Rustic Coasters

Purchased a bandsaw late last year and was looking for the first project to test the bandsaw.

Its not just about adding skills but also very important to build a community around us. A community who can appreciate hand crafts in the age of mechanization and automation (a.k.a the age of oil) . The coasters from a wooden log are simple to make and servers the above purpose.

Leveraged the local community of woodworkers at www.ncwoodworkers.net to find a well dried log of wood. The steps of make a coaster are relatively simple:

1. Scrape the excess bark from the wooden log
2. Cut the wood pieces in the equal thickness. I used 3/4" thickness and the ones I made of 1/2" thickness would break after they fell from my hand onto the floor.
3. Sand the coasters with sand paper of 80, 120 and 150 grits progressively
4. Apply 3 coats of finish.  Once a coat is dry, use 0000 steel wool to smooth the excess finish.

I have two videos describing the whole process.

Lesson Learnt:

• Use a miter saw to cut the wood instead of a bandsaw and miter saw provides more stable platform than a bandsaw.

Hope you will enjoy the video and perhaps try making a few of your own. Would love see the pictures of your work and hear your comments.

Shop Lighting Installation

We bought a home near my work place couple of years ago. Its a new home built by one of the branded home builders. This is step in the direction of home-steading. This model had the biggest garage out of all the available models of town homes. I bought a 4-lamp shop light almost 12 months ago and it was sitting on my work bench. My desire and commitment to run full-marathons took up most of my weekends. I ran two full marathons in 2012. In 2013, I have toned down my running to only half-marathons. This has freed up some of my time to focus on the tons of projects waiting to be executed. All these projects are aligned towards the long term goal of self-sufficiency.

This garage-light was sitting on the work-bench for over a year and hogging up the space. I needed the work  bench for the project. Working light will help a lot during the evening hours. Last weekend was long weekend due to MLK's birthday celebrations. Installing the garage light was one of the priority items on my list.

Most of my power tools are on wheels. I typically drag them close to the garage door so that there is plenty of supply of fresh air. Fresh air is needed as the tools are producing copious amounts of saw-dust. Even though I have an attached dust collector but fresh air helps.  The decision was made to keep the garage light exact on top of the area where most of the work will be done. This created the challenge of being able to open the garage door and still have a working hanging light.

In this youtube video, I have attempted to describe the way I overcame the challenge of installing the shop light between the garage door in open position and ceiling.

What happened to author of this blog?

I have not written anything on my blog for last couple of years.  I have made some good progress with my woodworking and running skills in last couple of years and I have real good material to share with you all readers. I have run two marathons, almost a dozen half marathons and numerous 5K races. I also started juicing last year and it has very successful. Health is one of the primary focus in last few years and I have tons of research in this area. Its high time for me to start writing again. I have posted a few videos on my youtube channel during this winter season.