Ok, oops – a looooong gap between posts in this section and I apologize to those that like reading these.
I was actually surprised that the last entry was in 2013, with nothing for this year so far. What can I say? Time, or a shortage of it keeps me from writing. With the onset of warmer weather during the late winter / early spring, I really increased the amount of work I’m doing on my house reno, and I have that to blame for consuming much of the time that I don’t spend on doing projects, articles and videos.

So, as promised last year this time, this will be a recap of the preceding year
and a rundown on where I see the website in the next twelve months. Having re-read that post, I can see my predictions for this past year were a little vague. Indeed, I think it’s best to not set a fixed path, but go where it takes us. Certainly more interesting, for me, at least.

The idea to move to a monthly format didn’t work out as I though, mainly because I didn’t give it a serious try. Honestly, I think it is a great approach for print media, such as magazines, but not well suited to websites. When I think about what I like in the websites I regularly visit, frequent updates are top of the list. To that end I have been doing a lot of the smaller shop tips and tricks projects over the last year, and sometimes releasing as many as three in the span of a week. Mixed in with those have been some larger, multi page projects that are a lot more detailed, and more or less the kind of project I wanted to do from the start.

As I had just finished renovating my new garage into the workshop I’m now using, I started off with a project on fixing up an old door and installing a new window.

The first real ‘project’ in the new shop was making a rack o’ ribs cutting board using an old fir floor joist from my house and some maple for the contrasting wood. I also made a video showing how I made it.

In September I ordered a new, narrow blade for my band saw and needed new blade guides. After some research, I decided to make a pair from hardened steel. I’m pleased to report that these have work flawlessly over the past several months.
Later in September, I made some stackable storage boxes that have proven to be invaluable over the last nine months. I made two videos of the build, with the second focusing on using an interesting dovetail spline to reinforce the corners.

In October I made the jig I initially talked about in this blog entry to make a nut for a threaded dowel.

With my old table saw dismantled, I needed something to replace the sliding table for making wide crosscuts, and figured it was a good time to build a table saw sled. Two videos covering all of the details were made as well.

The most popular project of the year was my wooden vise, with a very popular video of the build. I’ve had several request for plans and will try to get those done in the new future.

In December, another popular project was my drill press cabinet. It is a detailed four page build article that I later produced plans for. December was a busy month with three other projects: Stackable storage boxes from plywood, rebuilding my dust collector and an interesting heated cabinet to store items that may freeze in an unheated shop.

January was packed full of projects, including a new planer stand with chip collection. Jay Bates sent me photos and a write up on his workshop, and I reciprocated by sending mine to him to post on his site. Also in January, I started making entries to my new house renovation section. There is a series of videos on my other YouTube channel that more closely follows the progress as it happens.

In February there were several projects, including the first guest project: making a crib, by my brother Don. Prior to this, Don had signed on to write a weekly feature that puts an amusing spin on working with wood. Offcuts has been a popular addition and I look forward to each new entry.

March was another busy month with several projects, including the second guest project: repairing a guitar neck from Steve Carmichael. Steve has a large following on YouTube for good reason – he’s always doing interesting projects. Two of the more popular projects during March were cutting dovetails with a hacksaw and making a kant twist clamp. Both have videos that show the build in detail.

In April, April Wilkerson contributed a guest project: making a waterfall. Really nicely done and something that I have been thinking of doing as well. Also in April, I did two router related projects: mounting a router with lift in the table saw extension wing and building a router bit cabinet.

In May, I did a few smaller projects, such as improving the grip on cheap bar clamps and making a tripod extension arm.
Bringing us up to the present, in June I made the long awaited belt / disk sander with plans available to build your own.
Back in January I started doing a weekly video labeled “In The Shop” with the intent that these would be informal videos covering some of the details on projects already presented, and answer some of the questions that I get. The idea was to make these quickly and post them the night before my regular project video on Saturday morning. At this point, these have become a bit to difficult to find time to do, so I’ve decided to discontinue these videos, at least until the fall. I’ve created a playlist to make it convenient to watch what I consider the ‘first season’ of these videos

I haven’t included every project in this list, just the highlights. A great way to go through the projects chronologically is to look through the rss feed, as it lists all of the projects in order.

With another year under our belt, I’ll talk briefly about where I would like to take the site over the next year. I have been strongly considering adding a forum section to the site and will likely start work on that in the fall. It will be free to join and cover all topics, but focus more on workshop related themes. This will be a lot of work (and some expense) on my end, so please be patient if I fall behind in getting this set up.
Also, I would like to see some more guest projects. These bring a new perspective to the site and give it some variety. In fact, I would like to take the focus away from the current Reader Projects section to
more full build article types, like those listed above. That’s not to say that the Reader Projects section will be discontinued or eliminated, it won’t, and I’ll continue to add these as I get them.
As for the general format and schedule, I think I have settled into what I think is the best overall for me, and will stay the current course of occasional larger, more detailed projects mixed with smaller, tip type projects. I can say that over the next year, the Woodworking section will grow, as I have a lot of these types of projects planned.

In closing I’d like to thank all those who have visited the site since it’s inception and continue to do so. I’m looking forward to another great year and I hope you stick around for the ride!