showed a separate bucking spike and chain catcher.  The spike part number is 1129 664 0500, and you’ll also need two of the special screws, PN 9074 477 4130.

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Trees

Tree Climbing

streetLogs2I learned to climb when I needed to take down about 25 old dangerous white pines at our CT house, and the skill has come in handy here at our MA house too. I’ve got all the trees down now that need climbing, the rest can be felled from the ground, but I’m glad I had the skill for when I needed it.

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Furniture, Hobbies, Woodworking

Rocking Horse

horse1Another long ago furniture project. When my boss’ son was born back in 1992, I made this rocking horse for him out of a pallet that a large CNC machine was delivered on. The main runners of this pallet were some 8×12″ red oak timbers. After re-sawing and planing, this beautiful wood emerged from the oil soaked pallet.

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Furniture, Hobbies, Woodworking

Desks and Dressers

cabinetTomHandmade_lgAs I look back I realize that before we went to China and took up photography as a sort of hobby, we had not taken pictures of many of the projects that I built. And even where we had a picture of the finished project we didn’t take the in-process photo records that you see for many of my metalworking projects. In future I’ll try to be sure to do that, but for now I’ll just show a couple of pictures that I have handy right now.

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Trees, Woodworking

Gate

fence-11Compared to our CT house, our house in MA has even more ragged old White Pines that need clearing. I haven’t yet had a chance to get really started, but I did take one dead tree down recently when I needed to build a section of rail fence to act as a gate in the stone wall. After cutting and setting posts to match the mailbox post that I made, I needed a 14 ft section of rail to fill the gate opening. This is far longer than the split rails available at the store but there was a simple solution.

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Woodworking

Timberframe Advanced Week

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Timberframing

timberframe55_lgThe beginning of the second week, the Advanced course.  This course really tested my trig skills.  Truth be told, only two people in the class had a really good understanding of the trig needed for this week, myself and one high school kid attending the class!  All I can say is what a lucky kid to be able to partake in something like this.

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Garden, Woodworking

Garden Shed

I built this garden shed over 3 weekends one November, taking advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a toss up for my wife whether she most wanted to take her kitchen with her, or this shed, when we moved! I had to promise her to build another just like it at our next house. I haven’t done that yet, but I’m betting she hasn’t forgotten the promise.  The shed is based on plans that appeared in The Family Handyman, Jul/Aug 2003.  Plans are available online from Readers Digest.

shed01My shed differs from the plans with a larger storage area, and upgraded exterior finishes.  Unfortunately I didn’t think to get any pictures of this under construction, which is too bad since it snowed right after I put in the foundation! These photos are from the following summer.

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