BigFryMan

Had a an offcut from my benchtop kicking around so I'm turning it into a short-ish table to put my tormek on nice and accessible so I don't have to pull it off the shelf to use it. Used some old salvaged hardwood for the legs and I couldn't believe how hard it was. Really worked out my circular saw cutting through it. Will throw in a draw for all the Tormek bits underneath the worktop.

Hahahaha - never a truer word spoken! Thanks.

I made a careless mistake cutting bamboo in the garden this morning and sliced my finger open with a saw while cutting over my knee. Got it checked at the hospital and thankfully wasn't quite deep enough to hit tendon or nerve and just above the joint so thankfully no long term issues. Always gotta be careful, especially on little annoying jobs that you're not paying attention to. I have enough injuries that affect my life already. Very stupid of me. If it was a power saw or sharp knife I would have been paying attention.

Dave the dirt detail on this is beautiful!

Got a few saws and squares up before work - starting to take shape!

Still plenty more setup and building to do before I touch a violin. I am naturally a messy and disorganized person, but i'm discovering that I do my best creative work when all the organization and admin is taken care of and everything I need is just to hand. Including having all my tools sharp and ready to go. I am trying to take care of all this stuff really well now while my head is busy at work so that when I have some proper time to concentrate of violin making, I can give it the focus it deserves. Will have to call it at some point though, I could keep doing this for a year if I had the time haha.

Happy New Year! Got back from a big family holiday on Monday night so no workshop fun for me over the break. Managed to find a few hours last night to finish cutting out and installing another rack from my knives and a few other miscellaneous tools I'd like to hand. My bench is slowly getting cleaner and cleaner.

Was raw linseed oil, not boiled (no driers).

Looking fantastic Don! Two very contrasting outlines. Love the corners and waist on #27- very eye-catching and both varnishes look great.

Got distracted with building a christmas present for some family friends this week. It's a little table for cheese and wine on a picnic. I wanted to make it food safe to cut cheese on so I melted some beeswax and mixed in some linseed and MCT oil (type of coconut oil) and it seemed to come up nicely.

Well I'll let you know when it pays

Renee, I would like to experiment with exactly the same thing. When I was a young kid learning the violin I got some repairs done by a really eccentric maker in Evandale, Tasmania. I remember walking into his workshop in his old victorian house and wondering how he got away with having a foot of wood shavings on the floor in the house! I wish I could remember his name as I'd like to do a little more research. He was making high end violins ($8k and up at the time) out of tasmanian blackwood and king billy pine. I didn't realize at the time how much I was intrigued by his workshop and I distinctively remember at the time how I thought it must be the most boring job because you don't get to use power tools haha!

Slow progress as still plenty of other work to do and Christmas coming up. Got a few more bits and pieces organized on the wall and started reinforcing the legs on the bench a little bit. I like quite a few holes up one end of my bench for bench dogs. Anyone have any good ideas for drilling clean and vertical 19mm - 3/4 inch holes? On my last plywood bench I got a little bit of tear out using a spade bit. Any better ways to do it? Was half thinking of trying a hole saw, but not sure if it'll be any cleaner. I think I'm going to put all my carving knives, pens, markers, calipers on a smallish shelf under that left window.

New workbench top is now in place. Still need to add some bracing for the legs and a support for the cupboard/draws I'll have underneath and then capping around the outside. Once that is done I can lay all my frequently used tools out and work out what I want on the wall close to hand and what will live in drawers/cupboards. Starting to feel like this is actually coming together now.

To be fair to Australian construction - this is not a typical example. I have come to the realization this whole structure use to be a truss roof carport on 9 uprights and then some DIY-er decided to put stud walls in between the roof supports. Absolutely terrible work. I don't think there are that many houses here using vinyl siding. I agree with you that it has zero structural strength. I find it very disconcerting. Our house is also clad in this stuff and also is missing the plywood. You can bend the walls with your fist. In QLD people seem to be particularly lazy when it comes to wall insulation which I find really frustrating. Many places don't have any wall insulation whatsoever which makes for expensive cooling. My wife and I lived in Whistler BC for 2 years and we got to watch a friend build a house that was only a couple of efficiency points off being a passiv haus. Some serious wall systems in that. We stayed with them for a few weeks and it's such a comfortable house to live in even in winter. No annoying drafts or hot or cold spots - very stable.