Woodworking Roadblocks

Unless you pay attention and do something about them, you
can build roadblocks to your woodworking. The sneaky ones
develop in small, barely noticable increments. You adapt to
them, working around them - way beyond the point where
you should deal with them.

Let me preface the following by pointing out that, among my many
weaknesses, I'm what a sawyer friend calls a Wood Whore, though
I prefer Wood Horder.

It was the aquistion of 200 bf of English Sycamore that lead me
to the conclusion that, despite what I thought was a pretty
thorough job planning my shop, I'd completely overlooked, or
rather severely under estimated, the needs of wood storage.

In my defense, as a newbie, and having spent most of my
woodworking budget on the capital investments - stationary
tools (a combi that took care of FIVE functions - 12" joiner,
12" planer, 10" table saw with sliding table, shaper AND
horizontal boring/mortiser, a 12" SCMS, a floor mount DP,
a router table with precision positionable fence system,
a 16" bandsaw, a chisel and bit mortising machine and a
30 gallon compressor) and a dust collection system. Finding
myself semi-broke, I planned on buying wood on an As
Needed basis. Decide on a project, work up a cut list
and Buy It / Use It / Buy More When Needed. No need to
plan for storing wood, I'd get it, use it and get some more.

Now if you let people know you're into woodworking
they begin to make you aware of wood you'd probably
never wouldn've heard about.

A friend sees an ad in the paper for an auction at a
cabinet shop. And then you have 400 bf of honey locust,
2 full sheets of AA grade black walnut and cherry 3/4"
ply, along with a half dozen 5x5 sheets of baltic birch ply.

The electrician on your house addition turns out to
also be a woodworker who happens to be moving
out of state AND has "some wood you might be
interested in - for 25% of whatever the fair market
value is". Now you have 50 or 60 bf of nice mahogany,
50 or 60 bf of mainly QS oak, 30 or 40 bf of maple
- half birdseye, some teak, 30 bf of "bearclaw figure"
spruce, etc..

The lumber yard you buy from goes out of business
and you pick up some 8/4 spalted maple, some medulary
rayed sycamore and some outrageous quilted maple
-for under $4 a bf.

Your sawyer friend is moving his operation and doesn't
want to move ALL of the wood he's saved over the years.
Now claro walnut crotch, in 6/4 and 8/4 slabs for $30
to $40 a pop is just too good to pass up and 10 foot
2x2s of maple for $6 a piece in quantities of five would
be nice for table legs.

A neighbor is selling a house converted to an office
by her deceased father. There are 25 or 30, mainly
maple, raised panel cabinet doors she's planning on
dumping if you don't want it.

That sawyer friend has found some nice QS english
sycamore at $4 a bf - BUT - in minimum lots of
1,000 bf. "You in for 200 bf?".

THAT finally triggered building some wood racks
on the back wall of the shop, well under the eaves.

It also pointed up the fact that there was a LOT
of wood stashed around IN the shop AND that
it had encroached EVERYWHERE. Boards leaning
against the router table, sort of tucked behind
the mortiser, on the floor under the work bench,
on the miter saw tables, leaning in front of the
cabinet under the miter saw, blocking one end
of the ply storage floor to ceiling "boxes", on
and around the combi.

A little looking around and I noticed that I had
20 lineal feet of wall space - above 6 feet -
where wood could be stored. Tools on wheels
could stay against the same wall until needed.
A hundred bucks worth of heavy duty adjustable
screw to the wall shelving stuff, some masonry
screws cause their harder and a bit of moving
a bunch of boards around and - no more boards
leaning up against EVERYTHING - EVERYWHERE.
Four hours of finally taking action and I've got
MOST of my biggest woodworking roadblocks
GONE (slabs don't lend themselves to storing
on shelves, nor do raised panel cabinet doors).

New Rule #1
Unless it's really nice - and FREE
No More New Wood!

New Goal #1
Cut up all those cabinet doors into stackable
parts and get those stacks onto one of the
new shelves.

SO - WHAT'S YOUR SHOP ROAD BLOCK?

How're you gonna get rid of it rather than
work around it?

WHEN will you get around to doing it?

charlie b

RN

"RayV"