I had my first day at my new school today. I have a few PD days before kids start showing up and I’m sure I’ll be a bit tired at the end of the day when school officially starts lol.

I’ll still get shop time in when I can, but during these days I’m hoping to finish up a few things. One was sharpening another Roubo saw plate today once I got home. Its exhausting! I sharpen a few inches at a time as I bounce around other projects. Plate is now sharpened, and tomorrow I plan to etch a few saw plates.

One of the tools I bought a year or two ago had a few old wooden toy plans. One set was for a wooden train and my son loves trains. I showed him the pictures and he got excited and for a few days id cut out pieces from scraps and he would “help” glue them together.

Because of that I bought a wooden toy book and he has gone through it a few times. We made a crane and this week he wanted the Santa Fe train. I’m still getting work done on a few saws but the train was a fun distraction.

Several weeks ago I got this jointer for $200. I’m finally getting around to cleaning it up. I meant to take a picture with the tables off but I forgot. Getting the tables off was a pain, especially the outfeed side. I had to soak the ways repeatedly to loosen up the gunk. Once off I carefully cleaned and polished the ways.

The other goal was to prep for paint. But the paint underneath wasn’t all that bad after some cleaning and I also don’t have a lot of the matching paint. Its been discontinued and a friend is sending me some cans. I want to get all the main pieces and I just don’t think it’ll be enough.

My son just turned four and we moved into our new home just as he was turning one. He has been my shadow in the garage ever since.

My garage is connected to the house through the laundry room, insulated and has a mini split. I leave the doors open between it and the house a lot unless I’m making a lot of noise. My son is in and out as much as I am. This is but one reason why the garage is always picked up.

I have made some habits as my shop has grown.

I sweep constantly.

Any tool he can reach at all is unplugged and plugged in with every use. Tedious and hes never tried to turn anything on anyway but its a good habit with a kiddo I think. I have taught him to never touch the buttons on anything unless I say so. I say I’m about to make noise and he knows to immediately go to doorway and wait. Its in my line of sight and he waits until I’m done with whatever.

He has cut-offs that he builds with, construction equipment he uses in clean saw dust and dry erase markers for the garage door. He also “helps” me a lot too lol.

I also finished up another joiners saw last week and I’ve been working on a couple things for myself. Using some left over plywood, I finally put my thickness planer on a cart, raised my table saws up a bit to clear the jointer’s fence, and I’m making a larger drill press table.

I’ve positioned the jointer behind my table saws, room between for rollers if needed and the jointer is now just low enough for long boards to clear.

My son is old enough for pre-k and I just got a teaching position at a brand new private school. So me and my little buddy will be going to school/work full time next month!

I still plan to continue sharpening saws, and I’ll continue to make a few roubo kits a month, but custom saws might take a back seat for a bit, at least until we get used to our new schedules. I’m currently working on 6 saws and 1 roubo kit.

Another project I decided I needed. Got it last week and I think it’ll be a cool thing to do to mix things up. Price was too good to say no and even though it needs some tlc and a couple of gears, its in overall good condition. I think I’ll start a seperate page for it as I start to go through it.

I recently found a local tool guy who sells and refurbishes Delta woodworking tools. Full tear downs and sells parts too. Anyways, he buys a lot of tools in bulk sales for one price and then breaks them up. Estate sales and auctions that sort of thing, as well as facebook. Included in some of these sales will be non delta tools he just wants to quickly sell and get out of the way. For example, I saw he had a shopsmith over arm router table along with a seperate stand and a bosch table top. I could build me a 2 in 1 for $50 bucks. Couldn’t pass this up.

When I got there I got to see dozens of machines. It was pretty amazing. He showed off a lot of cool stuff. He had a recently finished delta 8 inch jointer and I was like man if I had money I’d buy it. He said well for $200 I’ll sell you this 8 inch powermatic…. it had some light rust but the motor, a 3hp fairly new motor, ran great and the casting all looked great. So, I came home with it too. I plan to fully take apart just because it probably needs it anyway. I had to rearrange the shop a bit to put it in a place I liked but I’m extremely happy.

The next day I sold my 6 inch delta jointer for $100. Its what I had in it, and I now feel like I finally got an 8 inch jointer for a 100 bucks lol.

I spend so much time on making saws thst I hardly ever do anything not saw related. My sister just got married and she likes to cook. She’s been asking for a cutting board for a while and I figured now was a good time. I also made a cookbook stand I saw examples of online. The stand is from an old piece on maple and the board is made up of various hardwoods.

Five months ago I picked up this 1952 14 inch delta bandsaw for $50. It ran but made noise and looked awful. Cleaned up the worst cover and painted the cover shortly after to see if I liked the color and if the rustiest piece was OK. Shoot forward to the last few days and I’ve gotten around to finally painting it. Awhile back I took apart anything that would unbolt, took off an ugly layer of white paint and rust. In a lot of areas I got to see the old gray and decided I picked a good new replacement color. I finished cleaning off all the old layers and started repainting the last couple of days. Looking pretty good.