The Beginning of My Woodcraft

 

Awhile back, in cleaning out our storage room to make room for the radon guy, I came across this project and set it aside. It is, if memory serves me correct, my very first woodworking project I ever did. It was probably in my junior high shop class which had a section on woodworking. If I recall, we could only use hand tools for that class, no power tools. For years, it floated around the farm house and was used for it's intended purpose as a small shelf to hold books. For the last half dozen years or so though, it has resided on a shelf in our storage room collecting dust. Since it is my first project however, I have no desire to purge it and will probably just let it collect more dust. Perhaps one of my kids will desire to use it someday.

Inspired, I looked around the house at other projects I built early on during my "woodworking career" if you can call it that. The above pump handle lamp was I think the second project I ever built, probably as a freshman in high school. By then, we were allowed to use basic power tools on our project. At one point, there was a miniature bucket that I made using the drill press as a lathe, to sit under the spout but it has been lost over time. This lamp sat in between my parents recliners at the old farmhouse and after mom died, ended back with me where it sits besides one of our recliners. 

I framed the photo of the lamp to include two more of my more "recent" projects in the background. In the top left corner is a treasure chest of sorts I made my eldest daughter at one point in her childhood to hold all her cherished possessions. At some point though she decided she no longer wanted it and so it sits in our living room now. I'm not even sure I have the key to open it anymore. In the top right corner is an small apothecary cabinet that I probably build a dozen years ago at this point. It holds a variety of rosary beads and other similar sized items that one might want.

Finally, here is the last furniture project I attempted in my high school days during shop class. It is a barrister's bookcase whose plans I found in some magazine and pitched it to my instructor who had to give us permission before we started. He said it was an ambitious project to get done in the time allotted but game me permission. I got the carcass of the cabinet made and perhaps even the doors assembled but then ran out of time. I got a good grade on my work but the unfinished cabinet came home with me and sat in our basement for a number of years until my younger brother reached the same class and he finished the project. It sat in a hallway in the old farmhouse for many years holding mostly books that my parents wanted to hang onto. After mom died, it came home with me and after a little repair work (one of the joints had gotten a bit loose), it now graces one side of our living room and holds a selection of genealogy related items that I have inherited from various branches of my family tree. 

On top of it sits a box that is probably the latest work to be featured in this post built out of quarter sawn sycamore. I had been down to the Amish sawmill to buy wood for another project and saw some wood I had never seen before full of rays and flecks in the grain pattern. After being told it was quarter sawn sycamore, I bought a board to bring home with me and made that box and trimmed it with some kamagong wood I brought home from one of my trips to the Philippines. I had no real need for the box and thus it is just a display piece on top of the bookcase. The vase is a wood fired vase we bought from an old potter in Canada years ago. There was just a dilapidated small sign at the end of a driveway that disappeared into the trees saying "Pottery Here". It grabbed our attention and the potter was happy to show us his works and process. We couldn't leave without buying one of his pots as a way of saying thanks. 

I did one last project in wood in my high school days but it wasn't furniture. For my senior shop project, I built a building on skids for the farm to be used as an overflow building for farrowing sows. It was my first building I ever built and after it was hauled home, it was used for many years until we divested out of the hog business. I don't recall what happened to the building other than I think it was sold to someone who hauled it away. It was built on skids after all so eas(ier) to move than most buildings.