CRT2023: Kennedy Space Center

When I was a teenager my family went to Orlando for a vacation, and on the day we were all supposed to go to Kennedy Space Center I was sick and had to stay back at the hotel. I've been upset about it even since. :P I love everything to do with space, and it was great to finally be able to get out to KSC after all these years.

CRT2023: Hugh Taylor Birch State Park

One of the state parks we went to in Florida was Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, which had all of these interesting trees. The tree appear to send out 'roots' from their limbs that grow back down to the ground. Really strange, but beautiful!

CRT2023: Florida Birds

During our recent road trip around Florida, we saw lots and lots of birds. Before the trip I bought a cheap pair of binoculars and a field guide of Florida birds, to see if that might be an activity we enjoyed. Turned out we loved it! It was a lot of fun trying to identify all the birds we found - Carter said it felt like trying to catch Pokemon. :) Over the course of the trip we identified over 50 species of birds (and probably saw another dozen or so we didn't identify). Once we got back home we bought a few bird feeders and hung them up around the house, and we've also been going for walks at nearby state parks the last few weekends to look for birds around here too. It's been a lot of fun, and gets me a lot of outdoor time - so I'm definitely not complaining! The bird shown here is an Anhinga - the cool thing about them is that their feathers aren't oily (like a duck), so when they swim to catch fish their feathers get waterlogged, and they have to spread them out in the sun to dry them out again. I love how it looks like he's posing for the photo - he's a handsome devil and he knows it!

Rolling Toolbox From Bowling Alley Lane

I recently got a chance to get ahold of some slabs from old bowling alley lanes. As a first project just to get familiar with the material, I built this rolling toolbox for the workshop. The top is made of a chunk of the lane, and the drawer fronts are made from cutoffs of ambrosia maple from the bedroom set project. The lane material was interesting to work with - it isn't glued to together, only nailed. So it's a bit more 'wobbly' than you might expect. I ran screws up from the bottom in several places to stiffen it. Also, the old lane finish was very thick and tough as nails - I had to sand it off with a 50 grit belt on a belt sander. But once removed it sanded up nice and took some oil-based polyurethane well. At two and a half inches thick it should be able to stand up to some abuse as well!

Bedroom Dresser

This is the last piece of the bedroom set, and man am I happy to be done with that project! Between the bed, nightstands, bookcase, and dresser I think it took almost 5 months start to finish. The dresser is made of solid cherry, and the drawer interiors are made of ambrosia maple - just like the nightstands.

Clock Shelves

I built this set of knockdown shelves for my office at work, to hold all of my clock projects. It's made of Sapele, and built with tusked tenons so that it can be knocked down and moved easily. Now that I'm looking at this photo, I'm also noticing that there are at least three clocks on these shelves that I don't think I ever posted about here. I will try to grab some photos next time I'm in my office so that I can correct that oversight. :)

Bedroom Bookcase

Another piece of the bedroom set I've been working on. I condensed our original three cheapo bookcases down to this one built from solid cherry.

Beds and Nightstands

Last winter my Dad asked me if I would build him a bedroom set to replace his cheap store-bought one. I agreed, but told him that there were two conditions - it would have to wait until the fall, and I was going to build one for myself at the same time. For 20 years now, Lori and I have been using the same store-bought bedroom set we bought shortly after getting married. I've always wanted to build one myself to replace it, and my Dad's request finally lit a fire under me to do it. I built a queen size bed for him, and a king size for Lori and I, along with some nightstands for each. Everything is cherry, and the drawer interiors are ambrosia maple - and everything has received a finish of three coats of tung oil. Now we're just waiting the 3-4 weeks for the tung oil to cure before everybody can start using their new furniture. I've got more cherry coming to build Lori and I a bookcase and dresser to complete the bedroom set - should look great once the whole set is setup!

Workbench Drawer Inserts

I recently tried using the lasercutter to cut some drawer inserts for the toolbox I build to go under my workbench. These help keep everything organized and easy to find, and they were pretty fun to do. Basically I just took a photo of the drawer with everything laid out where I wanted it, then traced around the tools in a drawing program to get the cutouts.