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Tellico Turnings Sign

So while in Tennessee with my father, I told him I’d make him some signs for his shop.   This was the first time I had ever attempted to do something like this and it took me the better part of 4 days working a couple hours a night to get one done.

Sign Template

I created a template in photoshop that I thought would look nice based on discussions I had with dad while up there with intent of creating a sign wider than it was tall that would hang over the door of the shop.

The sign would be made up of three 1/4″ thick plywood panels.  Each outer panel would have the lettering cut out via the scroll saw and the inner panel would be stained dark and then sandwiched between the outers in order to give the final appearance.

I made one side “clean” and professional looking (or rather as professional as I could with my meager skills), and one side more of an “art” look to it where I intentionally over sanded some of it just to get a unique look.  The edges are routed and rounded over and the sign as a whole is sanded smooth.

I don’t know if I like the “art” side.. I mean it doesn’t look horrible and it does have that unique scrubbed and hard used look I was going for, but I used too much glue when putting the sign together and it shows..  lesson learned..

The sign is 20″ wide by 12″ tall by 3/4″ thick and all in all not too bad if I do say so myself.

Tellico Turnings Shop

This last week I got to spend some quality time with the folks in Tennessee and more specifically time alone with my father (which I haven’t gotten to do in years) at his new store.  It was pretty great!

Dad has finally opened his shop at the Turkey Creek Market in Tennessee (Booth R&S 20!) and will hopefully be a bazillionare in short order..

He had contacted me a while back about doing this and I was fairly excited about it with him but I had a different vision of what I thought the store should look like.   I had a some what more sterile and professional business notion in mind and I’m really glad that they didn’t go that route.

Instead the store is a warm and inviting one that presents the goods in an orderly but not overly professional manner that is probably far more appealing to people than anything I could have come up with.. (Leave the designing to the designers I guess.. Its good to know what I’m not good at..heh)

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I have always been a very artsy-craftsy¹ person as I thoroughly enjoy making things.  I like working with my hands and creating something from nothing.   I’ve made leather and steel armor for the SCA, bows and crossbows and a mandolin that actually doesn’t sound half bad.  I’ve done some wood turning and created all manner of pens, peppermills and even a rolling pin and I have even tried my hand at making furniture — I’m not bad at it!   For whatever reason I seem to have a knack for crafting.

So in my time, I have worked with wood, steel, leather, plastic and various resins and agates..  The thing I have noticed is that no matter what I craft, I always seem to come back to wood.    There’s something about wood that I am not sure I can put to words;  It’s just easy to work with in that it’s forgiving, versatile and beautiful.

The problem is no matter what I have made with wood (and there has been a lot) not any particular piece or style has ever really “grabbed me” as something I really enjoyed and wanted to do a lot of.

My father is an avid wood turner who cranks out pens, bowls and other awesome stuff that he sells at his own little shop and I have to admit, that’s really inspiring..  He’s making a living by turning a hunk of nothing, into something beautiful that other folks want!  That’s cool as hell.

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I realize that it’s been a while since I posted to my blog and it’s something that I want to be better about in new year but it’s very difficult for me to get excited about anything that’s going on right now.   I find that I’m doing a lot of work for my company and while I enjoy that it tends to keep me from doing many of my hobbies like blogging.  2011 has been a blizzard of activity and I’m sure it will only continue into the new year.

On that note; Happy New Year everyone..

I’m still very keen on creating my own custom blogging software as I posted previously and it’s something that I definitely am going to get around to but its slow going.  I’ve been working on it about an hour each night if the time is available.

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I’m pretty strong supporter of Adobe products or at least I think I must be because I have purchased Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects as well as upgrading each many times.  I’m on my 4th or 5th iteration of photoshop at this point and after some quick and dirty math  I think Adobe has gotten well over $5000 of my hard earned money over the years.  These are all for my own personal use and because as a software engineer I think software piracy is just wrong.  Even so that still hurts a tad.

Recently Adobe announced that they would be offering their software at rental subscription prices and I was excited!   What a great idea!!  But did they do it right?  I don’t think so.. but they are so close!

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Ibanez Mandolin

I have always enjoyed wood working and have done a bit of wood turning in my time.   And as I have mentioned before (more than once), I have always wanted to play an instrument of some kind..   Recently it occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn’t combine these two activities..

To that end, I decided to try my hand at becoming a hobby luthier (a maker of stringed instruments) and make myself something to play..    I went back and forth considering all the options and decided that for my first instrument I’d like to make a Mandolin.  ( Dulcimer was a close second and I’ll likely make one of those in the future, as well as making a Viola if I can manage to do this with any proficiency.  )

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