The tool making phase continues: Cutting/Marking Gauge

One of the habits I've developed over the years is to stay focused on one project at a time. This is the only way that I don't end up with a shop full of half finished projects. With ADD like mine I can easily get distracted by new exciting project ideas. This past year I spent a lot of time making the Media Cabinet. While I was doing that I came across numerous ideas for other small projects that I really wanted to do, but I had to just make a list of them and press on with the Media Cabinet. Since finishing that project I've finally had a chance to knock out some of the smaller projects that I've wanted to tackle. This time around they seem to all be tools of some sort.

Create Your Own Custom Heirloom Screwdrivers

I've been wanting to make my own set of wooden handled screwdrivers for several years but I was never able to find a source for screwdriver shafts. In 2008 while attending the Woodworking In America conference in Berea, KY I had an opportunity to chat with Rob Lee, the owner of Lee Valley, a supplier of premier quality woodworking tools. I told him that I though they should make a turning kit for screwdrivers and that I was sure many more woodworkers would be interested in creating their own screwdrivers. He wrote the idea down in a little notebook and said that he'd pass it by his product guys when he got back. I didn't think too much more about it. Then, this summer a Lee Valley catalog arrived in my mailbox and inside the front cover was a Screwdriver Turning Kit, exactly as I had requested

It’s a Chicken Coop!

Although fine woodworking is my passion, there comes a time when SWMBO doles out the honey do's. This spring my wife decided that she HAD to have chickens at the house. When we began to price chicken coops I almost croaked! $1200 and up! So I said what most handy spouses say "No way! I can build that!" I built a small 2' square pine box to use as a brooder when the new 2-day old chicks arrived. They quickly out grew that and moved on to a cardboard wardrobe box. We saw the end in sight for that too. A real coop was needed and sooner rather than later. I spent a little time researching chicken coops online. I found one I really liked and the fit our needs well and reverse engineered it from photo's.