The Rocking Horse

In September of 2007 I stared a 30 hour project to make a Shaker style rocking horse. The Lumber is 2" pine and the plans came from Lee Valley. I made a few minor modifications and added a few personal touches to make the project more meaning full.


This project is heavy on the Band saw and various different sanders.
The cushion is made of Pl-ether and cotton foam.
Additionally, you can use Nylon rope and a staple gun to make the hair of the horse.
This horse was a gift for my nephew.

Back Yard Transformation

In the Summer of 2007, I woke up one morning looked at my back yard and knew I needed to do something. The grass was dead and hard, the garden bed was made of clay. The junipers in the back have been poisoning the grass too.

I started by ripping out the old bed which was made up of 1 x 4's held together by wedges.

Two trenches were dug to cut the roots of the junipers then a new garden bed line was made using 4" x 4" landscape ties two rows high.


Next I bought a truck load of top soil.

After a weekend of shoveling and raking and help from a good friend...

That fall I re-seeded the lawn and moved, so I don't have a finished photo but trust me it looks good.

Floors

In 2007 I tried my hand at home remodeling on the weekend. This is my sisters place, minimal amount of work was done, I used a table saw for all cuts although looking back a chop saw and band saw combo would be a better option.

Baseboards are the originals, they were removed painted and then replaced after comepleation. Some people do not remove the baseboards and instead add a 1/2" trim at the base to hide the gaps left behind. In my opinion, that option looks cheep and your better off to update the base boards or at least save the old ones.

Panorama Ridge Setup

In 2006 I started teaching in Surrey at Panorama Ridge Secondary. The school was brand new and so there was a lot of setup and building required. Adding this to the fact that it was my second year of teaching, it probably was a little to early for me to be setting up a new school. Although, looking back, it was a good experience and if the opportunity comes again, I have some great ideas on how to setup a great school shop.

I will touch more on shop setup later in the 2008-2011

Scroll Saw Art

The images above are images of Jig Saw or Scroll Saw art. This is a simple project that can be done with a complex or simple image.
This image is from the play "Beauty and the Beast"
This project is made of 1/4" Birch Plywood with a 3/4" Black Walnut frame.

First Post

The purpose of this blog is to document the various aspects of my professional and personal life as it relates to technology.

The Blog will be chronologically ordered starting with the year 2006. Over the 5 year period from 2006-2011 you will see 4 major shifts.

1. Wood Work - Various fine wood projects as well as outdoor carpentry and joinery.

2. Metal Work - Various projects for metal work with the foundation of "advanced fabrication" and "tool building" that will allow for further tool construction. In essence, tools that allow the construction of other tools.

3. The creation of my Art Metal program, this shift revolves around various art metal processes and projects which include stained glass, bead making, enameling, as well as creative metal art.

4. The last shift centers around the construction of educational facilities, tool boards, lockers, welding booths, tables, stools.

From 2011 onward, the blog will shift again this time to focus more on Electronics CAD / CAM application technology and open source technology as well as web technology and micro processor programming.

Stay tuned for more updates!!!!