Project Update: Cleaning for a Visit

I'm still recovering a bit from the various illnesses, though I was able to make some progress on getting things organized over the weekend. I had offered a couple of months ago to open up Tortuga Early Instruments Worldwide Headquarters to the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers members on this last weekend and it kind of snuck up on me. Okay, it totally snuck up on me. I worked my rear-end off on Friday and early Saturday to get it into shape, which was good because I did have visits. The one remark I appreciated when I apologized for not having it 100% was, "Hey, it's a shop."

Before

After

I know, it doesn't look that much different before than after, but it is. I cleared out a place to put the new toolbox and started transferring tools and small wood pieces to it, put the jointer up on a mobile base I had purchased for it months ago, and got rid of stuff to Goodwill that I hadn't touched in over a year. It is cleaner. It really, really is. I promise.

As you can see in the photo above, I was able to get the assembly table crossbeams installed on Friday, making the table much more stable. I had intended to route out and install t-tracks into the table to accept the miter guage from the table saw. One of the GOW dudes who showed up simply said, "Why don't you just put the saw on some plywood? The point of the outfeed function is to catch the wood, right? And the chances of you perfectly aligning the tracks are pretty small." Duh. So, I decided to go ahead and order up a mobile base from Grizzly for the table saw; it will elevate the saw sufficiently while making it much easier to move the beast around.

Finally, I still have a couple of projects to complete before getting back to the instrument. The electric cello for my son still awaits, as do a couple of friend projects. Oh, and I have a line on some pipe that will be sufficiently large for the bentside bending tool - more on this later.

Until next time...