Weekend in the shop

November 14, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I got some serious crap done in the garage and at home this weekend:

Cleaned, swept, and put away tools for over an hour Saturday morning
Added wheels to my screw-clamp stand
Built a hammer stand – I have a lot of hammers
Organized 4 drawers on my tool cabinet
Organized a drawer for just camera mounts and cables
Hung 22 small blue U-Line organization bins
Cleaned off table saw
Installed new table saw blade
Re-tensioned bandsaw
Cleaned off bench for 1st time in MONTHS!
Put all the miscellaneous screws, bolts, and hardware in the proper organization bin
Sanded the carcass for a bathroom cabinet installation
Moved some angle-iron into the metal storage rack
Carried 2 of the 3 cabinet sections in the house
Cranked on the lathe to reduce the diameter of a dowel
Blew 30 amp breaker
Said the f-word at least 3 times
Took a look and original electrician did not fully terminate one of the “hot” wire legs, which led to the failure.
Said dirty words
Drove to Home Depot and back for breaker
Swapped out a blown breaker
Ran 75 linier feet of 12-2 Romex wiring
Installed 12 electrical boxes
Only dropped 1 on my head/face
Installed a couple of runs of CAT-6 ethernet cable for the PoE camera system
Jesus, CAT-6 is expensive!!
Moved some firewood into the house
Built and installed butcher paper roll noteboard on a cabinet front
Re-set wall clock
Worked on chipping hammer re-build
Shot a couple of videos
Sanded a couple spots on the jeep under windshield
Wished I had a bathroom in the garage at 3 different points during the weekend
Started on pizza peel build for Father-in-law

Very Productive Weekend – except in the yard.

August 3, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I did not mow the yard this weekend. It just didn’t happen. I meant to and I wanted to… I even took the mower and cord out, but it just didn’t happen. Instead I did this:

1. Redesigned the top of the workbench that I am building.
2. Threatened for 148th time to quit Facebook.
3. Didn’t quite
4. Updated status
5. Cleaned and organized GROP a little while grumbling about my lack of willpower
6. Worked on a J-O-B related spreadsheet
7. Finished bookends for wife – made from Victorian andirons.
8. Cut the base (legs and stretchers) for my workbench.
9. Turned two sets of TINY rosettes for our neighbor to replace a couple that are missing from a piece of furniture – help the neighbors when you can.
10. Put together a set of I-beams to reinforce a table top that is warping – they do that after 250-300 years…
11. Gave my wife a foot rub.
12. Glued up some maple blanks to turn later on
13. Played with the puppies – there are two now.
14. Got sucked into Pinterest
15. Watched a little TV/YouTube
16. Took puppies for a walk around neighborhood
17. Turned a small jar lid for wife out of some scrap cherry
18. Drank some Spanish rosé with wife and had a nice home cooked Thai meal
19. Fixed front door lock at 1:00am
20. Had weird dreams Saturday night
21. Slept in – new puppy had first good night’s sleep 🙂
22. Puppy sat while wife got her hair cut.
23. Told wife her hair was very pretty
24. We took puppies into Toulouse to meet some friends for coffee
25. Walked in park with wife and puppies.
26. Cut and chiseled joints in to ½ of the workbench legs
27. Sucked into Pinterest vortex again
28. Sent some J-O-B e-mail
29. Talked to my mom
30. Text messaged with my daughter
31. Tried to call my son – he was out with friends. Teenagers… 🙂
32. Played with puppies
33. Sent some more work-related e-mail
34. Told wife hair was pretty again
35. Made a tiny adjustment to kitchen island at wife’s request
36. Wrote a snail-mail letter to my aunt and son
37. Filled out a couple of post cards
38. Updated website a little
39. Looked at work calendar for tomorrow – very full.
40. Said dirty words…
41. Went downstairs to snuggle wife, puppies and to stay up too late on Pinterest or stupid Facebook.

Historic French Work Benches

July 16, 2014 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

In the 7 months I have lived in France, I have seen some amazing examples of traditional French carpenters’ work benches. They are full of tool marks, tool trays, attachments, vices, dog-holes, studded plane stops, nicks gouges patches, etc… Some are almost pristine, some covered in 100+ years of marqueterie glue, and some rotted – full of worm holes. One some you will see the standard “French” leg vice and others have a parallel top vise – also don’t know what to call it – is a southern French/Basque sort of thing. I asked a local “old guy” here and he said was a “thing” here. That is the direct translation 🙂

Almost all the benches I see here are slab benches and a number are slab benched with a thick dadoed plank bolted to the front edge to provide square dog holes.

As a man who appreciates such things, as a joiner in the process of building my own bench, and as a tourist in a foreign land I have been busy with my camera. 🙂 Below is a data-dump of some of the better benches and details that I have seen so far. I will update as I see more in the “wild.”

Side note: I bought a couple and am having the gassed (wood worms are serious here!) and will be bringing them back to the US when we rotate back in a couple of years – one for the house and one for the shop (tall oak slab for dovetail cutting) and IF there is any room in the container I may bring back a couple more – just because my wife hasn’t said no :-).

A Fine French Work Bench

April 16, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

My GROP (garage and shop combo) in Seattle was too small for a proper joiner’s bench. I made due with a slim, high, wall-mounted work counter, a bolted on machinist-vise, Quick Clamps, and the top of my table saw. It worked – mostly – but was a pain in the ass a good bit of the time: I never once planed a board on a stable, solid surface. My GROP here in France is roughly the same size as the one in Seattle, but is absent the huge cast iron machines and saws. I have some room to move and finally have the space for a big, heavy, proper work bench. This shit is about to get real…

As I live in France, I am building a 2m long, 85cm wide split top Roubo-style bohemyth, that will have a 12cm, 4-part slab top (6.5′ X 33.46″ X 4.72″) and it will be 36″ high as that is MY optimal bench height. Wooden leg vise, dog holes, a cast iron tail vise – all the bells and whistles! I am planning for it to take a mule to move this thing as I will do some serious planing on this baby. It is an amalgamation of benches by M. Roubo, Roy Underhill, Chris Schwartz, and Bill Schenher. I am calling it the “Cornebarrieu Bench” after the small village in southern France where we live, where the lumber has been sourced, and where the bench will be made and first used.

I picked up some of the lumber at a yard near the house (still need the top – thinking of Beech!), strapped it to the top of my tiny car and carried it home, giggling manically. The wood is now in the GROP drying out a little and waiting for me to attack the timber and fashion it into one fine, sweet hunk of usefulness. It makes my black heart more than a little happy to think about the look on movers’ faces when they see this thing when they come to pack us out for our eventual move back to Seattle. Mwahahaha…

Off to the Antique Market we go!!

March 13, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A couple of months ago while talking to my son on the phone, I mentioned that Stamps-With-Foot and I had been at the monthly Antique Market here in Toulouse. My boy, The Ruminator, started roaring with laughter and said something about how “…going antiquing was for old ladies!..” I let him laugh a while and then explained how awesome it was to find bobbles and treasures and cool stuff at the different stalls. He wasn’t having it and continued with the giggles. Fast forward to this past weekend (1st full weekend in March). My lovely wife and I planned the day out around going to peruse the market: Coffee and lunch and wine and crapes while touring strolling the lanes and bargaining for small bits, talking to the locals, and looking a treasures that we won’t ever be able to afford – the 7’X12′ landscape paining from 1930 or the french-polished table form the reign of Napoleon.

There was a little of everything to be found: a jar of brains, a VERY cool turtle, black powder shotguns, Persian rugs, linens, paintings, desks, tables, tapestries, rusted iron tools, old dolls, military medals, an anvil, low chairs, cutting blocks, glass ware, sculptures, books, etc… We ended up with an 18th century book stand from an Abby, a haberdasher’s display rack (our new entryway coat rack), a SWEET industrial Cast-Iron-legged table that has a 28″X72″ oak slab top that is over 100 years old! I also happened upon a rusty axe head in a stall full of miscellaneous crap that resembles a large 17th Century broad axe in the Armor and Weapons section of the Louvre. Not saying that this one is the same thing, but it looks REAL close. I immediately sent my son the following text:

“…Made fun of me for going to the Antiques markets… This weekend I got what looks like a 300 year old Battle Axe made for storming castles. It was $40. Too bad antiques are for old ladies and you won’t be going to any any markets while you are here. Are you laughing at me now? Mwahahaha!!…”

As a note, The Ruminator is enamored with Vikings, swords, castles, armor, and all things Medieval. I did my black heart some needed good to wave his antique-arrogance under his nose a little. It make the evil-inside almost giddy thinking about the “AWE MAN!” face he made when he read my note.

Below are some shots of both the market and our haul.