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Recently my local PBS station started carrying the show The Woodsmith Shop which is hosted by the editors of Woodsmith Magazine. This is a great show for beginning and advanced woodworkers alike. For me, a beginner, the show is great because it is mostly about techniques and not about building a specific project. As much as I love the New Yankee Workshop Norm is a master and makes it look easy as I can attest to by purchasing some of his plans and trying to tackle them.

Anyway, they do actually build stuff on the show and so far it have mostly been things used around the shop like a workbench and a rolling shop cart. I have now built both of these and I wanted to show off some pictures of my handy work.

Below are several pictures of my rolling shop cart. It is made out of birch plywood, glue and cabinet screws and rides on some locking and swiveling casters. These pictures do not include the drawer box that goes in the bottom as I don’t have the hardboard bottom yet.

Shop Cart 1

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Shop Cart

I am working on building an outfeed table for my table saw. This provides support for long peices of stock that I am ripping and crosscutting on my saw so they don’t drop on the floor and create an unsafe working environment. This outfeed table will extend back an additional 3 feet from the saw making for a nice long area for the stock to rest. Longer stock will extend out past this but my workbench and some shop roller stands should keep it in control. I will take photos of the step by step process I followed to construct this and show you the fininshed product when comeplete.

Nik and I have been digging in the dirt in our never ending quest to do away with grass and replace it with something that we can eat or is pretty to look at. Last month we planted radishes, mustard greens, red leaf lettuce and kale. The mustard greens and the lettuce are doing fine although we needed to plant more lettuce. The kale seems to be a delicious snack for something. The one saving grace is the radishes, they produced tons. Last week we planted a second round of radishes, carrots, brocolli, green onions, more kale, spinach and cucumbers. We have hot and bell peppers seedlings in the sun room and starter tomatoes as well that are going in next week. I’ll try and post some pics.

I have been really thinking a lot about woodworking again and with the Spring in full effect and the arrival of a Woodcraft store in Chattanooga I am pumped to really start building some things. I started a month ago building a workbench which I will upload a gallery of the project as it progressed up until the finished product.

My next project is a row of cabinets and drawers to store all of my woodworking equipment. I have been designing the project in Google Sketchup a very easy to use free 3D modeling program developed by Google. If you are interested in 3D modeling this product is excellent. When the design is complete and I will capture a photo of it and publish it here.

Back to making some sawdust.

Gilligan and I met at 9:30 this freezing AM for 2 hours of riding at racoon mountain. The trails were a bit obscured with the freshly fallen leaves but overall it was very enjoyable. Well almost everything was. My feet got pretty cold even though the rest of me stayed nice and toasty.

After a long hiatus I have decided to start making homebrew again. My first 2 batches are kitsI got from Homebrew Heaven, a Red Ale and a Belgian White Ale. Both of these kits are very well put together with superb instructions that even a beginner could follow. Since I am not a beginner but I did need to refresh my skills and memory I followed them to the letter.

I will publish more video and pictures as the process continues.

Here is some video of fermentation 12 hours after adding  the yeast.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer added some new legislation to the $700 billion bailout that helps employers encourage bicycle commuting. The Bicycle Commuter Act of 2009 allows employers who sign up for the program to allow a fringe benefit of $20 per month for employees towards the purchase of a bicycle, bicycle parts or repairs.

Tonight at JJ’s we booked a Nashville band the Nobility to open a show for a band performing at JJ’s for the first time Eddies in the Wind. Unfortunately this was the wrong order in my opinion. The Nobilty are that kind of dancy power pop that the Nashville area seems to be producing lots of these days and they do not take a backseat to any of them. They might not have drawn in the crowds that How I Became the Bomb do but give it time, it was the first time they played here.

I found them on the Internet and tried to purchase a bike rack for my Forester. I thought everything was going ok until a week later when I had heard nothing from them regarding my order since I got the order confirmation email. On the site it “claims” they do not charge your card until the order ships. This was a complete lie.

After several emails to them and no response, I started filling out the web contact form. It was not until the 2nd attempt filling out this form some 3 weeks after the order was placed that I finally had somebody call me about my order. Finally, it was all going to be concluded.

Not so fast! When I got the person on the phone they informed me there was a mixup and the order would be an extra $68 but if you go to their web site as of this moment it is still the same price. The reason I went with these jokers is so that I could save a few dollars but it looks like I should have just stuck with the original online seller I was looking at Patrick Accessories. They were really nice on the phone when I spoke to them when I started this whole process and I just called them to place my latest order.

I guess trying to save a few dollars does not always work out but thanks Patrick Accessories for being a quality vendor.

September is lining up to be an awesome month down at my favorite club JJ’s Bohemia but last night did not fail to satisfy either. There were 3 acts lined up for the show last night, Chooglin’ from Minneapolis, New Familiars from Charlotte, NC and local favorites Christabel and the Jons from right up the road Knoxville, TN.

The starting act was supposed to be Chooglin’ but they had some troubles with the tour vehicle and cancelled. We will get back to them in a minute. So first up was the New Familiars. I did not get to see very much of them because I was trying to get caught up with all the other drunks and hanging outside with some friends. From what I hear on their MySpace page I should have paid more attention. They play a bluesy style of americana that plays to my southern roots. Having grown up in the foothills of North Carolina with a mom who loves the old country sound I can really behind the sounds these friendly guys produce. If you are somehow reading this I apologize for missing most of your set.

What can I say about Christabel and the Jons. They are so good at what they do and put on a great show. If you missed them you have another change on September 11th at the Breastal Festival. They will be starting early so get there early.

While Christabel was playing Chooglin’ showed up ready to play. It was late, they were having a shitty day so what better way to end it than rocking the socks off of the few remaining denizens and barflys left around awaiting last call and this is exactly what they did. I sure hope they come back because they really kicked ass. I am a sucker for horns in a rock band and the 3 members making up the horns of eleganza did not disappoint. They only had an hour to get the job done going on at 2:00 AM and I tip my glass to them, mission accomplished. Check them out below.