Fred's World

The sideboard

2007-04-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Jim had asked me quite a while ago, to build him a sideboard for him. He had seen the project in one of my woodworking magazines....oh, about a year or so ago. I told him I would build it for him when he was done, or almost done, moving around from apartment to apartment. Well, he is getting ready to get married and plans for the not to distant future include purchasing a home or having one built. So, with that in mind, I set about building the dining room piece for him and his fiance Mari.

The picture here is from the article detailing the plans for building the project.

I guess it took me about a month to complete the piece of furniture and it entailed a few techniques in woodworking that I had never tried before, so it was a good experience. It was a fun piece of furniture to build. And to tell you the truth, there is a bit of a story behind the wood used in building this piece. Since getting into woodworking seriously, I have pretty much dealt with one gentleman for getting my rough sawn lumber. Simmie Agin of nearby Lambertville was meticulous in his lumber. He oversaw its cutting from raw logs and then took over in the management of them while they cured. He was an artist in how he took care of the lumber. Stacked, stickers and dried straight as an arrow. I learned to appreciate that! Well, the red oak lumber that I used in this project is some of the last that I will ever acquire from Simmie. You see, Simmie died recently. It was a blow to me. I really liked him and looked forward to my visits with him at his barn where he kept the great collection of various species of lumber. I will certainly miss him. I have some more lumber from Sim, but I am still thinking of the right project to use to make the best use of what is left of my time with Simmie.

While I'm thinking, here is a picture of the sideboard, as I built it. I took this picture when Karen and I delivered it to Jim and Maris apartment.

Jim and Mari's Pirates Treasure Chest

2006-11-11T12:06:00.000-08:00

Wrapped up this little project today and am pretty happy with it. Our son and his fiancé asked me to build them a pirate’s treasure chest for their wedding (next Summer) reception for the guest to deposit their gift/money cards into as they enter the reception hall. They had no real specifications other than wanting it to be 19” wide by 13” deep and 15” tall. “Whatever you make will be fine with us.” I was told, so the imagination was cranked up.

I used #1 grade cedar with my original thinking of finishing it with a clear finish. Some testing of some of the cutoff scrap found that I didn’t like the look and besides, in the meantime, they told me they wanted it to have a dark finish. I opted for a multiple board look instead of solid sides and connected the pieces with glue and #10 biscuits. The lid is based on a framework subassembly and once I had that, it was easy to figure out how wide to make the nine slats so that they sat relatively flat on the curved framework. Two interior cross members were added inside the lid to help with lateral strength of the lid slats. All slats are glued and braded to the framework with the exception of the slotted one at top dead center which will be replaced with a solid piece once the wedding is over for future use by the married couple.

Used English chestnut stain and shot it with four or five coats of satin lacquer due to their not wanting it to be to “shiny”. They wanted it looking like it was an old piece. The simulated steel strapping on the exterior of the box is pine strips planed down to 1/8”, primed and painted gold to match the hardware and braded to the sides of the box with some brass plated round head pins that kind of simulate carriage bolt heads which could have been used on an actual treasure chest. On the lid, the strapping is screwed into place on alternate slats for further strength with the curvature of the lid in mind. There are pre-drilled holes on alternate slats for the same pins as on the side, but need to be inserted after the top slotted slat is replaced.

Three Stanley utility hinges swing the lid and a brass hasp assembly locks the front of the chest. Interesting that the screw leaf of the hasp, which is usually hidden behind its adjacent slotted leaf, was milled to be exposed on the front of the box, defeating its “locking” ability. I circumvented this problem by attaching the screw leaf on the inside lip of the tops front edge. Rope handles and an interior chain to keep the lid from hinging all the way back complete the project.

My carpal tunnel problem

2006-08-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

So, I finally had it done. I'm relieved to say the least!

I have been living with carpal tunnel problems for I guess about ten years. I have put up with it, always telling myself that I will get around to taking care of it sooner or later. Always putting it off. Last years salmon fishing trip, detailed elsewhere in my blog, I told myself that it was the last fishing trip to Oswego,NY that I was going to have to put up with it. You see, after about two hours of holding my fishing rod, my hand would go numb and I would have to hold the rod with the other hand while I shook my right hand and put it in the cold water to try to get feeling back into it. From then on, I would probably have to do this about every fifteen or twenty minutes.

Well, November is coming up again, and I hadn't done anything about it. My problem was getting progressively worse and about a month or so ago, I was pressure washing the sidewalks around the house and my hands got numb again. That was the last straw. Karen called my insurance company and asked about the coverage for the surgery and was told that it was covered 100%. My insurance would pay me a certain amount each week while I was off and temporary disability also paid so much and it almost added up to what I was making per week anyway. It was a no brainer. Besides, if I was going to miss a couple of weeks worth of work, I was going to miss the hot weather. Makes sense doesn't it?

Typing this, basically with the left hand, I am one day past the surgery and it was surprisingly simple. I wasn't nervous, maybe anxious is a better word. I was truly happy that I was finally going to have this done and over with. It was an outpatient kind of deal - I went into the Hunterdon Medical Center at 9:30AM and came out around 1:30 or 2PM. The actual surgery was supposed to take about 15 minutes, but the surgeon told Karen after my surgery that it took about an hour because, in his words, it was "thicker" in there than he anticipated. That is why in my first visit to him, his procedural tests to identify the problem really didn't show a carpal tunnel problem.

It is quite eye opening to find out just how much you depend on your dominant hand for living your everyday life. Tying your shoes, brushing your hair and teeth, putting on a pair of pants and trying to make yourself something to eat have already presented themselves as hurdles to me in my first day after the surgery.

When I came out of surgery, I was surprised at low little pain there was. I had forgotten that I was under anesthesia and last night, the pain finally came. It wasn't tremendous pain, just a steady dull pain that won't let you forget it. I had been prescribed some pain killer drugs, and I have taken a few, but honestly, I can pretty much do without them right now. I plan on taking them before going to bed to help insure a good nights sleep, but I may go without them basically during the day.

I have not regretted going through with this operation and I anxiously await the results. I think the first real test will come in November, when we head back up to fish for salmon and I have the rod in my hand all day. Then I'll know. Next year will be the left hand.

Woodworking Projects (Finally)

2006-04-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

Since starting this blog, I have had a few people recommend that I post a feature showing some of the woodworking projects that I have completed here and there. I haven't gotten around to it, but again recently, I had a gentleman ask what kind of things I build in my workshop and I guess it's about time that I get around to getting these pictures available in the most convenient manner. I do have a small photo album that I try to keep updated. But sadly, I don't really keep it up to date and it's kind of a hassle to lug it around to show people. What follows is a sampling of some of the things that I have built.

Below is a simple little project that I did just to keep busy. This was built out of red oak with a walnut inlay around its perimeter. The clock is a simple little twenty dollar clock - something like that. However, this was constructed a number of years ago when our house was hectic amid preparations for our son's graduation party. My wife was getting a bit harried and she told me to "get out of the way" - in no uncertain terms so I headed out to the shop and whipped this little creation out and it now resides on the wall in our family room.

The picture below is a small cassette tape box that I built to keep music cassettes handy in my truck. The interesting figure in the wood is actually the beginning of the rotting/decay process. This process is called "spalting" and the particular wood in this case is maple. The dark lines in the wood is a fungus that begins the rotting and decaying process. You have to catch the process at it's beginning when it hasn't really begun to soften the wood. I found this particular wood while splitting firewood. That's right - it was destined to be burned in out wood stove, but I couldn't have that. I took it up to the shop and ran it through my bandsaw and made some small boards out of it and dried it over time and I beleive I still have some more of it up in the shop somewhere.

The story with the CD cabinet below is that a great many years ago, I was laid off from my job in construction and I had a lot of time to kill. This cabinet was constructed of scrap wood that was laying around the shop at the time. It was an interesting little project that sure was a bit tedious to do with having to cut all of the dado's in it to accomodate the CD's. I currently have plans to build another, much nicer cabinet for out in the bar room. A freind has asked me for this one when I no longer need it.

I have rarely built a project from plans. I usually design the stuff that I build from my own vision of what I want and go from there. This project below was different in that respect. My wife's Mom wanted this built for her for use as a coffer table. In reality, it's a bench, but it's size lent it to be used as a small coffee table. Built out of poplar, it was to be painted by her mom when she got it. Poplar is one of the better woods to use for potential painted projects since it takes paint so well.

Well, on to bigger projects. The next handful of photos are of a six piece red oak bedroom set that I built over the course of maybe a year and a half or two. Not sure really. The photo below shows the 1st and 6th piece of the set. I started with the hutch and finished up with a beautiful armoir style dresser for myself. The dresser I had been using previous to this didn't have an "enclosure" as this one does up top. Why is that important? Well, with the numerous racing newspapers and monthly magazines of all sorts that I get, I had previously just stacked them all on top of the dresser and it was regularly an ugly pile. Now, they are stacked inside of one side of the upper portion of the dresser and out of sight. That equals a happy wife. And when the wife is happy - - I'm happy.

The bed was the next up after the hutch. I got the idea for this style of bed from a flyer from a local furniture store. The entire six piece project is of the raised panel style and the bed had the biggest panels of the project, both in the headboard and the footboard. Straddling each side of the bed you will see nightstands. And you guessed it, they were the next to be built in the project.

I actually wanted to build a more detailed dresser for Karen, but she opted for a simple design to go along with the rest of the set. I did work in an idea on the mirror that I had seen in a featured project in an issue of Wood magazine. A nice beveled edge mirror compliments the piece.

To finish off the bedroom project, I built these window shutters. Again, they are built from red oak, as the rest of the set was. These shutters were built using a jig designed by Norm Abram, or GOD, as he is known to many woodworkers. They were a blast to make, as was the jig, but they were a lot of work!

The wall unit below is one of my most recent projects. I built this while I was laid off recently and it really came out nice. Hangs behind the bar here at home in our bar room and it is really what I had been envisioning since I thought about what to do with this area about a year and a half or two years ago.

The potato bins below represent my first, and to date, only attempt at recreating something. The bin on the left of the photo is obviously the old one and was in pretty bad, but useable condition when it was found. Before I had built the oak bedroom set above, we had been using this four poster kind of canapy bed that I had built long before I had even had my wood shop. When I tore that down, I saved the wood and used some of it to recreate this potato bin to the right in the photo. An interesting project that encompassed some different things that I had never tried and it served a definite purpose for widening my skills in the shop. One thing I didn't copy from the old bin was the locations of the pulls. I liked them reversed from the old one.

The bench below was something I built for some freinds of ours. Not a difficult project at all. Constructed of cedar wood that was originally intended for use as decking. It finished up so well, that I milled some of it down for use as lumber and this is the result of one of the projects.

The two corner hutches below are something that my brother asked me to build for him. He and his wife were remodeling their dining room and wanted these two hutches for opposite corners of the room. Again, these are made of poplar since they wanted to paint them white. Some have asked why the raised panels on the bottom doors are already painted. That is because wood expands and contracts with the moisture content of the surrounding air. When you pre-paint the panels before constructing the doors, should they contract, you would not have the horribly ugly little strips of unpainted wood around the edges of the panels. The arched doors were the biggest challenge of this project. I had never attempted something like them. I had my idea of how to go about doing them, and in the end, it turned out great. But, I went into it not knowing that, so it was very rewarding mentally when it did. The upper cabinet features three moveable shelves and glass in the doors.

On to some outdoor projects. These arbors are, well, if you look closely, you can see clothes lines, so that would tell you that they are for that purpose. Built from clear cedar, they should last a very long time. We had grown tired of previous clothes line supports rotting, eventually leaning over and not staying plumb. These supports are well supported in the ground and should keep the wife happy for a very long time. I added the lattice in the middle and was a bit worried about it expanding to much in the hotter weather. Plastic does that. But apparently, I allowed enough room for it to expand and they are performing great.

One of the supports is shown below with morning glorys growing up its lattice panel. Hostas compliment the ground area underneath all three of them.

Finally, although not a strictly woodworking project, I consider this one more a carpentry project, this is a badly needed shed I built about three years ago. It houses a number of yard machines like my wood splitter, a pressure washer, my backpack blower and chainsaw among other things.

My workbench upgrade

2006-01-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

Have had a nice supply of time lately to devote to my long planned benchtop upgrade in my shop. I originally built the bench top using 2X lumber and over time, well, let's just say that 2X lumber is not exactly what you would want to use. It twisted slightly over the years and became unacceptable. My recent purchase of the new DeWalt planer moved the upgrade closer to reality since it had long been planned to build my next planer into the bench top so that the bench itself would be utilized as an infeed and outfeed table. I also had plans on working another feature into the new surface also which will be shown later in this post.

The total length of the bench is roughly around thirty two feet and is divided somewhere near the middle by a Craftsman radial arm saw that is also built flush into the benchtop. Below is the half of the bench that will house the new DeWalt planer and the area that it will be located is circled. The collection drop above that area was put in place back when I installed the system with this future planer installment in mind.

Below you can see the bench stripped of its former top and pretty much ready for the adaptation framing to house the planer area.

With plenty of 2X lumber available from the former tops, I was able to rip down some of them to use as 2X4's for the framing parts. Here is the majority of the framing work done.

And here is balance of the framework done and the first test fitting of the planer in place. I've also added some additional framing over the empty spot over where the knee wall space access door is. This will provide more support for the new top.

The raising/support system was simple enough. As you can see in the previous picture, I used these 7/16" hex head bolts and epoxied large fender washers to the heads for a bigger "footprint" for stability. A nut and another washer on the upper part provided plenty of support to hold up the actual piece of ply that the planer sat on. With careful measuring during the framing process, and using the nuts on the five 7/16" bolts, it was a simple process of adjusting the planer to be flush with the work surface.

Here is this half of the benchtop pretty much completed with two layers of 3/4" MDF applied as a surface (treated with a coat of boiled linseed oil). I had plenty of oak beadboard paneling left over from my big bar room project and that is being used to cover over the front framing of the planer area which will be seen in a later picture.

This is the second half of the benchtop and the only change for this area is that I am going to recess a t-track into the surface to act as a "stop-block" mechanism for use with the radial arm saw. This will come in handy for the occasional times when I have a multitude of repetitive cuts of the same type. Set up the stop block (which I have yet to fabricate) and start cutting!

I wanted to run the benchtop almost right to the far corner of the room, but I needed to add additional support and this bit of carpentry did the job.

Below is the fitting up of the T-track and the following picture is that half of the benchtop surface completed with linseed oil and the edging applied.

The radial arm saw got a new surface also. The fence needed to be removable since it was in the way of the full width of the planers 13" capacity. I accomplished this by recessing 5/16" T-nuts into the table and this would allow me to bolt down the fence and remove it when needed for longer/wider pieces of lumber needed to be planed. With the fence in place, I still have over five feet of infeed capacity for the planer and eight or nine feet of outfeed. With the fence removed and a little other work, I can in reality have up to fourteen feet of outfeed. Infeed can actually be up to 21 feet, but with the max of 14 feet of outfeed, that point is mute.

And the job as it stands right now. The oak beadboard is applied to the front of the planer framing and I'm just waiting for the epoxy at the T-nuts to dry before attaching the radial arm fence. A fairly simple job that adds quit a bit to my shop environment and utilization. A great upgrade project that I have been planning for a long time. Total cost was around 200 bucks.

Darts anyone??

2005-11-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting to construct a cabinet to house the Widdy dart board that I purchased months ago to be hung in the bar room. You can't have a bar room and not have a dart board in it!!!

With the cooler weather moving in, it is time to get back into the wood working shop and crank out some projects. Besides this cabinet, other projects planned for the bar room include a number of picture frames I need to build to hold a number of racing oriented lithographs. Also planned in a pool cue rack and a display shelf kind of thing for the wall behind the bar. I might even incorporate a mirror into it, though I have been wanting to make this huge display kind of framework to pin up a ton of racing pictures from the past. I don't know what I'm doing with that yet.

Anyway, the cabinet below is constructed of red oak with walnut panels in the doors. This combination is in keeping with the decor of the entire bar room. I used the same Waterlox marine sealer and high gloss finish on the cabinet that I used on all of the wood in the room and it continues to impress me with its finish and shine.

If you look closely, you can see that the board is lit by a strip of small lights at the top of the inside of the cabinet. Obviously, the doors are also used to house two dozen Widdy wooden and steel tipped darts.

Oswego (NY) Salmon Fishing

2005-11-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

With the exception of the previous two years, a number of us have taken an annual weekend getaway salmon fishing trip to the Oswego, NY area. The Oswego River is internationally known as one of the top salmon fishing spots and the reputation is well deserved. King, Coho and Atlantic salmon are plentiful and big and pack a wallop when hooked on the end of a fishing line. It is this particular fact that continues to bring us back to this town every late October or early November.

This year's trip included five of us. Four of us, myself and my Brother Dave and his son Travis and our cousin's husband Kenny Smith are veterans of this annual pilgrimage. One rookie this year though was Larry Cavallo. I have always bugged Larry and a number of my other buddies to give this fishing a shot and see if they liked it. They always came up with some lame excuse not to make the five hour trip north. However, the annual dirt track race at the New York State Fairgrounds that is held during Super DIRT Week in early October was rained out this year for the first time in around thirty years and it necessitated a rain date and it happened to be rescheduled for the weekend of our fishing trip. THAT was enough for Larry to give it a shot.

An inordinate amount of rain leading up to the trip had us watching the internet for constant updates on the river levels. Right up until when we left, we weren't even sure about whether we would be able to get into the river. As it turned out, the levels fell down to "fishable" levels the day before we left and as luck would have it, we happened to hit a great weekend of weather and fishing conditions. PHEW!!!

The picture below is a shot of a large area of the river which is located just in front of the Niagra-Mohawk electric generating station. This shot shows a rather tame shot of the area. As I said, the river had been high for weeks prior to our arrival and thus, the river was lacking in fisherman actually in this part of the river. The right half - near to the generation station is a very deep section and is usually loaded with salmon. The far side is fished mainly for trout.

Well, we hit the river early after a Friday morning 4:15AM wake up call. There is nothing like latching onto a hefty salmon in the early am hours with the sun just coming up to make you appreciate what Mother Nature supplies you. That's me below with one of my first "hook-ups" of the day.

My nephew Travis has been a regular on these trips and enjoys the sport. Below, he takes a moment from his fishing to turn around a look into the camera.

Below is Larry and he is enjoying one of many battles he had that day with numerous salmon. He was quickly convinced that he should come back in the years to come to fish the Oswego River again.

We all hooked up and had the chance to yell "FISH ON!" many, many times during the day on Friday. Here is Dave during one of the many times he snared another Chinook.

Kenny did much of his fishing as the guy the furthest up river of us and right around this massive boulder. Here below, he is doing his best imitation of the Captain Morgan commercial pose.

It didn't take long before we started to load up the stringers with the salmon. Here are a few pics of the bounty.

The gentleman pictured below was not one of our fishing party. He and another fisherman were fishing just below us and were doing just as well. In fact, he did fairly better than us. He happened to reel in not one, but two steelhead trout on the day. Pictured here is one of them.

After a number of hours in the morning, we had full stringers of three salmon each and headed up to the cleaning station to have the fish cut up into either fillets or steaks and bring them back to our hotel room cooler and take a quick rest and some lunch before heading back for an afternoon fishing session.

Travis probably landed the biggest salmon of the day and below, he is posing with the monster. No, that is not trick photography - the mouth of the salmon could have almost engulfed Trav's noggin.

The obligatory pictures of us holding up some nice catches follow.

Finally, some of our catch lies on the concrete floor of the cleaning station area. Within minutes, they will be transformed into fillets and steaks and packed into plastic bags for storage.

We had such a darned good Friday of salmon fishing, we made a last minute decision on Friday night to sleep in the next morning and arise maybe around eight AM and head down to the river and just check on the hole that we had been fishing and then if we didn't want to fish for salmon due to overcrowding, we would switch gears and do some trout fishing. As it turned out, it was a good decision as we managed to get a few to the net. None of them were the size that can come out of the Oswego River (and we saw a number of leviathans come out that day!) but to us they were large.

Larry, myself and Dave all managed to hook up with rainbow trout. All within five to six pounds. Larry also managed to bring in two nice little brown trout.

As always, it was another great time on the river - having a great time and catching some monster fish. The fishing in Oswego is an entirely different world of fishing than we are used to here in NJ. We look forward to each year's trip with much anticipation. Can't wait until next year. FISH ON!!

The Laundry Room Reno Project

2005-09-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

This room has been begging for a renovation for a long, long time. Just never got around to it. Well, our water heater went on the fritz a number of months ago and the new one that replaced it, didn't fit into the space that the old one sat in. The cabinetry that surrounded it just wouldn't accomodate the new unit. That was enough of a reason to gut the room and do it up nice. Below are a few pictures that show the room in its former "glory"? No real storage space, outdated and just plain old fugly.

The room was gutted right down to the studs. All new walls, floor and cieling were to be installed, as well as new cabinetry that I would build in my shop. This room was very small - only about five feet by ten feet, so it was a challenge to try to fit everything that we wanted into the room.

The kitchen range hood exhaust ductwork and the water heater timer were always sticking out like sore thumbs in the previous rooms, so the new rooms cabinetry would hide these two items.

Some minor electrical work needed to be done. I had to move a receptacle box or two and upgraded some wiring, but most work involved simply the building materials, not what is behind the walls.

The picture below shows the South end of the room where the washer and dryer sit. The only work left needed to be done in the entire room is to trim out the opening where the ductwork from the cieling mounted whole house humidifier goes through to the living space, and to build and install some simple shelves just below that and above the washer for some clothes washing items.

This is the base cabinet assembly that I built to once again house and conceal the water heater. I was fortunate that I was able to break down the old drawer assemblies because the glue that held them together was weakened over time and I had to make the drawers slightly narrower to fit their new accomodations. I just had to put new "faces" on them to match the new decor of the room. I was at first going to try a method of fabricating a countertop that I saw in one of my woodworking magazines a few months ago - but Karen liked the look of the floor so much, that she asked if it would be possible to use the same stuff for a countertop surface. I had enough of it left over. I had floor glue left over and I had enough 3/4" plywood for a substrate in the shop, so this request would cost me nothing extra to try. So I said what the heck and gave it a shot. It looks pretty good. How it holds up over time will be seen, though this room doesn't get a lot of traffic at all.

The pic below is of some of cabinetry that I build for the room. I was first going to make both sets the same depth. The back one in the corner of the room needed to be that deep (16" I believe) due to needing to hide the kitchen range exhaust hood ductwork. But to make the second unit that deep would have stuck out way to far into the room for my tastes. The closer cabinet in the picture conceals the water heater timer. I think the difference in the depths actually adds visual interest anyhow. You will noticed that the tops of the cabinets differ in widths. This is due to the angle of the roofline above the room. I had to configure this line to the tops of the cabinets as well. It all involved trimwork that hides the differences.

The two pictures below are of the wall storage unit that was a great addition to the room and gave us lots more storage capability. We recycle. Everyone should. I built two recycling bins into the storage unit and they tilt out as I am showing. One bin holds aluminum cans and the other holds both glass and plastic. The three top cabinet sections hold storage and will hold various items such as pots and pans, cat care stuff for our cats and storage for spring water that we buy, as well as other household sundries. The large (tall) cabinet is a broom closet that will also hold an ironing board.

This was a great little project and one that will serve us well for a long time. It really did take a bit longer than I had imagined and planned (and wanted to!) but it's pretty much done now and it didn't really cost an arm and a leg to do.

Dirt trackin - yeah man!!!!!!

2005-07-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

I would have thought that with the availability of this blog, I would have by now done a post concerning one of the biggest loves of my life. It should come as no surprise to anyone that remotely knows me that that love is the local dirt track racing scene!

Sometime in the future, I may sit down and do a lengthy post on my history in the sport. I have done lots of things and had quite a blast doing all of them. Television and radio work, public relations work, some minor publishing as well as announcing and of course, the writing for the newspapers and magazines and other things have been my experiences in the sport that I have loved since the age of five way back in the early sixties.

I've been wanting to at least post something about the sport for a while now and just have not had the time to get around to it. I guess this is as good a time as any.

Since the closing of the Flemington Speedway ( a place that has always and will always be near and dear to my heart) I have made the New Egypt Speedway my "home" track. New Egypt was a true Phoenix in the local racing scene in a sense since it was purchased as a rundown ramshackle track and rose from the ashes into what is one of the damned nicest facilities that I have ever been to.

The crowds that make the weekly trek to watch the races at New Egypt is a testimony to the racing that is presented there. The picture below is a typical Saturday night at the central New Jersey racing arena.

I have been a Billy Pauch fan since his earliest rookie days back in the mid seventies. There is a story behind my being his fan and when I ever get around to posting my history in the sport, I"ll include that. After two seasons (2003 - 2004) of crappy luck with what turned out to be subpar equipment, Billy has teamed up with a new car owner for the 2005 season and has come out of the gate in style this season. He did hit a rough patch a month or so ago when the team experienced some trouble in the motor department, but that seems all behind them now and the wins are coming back strong.

The biggest win thus far this season was the night of the Garden State Gunfight in which the touring DIRT Tour stars came into town looking for a fight. They surely got one as Billy led the New Egypt brigade to a convincing thrashing of the tour regulars, placing one-two-three at the checkered with Ryan Godown and Frank Cozze securing the top three spots. Billy is seen below exiting the car in victory lane and also posing with the black and white silks with the Kevin Bifulco owned K&A Excavating backed Bicknell chassied machine.

Last night's (7/9/05) win came after a hard fought battle with Jimmy Horton and Bucky Kell to get to the front. The track had received some heavy rain the day before and it showed with the track coming up a bit rough for the feature events. A number of times, I saw cars being thrown off of their intended grooves and needing to recover before moving on in their quest for the front. Kudos to young division rookie Brian Godown on his great performance up at the head of the pack and his calm under pressure while battling the big dogs.

Once Billy was in front though, it was all over but the celebration. Win number seven on the season and career feature event win #617!!!

If you are interested in seeing some video clips of the racing action at New Egypt, and you have high speed internet connections, you can see them at the address which follows. Just click on the address and it will take you to a page that has numerous clips from this season.

http://www.jerseyracing.com/bigjim/nes.html

Hey - I'm on Norms site!!!

2005-07-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

Well, to be honest, I had forgotten that I had submitted a photo of some of the furniture that I had built in the past to the Norm Abram New Yankee Workshop website. I was reminded about that possibility when I was checking out a woodworking site that I normally log onto and read about someone else posting a picture of something they had done. Well, there it was as big as life and pretty neat. The picture details two pieces of the six piece bedroom suit that I built for our home. I used red oak and a natural finish and the two pieces in the picture are my armoir style dresser, which was the last piece to be built and cooincidentally, the bedroom hutch that was the first piece in the set.

Some Fishin' pics

2005-07-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

A number of posts down, I put up a picture of the boat that I bought last Fall. Since then, I have used it a handful of times to fish with either my Brother Dave and our Cousin's Husband Kenny or my Brother Mark - or with some friends. It's all good!

For the most part, the boat has been used for bass fishing floats down the Deleware River on Sunday mornings. There isn't much that tops the relaxation that an early morning float on the Deleware in search of some fiesty little bass. There is something irresistably attractive about being on the river, with its quietness of the early morning and the mist is still coming off of the surface of the water - being one with nature.

This past July 4th weekend however, I towed my boat down to the Cape May area, where both my Brother and my Mother live and Mark and I got to check out a lake or two that had previously been unfishable to us from shore. The first number of pictues below are from the East Creek Pond. It's called a pond, but damn, the thing is actually a lake. It's big. Through a NJ bass fishing web site, Mark and I learned that this particular pond, in the Dennisville area, held some pickerel and neither one of us had ever attempted to catch them. Pickerel, like bass, are predatory fish - meaning they seek their food often by ambush. That means they are a great game fish to catch since they hit properly presented lures with abandone.

We hit the lake on Saturday morning and found, as we had been told on the bass fishing site, that the lake was getting clogged up with heavy underwater vegetation. The North side of the lake was much better than the South side and that is where we found the most action. Now, as it turns out, the Pickerel in the lake were for the most part small, as you can see by the pictures below. Don't let that fool you though, for their size, their fight is pretty decent.

Mark was kickin' my butt on Saturday morning. He was "boating" a few "picks" here and there and while I WAS hooking some, I was not getting them to the boat. I had a beautiful opportunity to make up all of the lost ground though when I finally got hooked into a very huge pickerel. Got it up to the boat and - my god - the things must have been three or four pounds! No crap, it was that big. I could have easily put my fist into its mouth, though with the teeth these things have, that would have been crazy. Now, there are a number of factors that came into play in the next few seconds after getting the fish to the boat. (1) I was brand spanking new to pickerel fishing and didn't know exactly how to handle them. (2) THOSE TEETH! (3) After being skunked by Mark all morning, it was simply still a shock that I actually got a fish to the boat (4) I didn't have a landing net on board (5) and finally the thing was thrashing all around like a banshee and was making it impossible to get some kind of hold onto it to actually get it into the boat. Oh yeah - and (6) I was using an ultra-lite poll so I couldn't just simply hoist him into the boat with the poll. All of these facts came into play and balled up into the unfortunate circumstance the led me to lose the fish to a broken line. I'm not sure if the line frayed against the side of the boat while the fish was thrashing about or if it maybe came into contact with its very sharp teeth or what, but in the end, does it matter? I lost one hell of a beautiful fish. Damn it! I'll admit it - I lost the fish because the damned thing intimidated me. Shoot!

Well, we hit the lake the next morning and you can beleive that I had a net with me this time. I was going to somehow redeem myself. And I finally did catch my first ever pickerel, but it was nowhere near the size of that monster that I let get away. It's a fishing memory, but not one of the more pleasant ones!

One of the nicest things about going to a new lake is taking in the scenery and this lake was a beautiful place! Just look at the pictures below! Truly gorgeous! God does do some things right!

On my previous visit to Marks, we hit this really tiny pond in the middle of this trailer park and it proved to be a great little place to fish for bass. It is strictly catch and release, but that has never bothered me because that is all I practice. Look at the PIG that Mark caught on this particular day! It is an absolute hog! I'm figuring maybe around four pounds or so.

Here I am with my biggest one of the day.

Do You Know???

2005-07-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah, there are certain people who may know what this sign means. To them, well, I suggest you let those who don't know take a stab. So anyone out there care to take a stab at the story behind this sign? For bonus points, care to tell me where it is in the state of NJ? If you think you have the answer, leave it in the comments section by clicking on the link below.

Building my custom poker table

2005-05-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Building a custom sized oak and walnut poker table was a project that I was eagerly awaiting. The table was to be located in the new bar room and I wanted it to be a large enough table that eight guys could fit around it and have plenty of room to play and not be crowded by one another. Eight sides was one side more than necessary since a maximum of seven players can play many poker games utilizing only one deck of cards.

I got the idea for the style of the table from David Tiell from California,MD, a fellow woodworker who posts on the Saw Mill Creek woodworking website - http://www.sawmillcreek.org/forumdisplay.php?s=496a7a67eefcce655ad900183ac161f8&forumid=3 - I visit this site almost daily and enjoy it immensely. I had a few style changes in mind for what I wanted in a poker table and this all went into a degree of custom work that would take me into a few things that I hadn't ventured in woodworking before - so - I was excited to get underway with it.

Before getting on with this piece, for comparison's sake, here are two pictures of Dave's version of a poker table.

Now, there are a number of people who will be taking a look at this photo essay and not all of them will be woodworkers, so with respect to my fellow woodworkers, please forgive me if some of the essay sounds and looks a bit elementary.

The first detail needed to be taken care of was to determine the size that my table needed to be. I didn't want to make any of the structural elements of the table out of multiple pieces of wood since one single piece would be stronger than two or more pieces glued together would be. This need called for plywood to be called into service. Now, most plywood comes in four foot wide sheets. This limitation made for a table that would be a bit smaller than I cared for. However, Baltic Birch plywood comes in five foot square sheets and that was the key to getting what I wanted as far as the construction of the table went.

Below, I am shown in the starting stages of getting the size of the outside segments of the eight sided playing surface determined - using cardboard in a cut - measure and fit method until I had the size determined. In the end, the widest (outside) dimension of each segment came to near

two feet long.

I used other cardboard to simulate the size that I wanted the tabletop to be. When I got the segments cut down to the proper size and they matched the layout, I had my segment size.

I had had the leg set and the pedestal assembly sitting around the shop for quite a while. It was quick work to drill the holes for mounting the legs to the pedestal. First though, I wanted to make sure that the pedestal was square or else my hole layout for the leg bolts would be off.

The perimeter of the top playing surface was going to be comprised of two ¾" layers of wood laminated together to make a 1 ½" thick tabletop. The reason for this can be better described by a quick sketch I did. In the below sketch, you can see that the playing surface is two layers of wood laminated together. The bottom layer extends into the middle region of the table further than the top layer. That is to allow the actual felt covered playing surface to rest on the "lip" that is provided by the extension of the bottom layer of wood lamination. Further complicating the laminating process is the fact that I will be laminating a deep well beverage holder between the two laminations of wood. This beverage holder will fully prevent a can of soda or beer from accidentally being knocked over onto the table. It will also provide a good hold on beer cups. Many tables that I have seen provide only a small indentation on their tables for holding cans or cups - nowhere near deep enough to insure spill protection.

Being that only the outer edge of the bottom lamination was going to be seen, I had the option of using minimal actual solid wood in the construction of this layer. I had plenty of scrap oak plywood left over from the bar room construction and this was a perfect use for it. The picture below shows the method of edge-gluing a small strip of solid oak to a wider strip of oak plywood using biscuits.

With the bottom lamination glued and drying, I moved to fabricating the solid oak top lamination segments. That entailed making the first jig for the job. This jig conformed to the 22 ½ degree angled ends of the sections. The jig acted as a stop block to ensure that all of the pieces were cut at the very same length. This is critical to having the eight segments all go together and match up at all of the seams. It was a simple jig to complete and it securely bolted to my Incra 2000 miter jig fence. I needed to keep this setting for cutting the bottom lamination also before it was lost. All sixteen pieces needed to be exact!

A quick dry-fit with my Bessey web clamp resulted in tight fitting joints.

Each of the eight segments would have the hole to accommodate the beverage holders and they would each also have a recess routed into them for each player to locate their change/poker chips. That called for the second jig to be built. One of the former cardboard segment pieces was useful for laying those details out and transferring them onto the MDF based jig.

The jig would have to securely hold the segments in place while the two routing operations take place. This is detailed with an underneath look at the jig in the pic below.

Below is how the jig looked from the working side with a segment inserted into it.

The round hole for the beverage holder would be routed out using a flush cutting bit. That meant that I had to "hog out" most of the wood first using a 1 ¾" hole saw in my drill press and then cutting out near the circumference with a saber saw and leaving a minimal amount to route with the bit.

Being that my flush cutting bit is a "bottom bearing" style, I actually needed to route the holes with the jig face down. No problem though. The scraps holding the segment in place were the same thickness and they provided a nice support for the router base.

To route out the recess for the change and poker chips, it meant flipping the jig over and using a ¼" up-cutting spiral bit. This helped in making a smooth bottom to the recess and helped in clearing the resulting debris. The base plate on my router was not wide enough to ensure that it wouldn't slip into the recess and gouge out the wood deeper than I needed. I had to fab up a wider plate for this purpose and ¼" luan ply scrap that was lying around fit the bill.

In a moment of not paying attention, I nicked the side of my jig when I was raising the router out of the jig and it needed to be repaired since the nick would cause the router to transfer the mistake to the recess that I was routing out. Some five minute epoxy came to my rescue.

While the epoxy set up, I began to do some of the initial sanding of the segments. It was beginning to look like something!

A rabbiting bit made quick work of adding a recess that the plastic beverage holder insert would sit in-between the two laminations.

While I investigated just how I was going to add a bottom to the plastic beverage/can holders, I decided to move on and begin to fabricate the part of the table that would support the playing surface. Concise measuring and figuring needed to be done before marking out the 5 foot square sheet of Baltic birch plywood. I didn't need to make a mistake laying this out as this is a $61 sheet of plywood and I didn't want to have to buy another one. The depth of the slight reveal around the perimeter of the playing surface - the thickness of the small trim that would trim out the bottom of the playing surface and the remaining stock after the dado was milled into the apron pieces all needed to be figured into the equation to finally figure out the full width of the eight sided plywood piece. As it turned out, the piece needed to be 2 ¾" less in diameter that the overall width of the playing surface. I turned back to my original cardboard segment pieces and trimmed 1 3/8" from the outside of the segment and used that to check the layout on the plywood. It checked and I was good to go. I can't stress enough the need to check and recheck your figures before cutting. Once it's cut, it's a done deal.

After some experimentation, I found that I could easily cut and fabricate the holder bottoms from Lexan. Cutting was done on the bandsaw and final sizing was accomplished at a disk sander mounted on my lathe. A simple jig was used to cut the holders down to the depth that I needed and then a special Super Glue for plastics was utilized and the bottoms were secured permanently!

The aprons were up next and it was quick work to milling them to size and then it was adding the decorative touches. I had thought about adding flutes to the outside of the aprons, but decided to go with a walnut band of inlay around the outside instead and that would go nice with the minor walnut inlay that would be inlaid at each intersection of the top segments later in the construction phase.

The inlaid walnut was set proud of the oak surface and when dry, it was a simple manner of planing the stock down to make the walnut flush with the entire surface. The planing took the stock down to the final ¾" thickness. I wanted to put a nice bead detail along the bottom of the playing surface and also along the bottom of the apron. This would be much easier to accomplish at the router table before everything was put together - than later with the handheld router!

And here below is one of the aprons showing the beading along the bottom edge. The dado milled into the inside of the apron is also evident.

With the milling of the apron pieces complete, it was on to fitting them to the table subassembly. I would have liked to turn back to one of the earlier jigs for ensuring consistent length cuts, but I'm not Norm Abram and any slightest bit difference in length of the eight sides of the Baltic Birch plywood would result in poorly matched up joints. That meant measuring each individual apron mounting and cutting it to size. That didn't take long and I wrapped up this particular day with gluing up the apron to the Baltic Birch ply. Things were finally beginning to take shape.

Of course, you need something to support that large structure. That is where the pedestal and its associated assemblies is brought into the picture. The mounting screws let into the top of the pedestal assembly were extended about 1 ½" out of the top. I compensated for this with two pieces of support. I started with an 11" octagonal piece of oak and then some long wide pieces of poplar, half-lapped at the center to form a cross-buck for supporting the underside of the table.

Some of the final gluing up had to do with the eight segments that made up the perimeter of the actual playing surface. You"ll recall that they were comprised of two ¾" laminations of a solid oak and a solid oak/plywood layer with the cup/can holder fitted in-between. Below I'm gluing a section together and holding it with clamps..

..and when the laminations are perfectly lined up they are tacked with some small gauge nails from the underside and afterward clamped wherever needed and set aside to dry.

I hired on the help of my lovely wife Karen to help me with the webclamping of the entire oak perimeter and once the glue was dry and it was now one solid unit, it was on to routing in the recesses between each segment for the walnut inlay that was to follow. This required yet another jig. You know, you would think that this poker table is one project, but when you think about it, it has entailed a number of smaller projects in that a handful of jigs needed to be fabricated to aid in certain aspects of building the table - so in effect, it has been a number of projects. The jig needed for the next stage was a simple one to build - took about a half hour to fabricate, but once it was done, I completed the routing task in about twenty minutes and all were a perfect match to one another.

As you can see below, the jig has an alley down the middle of it which coincides with the middle of the joints of each segment. The width of the alley was 7/16 and that coincided with the width of the guide bushing that was mounted onto my router in which to house the ¼ upcut spiral cutting bit.

Clamped to the tabletop, the jig allowed the router to simply be pulled through the tabletop's surface and the result was a nice, crisp ¼" recess cut right down the middle of the joint.

The walnut inlay was applied and when dry, sanded down flush with the playing surface and then the final milling was done which included a slight "round-over" of the inner edge and a nice chamfer of the outer edge. Some final sanding was pretty much all that needed to be done to this particular piece before the finish was to be applied.

I fabbed up some cove-style trim to dress up the aprons. This would dress out the underside of the tabletop and give it a nice appearance.

Some final sanding of the three pieces making up the table and a general "going-over" led to the final step before applying the finish. A half sheet of ¾" plywood provided the substrate for attaching the felt playing surface to. I had ordered the exact felt that was used on my pool table so that the pieces of furniture would match. I wanted to use something under this felt though, to provide just a little more softness to the playing surface. I ended up using some cheaper, off the shelf felt for an underlayment. I had originally wanted to wrap this underlayment around the edges of the plywood, but I had cut the plywood to a closer tolerance than would allow that, so I trimmed it even with the top edge of the ply.

With the base felt in place, the good stuff was stapled and stretched onto the playing surface and wrapped around to the bottom of the plywood and neatly stapled in place.

After the step of applying the finish ( Waterlox tung oil Marine sealer and high gloss finish for those in the know) it was on to the final steps before enjoying the first game of poker. The pieces were moved into the bar room and the pedestal assembly was turned over onto the bottom of the tabletop subsurface and attached using square drive screws from the McFeeleys catalog.

The felt covered playing surface was then attached to the oak and walnut inlay tabletop surround, again using square drive scews from McFeeleys. These screws are head and shoulders above anything you can buy from any of the "big box" places!

And finally, it was the moment of truth! The playing surface was set atop the table assembly and wow - it looked great. I had enough felt left over from the pool table job, as well as covering the poker table surface, to cut out pieces to place into the eight coin/chip recesses around the playing surface and that really added to the finished look I think. All that we need to do now is find some suitable chairs to place around the table. Man, has this been a satisfying project! It has to rank right up there as one of my proudest achievements.

The bar room construction project

2005-03-25T17:50:00.000-08:00

I have been wondering when I would get around to posting a complete photo essay of the building process of the bar room. Well, it's a Friday night and I have a few hours to kill. Why not get the job done. I began this project in the early Spring of 2004. It has been eleven months since its inception and it is pretty much complete with the exception of just a few small items.

Of course, any renovation starts with ripping out all of the "old stuff". The two pictures below are a handful that I took to document the beginning of the project. Drywall removal was a messy and boring job. Still, the project was now underway and the excitement of the job ahead of me kept me pushing along.

Once the drywall was completely removed from the walls (the cieling drywall remained in place since it was in good shape and would make a good base for the new cieling lathe to be mounted to) - it was on to leveling up the floor. I contemplated not leveling up the floor and that would mean that the difference in the floor height from the back of the room to the front of the room (five inches of difference!) would have to be dealt with in every step of the way. I am so glad that a woodworking buddy of mine convinced me to do it.

That meant that I needed some way to get measurements for each and every floor joist that would be laid on the floor. I came up with the idea to string the room from side to side and from front to back - using a set up that the picture below demonstrates.

The strings gave me a handful of needed and important information. Across the room from side to side, it allowed me to measure in a number of places and make sure that the slant of the floor was consistent across the room in various locations. Fortunately, it was and this made for much less work. The strings from the back of the room to the front gave me the width needed for each individual joist from the elevation where the tops of the joists were going to be located to the high side of the angled bottoms. The bottoms needed to be angled to match the pitch of the floor. The angle worked out to be roughly two or three degrees, I don't exactly remember now, but it was a necessary bit of information so that when cut at this angle, the joist would sit on the floor and be plumb. The floor turned out to be lots of work, but in the long run, it was worth getting a level floor!

Once I had my measurements, it was plenty of back and forth trips from the room to the woodshop to rip the joists to their proper sizes. Once all joists were installed over the vapor barrier, the insulation in the form of foam boards and batt insulation was placed in all of the cavities. This floor was going to be warm.

Leveling off the floor meant lots of work. Because the floor was raised, it meant that the back door to the room needed to be raised also. Because the door was going to be raised, that meant that the siding on the back of the house in the area of the room needed to come down for that work. Yeah, as I said, the floor leveling added a nice amount of work!

Because the floor and door were raised, I now needed a step to be added below the door to facilitate stepping in the door. Below is the step after it was poured and setting up.

Well, after the siding was back up on the house, it was back into the room and the subfloor was laid. I chose to use tongue and groove sheathing for the added strength that it would supply. This stuff was HEAVY!

PHEW, I was sure glad that the floor was laid and I could move on with the project! First up was running all of the needed additional electrical wiring. I needed to add receptacles to bring the room up to current code. Also, I needed to run wiring in the cieling for the new lighting, the cieling fan and the air cleaner as well as planning the wiring routes for the television location.

Probably the worst part of the job - the drywall and spackling. I had had enough of that crap when I did the detached garage. That job had 120 sheets of drywall and I didn't want to deal with any more. This room though was not that bad since it was mostly full pieces and easy cut outs for windows and doors.

Below, as you can see, the cieling wiring is roughed in and myself and Karen have also gotten to faux painting the walls. That was an interesting experience! We initially wanted to "rag" the walls. We didn't immediately have much luck with that technique on practice boards and we went with "sponging" instead. This turned out to be the trick. In this technique, you first lay down a solid base coat of color and in our case, that meant a bright - very bright - coat of red paint. We actually thought we were in trouble due to the extreme brightness of the base coat. That all changed when we did the sponging and the darker highlights that we sponged on brought the intensity way down and it actually turned out to be a beautiful job if I have to say so myself! The result, though it doesn't show well in the photo, is that the walls take on a red leather kind of look.

Anyway, with the walls painted, it was time to get around to building some actual structure for the room. I am starting to fabricate the soffit carcasses above. In the picture below, I am mounting the first one up in place. The drywall lift was a brilliant idea for lifting them in place. It made for easy work! Man, worth every penny of the rental fee!

This is the soffit structure (below) located above the door to our existing breezeway/family room. In the left side of the photo, you can see the closet I built into that corner of the room. This closet serves to hide the electrical panel and will provide some storage space for whatever.

Once all of the soffit structure was up and mounted in place, it was on to building the valance that would be mounted above where the bar would be. I needed to do lots of advance planning and measuring ahead of time because when this was mounted on the cieling (seriously lag screwed into the cieling joists) it would need to be centered over where the bar was going to eventually be located. Measurements and planning were critical for this item, as they were for many other items in the room!

And here is the valance carcasse - below - mounted on the cieling.

The window seating areas were next to be built and after they were completed, everything was skinned with quarter inch oak beadboard panels. You will notice that there is a gap between the two seat structures. That is because I planned on adding a big bookcase in between the two seating areas. That was going to be built in my shop.

And here is the bookcase up in the shop after I completed it. It still needed to have the crown moulding added, but that was done after it was in place so that it had that "built in" look. At this point, I had yet to build the shelving for the unit.

I had purchase plenty of quarter inch oak beadboard panels. Over thirty 4X8 sheets in all since it was covering the soffits, the window seating, the wainscoting (below) and eventually the body of the bar.

This is the base of the fireplace corner unit. I purchased a propane ventless unit and it was zero clearance and that made for a compact unit and installation. The receptacle with the wiring sticking out is not currently used. I added this particular box for any future considerations, should I want to add an electric blower to the fireplace. This box is covered by a blank cover and is hidden inside the fireplace cabinet.

The cabinet framework is complete and for now, that was all that could be done. Meanwhile, up in the workshop, I busied myself with fabricating the top for the cabinet. Obviously, clamping was critical.

I am pictured below installing the final Pergo flooring piece. The floor was pretty easy to install. AND it made a major difference in how the room appeared. At this point, the room was really beginning to take shape. You can notice that I have also wrapped what had remained of the concrete block foundation with 3/4" oak plywood. This was a nice touch that really added to the room. I would later wrap the exposed corner with a brass looking moulding.

Along with the floor, the addition of the Armstrong architectural cieling really brought the project along in the looks department. But first, a ton of work needed to be done in preparation for the cieling tiles. I needed to nail up 1x3 lathe at twelve inch centers so that it provided somewhere to staple the cieling tile flanges into. Boy this was some tough work since it was overhead work and made for tired arms. I'm not the spring chicken that I used to be.

The pictures above and below are two of the completed cieling. You can also see that the lighting has been added, both the soffit cans and the florescent fixtures. The cieling fan is also in place. The crown moulding on the top of the bookcase really gives it a built in appearance.

The photo below details the fireplace and its brass details. I included this picture though to show the five piece built up cap for the wainscoting. I really wish that I had taken a close up photo of it since it really added to the look of the room. I was going to go with a simple store bought one piece cap. I am so glad that I fabricated the five piece cap. It really adds to the look of the room. It made for a lot more work as I estimate that it added a few hundred more feet of trim work. By the way, I ended up buying a pneumatic nailing set up for the job since nailing by hand really would have sucked. The air compressor and nailing gun set up really sped up the trim installation!! BIG TIME!

I pre-fabbed much of the structural elements of the bar in the wood shop before moving to the bar room and putting it all together.

Below, the top, which was lelft over Pergo flooring, has been added to the bar and the plywood sub-face has been nailed on. The end unit to the bar has also been added. You can easily see where the Keg cooler will be located. The clamps are holding down the still wet glue under the Pergo bar top pieces. The straight pieces of wood on top of the bar are the oak edging that I fabricated in the shop.

The bar below is almost finished. Yet to be added is the brass looking strip that will cover the corner of the foot rest. I wanted to apply the finish to the bar before adding this item. We put two of the bar stools in front of the bar to see how they would look. We got a bargain on a dozen of these stools when the Three Bridges Tavern closed up and was selling all of their inventory. We got these stools - high backed and swiveled - for basically twenty bucks apiece! They sell for something like $80 per.

Applying the finish was a toxic adventure. I used a product called Waterlox on advice from a few woodworkers. It provides a very durable finish and it was what I needed for the bar particularly, but I used it completely for all of the oak in the room. It was a slow drying finish and had a high concentration of fumes. Thus, you can see that I needed to use respiratory protection.

The picture below gives a good shot of the hue that the clear Waterlox finish gave to the oak.

Another shot of all of the oak and the way the finish deepened the appearance. I had already mounted the pool table light mounting points and that is the chain hanging from the cieling in the top of the photo.

As it turned out, the color of the oak bar stools were a damned fine match for the oak in the room.

I had fabricated the oak with walnut inlay pool table light way ahead of time and lived to regret it as it was constantly in the way in the shop. I was a happy camper when I finally got to hang it and have it out of my hair.

The bar is ready for customers (freinds) and the pool table has been delivered (below).

The soffit access holes have been covered by flat panel oak and walnut covers.

This project has been a blast to do. It was certainly a ton of work. Don't know if I want to do something of this magnitude for quite a while. I still need to build an oak poker table which will be located right in front of the fireplace. I also need to build a number of picture frames for a bunch of racing related lithographs. I bought the window seating foam the other day and I will be sewing up fabric covers for them soon. That's right, I will be manning the sewing machine. I've done it before with a window seat cushion that is located in our guest bedroom upstairs. Not so hard. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this little trip through the contruction process of the bar room. Though, these pictures can't begin to actually demonstrate the true amount of work and planning that was involved.

Did someone say FISHIN'!

2005-03-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

Since I had gotten a bit away from the writing and other stuff associated with the local racing scene, I have found that I have a wee bit more free time to fill. Filling that time has not been a problem. However, the small change in my life has allowed me to enjoy my love of fishing just a little bit more. One of the more enjoyable fishing deals that has come down the pike has been the Sunday morning drifts down the Delaware River in search of bass. There is a small group of various guys that can make up the days crew. In the past, I had always needed to borrow my brother Dave's boat for the fishing drift. That entailed calling him up in the middle of the week to (1) see if he wasn't using it that weekend and (2) to set up a time for me to make the trip over to his house to pick it up. THEN, I had to hope that the weather held up on the positive side for Sunday morning.

That hassle got to be a real pain in the butt and I decided that it was time to try to find myself a used boat that I could use for our drifts down the Delaware and also for use for such things as fishing for herring during their annual Spring run in the river and for occasional fishing excursions to the area's larger resevoirs for a variety of fish species. I had a limit as to how much I was willing to spend on a boat. I know that I wanted an aluminum boat, 12 feet or larger and I definitely wanted it to come with a motor since I wanted to go through as little trouble as possible putting the entire package together. I was in no hurry to buy the boat, figuring that if a deal was to come my way, it would come my way on it's own time schedule. I looked at a boat here and there and they were either too much money or they were not exactly what I was looking for or they were in tough shape.

Late last August, I was taking my morning break at work with a co-worker and he knew that I was eventually going to be in the market for a pool table (see below). He noticed a used pool table in the classified ads and mentioned it to me. I turned to the page and looked it over, but I also noticed that there was an ad for a used 14' aluminum boat just below it. The price was right and it had a motor, trailer and a number of other ammenities that seemed like a great bargain! I called the number and it turned out that it was pretty much on my way home and it was still available. My juices got flowing. I stopped on the way home and lo and behold, for $500, this deal was a true bargain. A trailer that was in great shape, a 14' boat with lots of room for three fishermen, a 7 1/2 hp motor that turned out to be in fine running shape, oars, seat cushions, life jackets. It just needed a little cleaning up. And clean it up I did. I'm just getting finished up with everything that I needed to do to spruce it up and the results are below.

I started with the trailer. I decided to re-wire the thing and that was a wise move. It was a simple task and the wiring harness was very inexpensive. Before re-wiring, I cleaned off the minimal rust that was on the trailer and primed and painted it. That made a big difference right there. With the wiring done, I put new wheel bearings in and it definitely needed those. I recarpeted the rear boat supports, added a new front manual winch and a new coupler and the trailer was pretty much done.

The boat was next and I removed the old registration numbers and boat name from the previous owner and gave it a quick once-over with my random orbit sander to rough up the old surface in preparation for a painting. But first, I took the time to seal all of the aluminum seams with an epoxy. A coat of "aluminum" paint on the entire bottom and once dry, it was flipped over to work on the interior of the boat. For the most part, that consisted of shoring up the three seats here and there since the bolts that were holding them in were rusted out here and there. A few "L" brackets here and there also came in handy for firming up the seats. I added a left over tie down loop from a truck bed liner to the front of the boat to allow for strapping down the boat once it's on the trailer. For maintaining the oars in the boat and not having them shuffling around in the boat, I fabricated up some brackets out of some copper tubing that the oar lock brackets fit right down into and they worked great as the oars now sit firmly in place and do not move around.

Getting the boat registered was a bit of a hassle since the boat did not have a true hull number. This is similar to a cars V.I.N. or Vehicle Identification Number. With boats, it the H.I.N. or Hull Identification Number. Because it had no number anywhere on the boat (actually there is a plate on the inside of the transom that is so old that it is now illegible) I had to go through some additional trouble to get it issued a new number. That meant trailering it to Burlington,NJ to a NJ State Police Marine unit for inspection. They issued me papers that I returned to motor vehicles with where I finally got everything needed to get registration numbers and my boaters license.

As I sit here typing, I can't help but wish that the next few weeks fly by as within a month, I hope to be on the river enjoying my first bass float. Oh yeah, did you notice the name of the boat? It's on the side of the boat in the back. The letters are MYOTT. Sound it out. (My Yacht) hehe

It's Billiard Time!!!

2005-03-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

One of the final things to do to complete my bar room project was to order a nice pool table. I have always wanted a pool table and simply never had the opportunity to own one and even more importantly, never had anywhere to actually place one. With this room, that was now not an issue. I put a lot of time into researching tables and companies and got a lot of advice over the internet. I finally settled for a table from the A.E. Schmidt company. More on them later. I ordered my table through Phila-American Shuffleboard Co. Inc. - an A.E. Schmidt dealer and it took about a month to have it made in the St. Louis, Missouri plant and get it to my home for installation. The main installer was Frank LaCroce, that's Frank in the first picture below, a third generation installer who really knew his job. While he and his crew were installing the table, I was told that Frank started as a young boy, sweeping up around the pool table factory and progressed up through the ranks and is now one of the top installers in the area.

The table comes in components when these guys recieve them and they erect it on-site. The main frame came as one unit and had the legs, a raised panel design incorporating oak and satinwood hardwood in my case, bolted onto the bed frame. Once that was done and it was positioned, the slate began to be set. Three pieces of one inch slate made up the playing surface.

Once the slate was positioned into correct alignment with all sides, it was on to perfecting the surface. Although the surface was very close to being perfectly flat, a light sanding was done on the two seems, in preparation for the next step, and that is the sealing of the Joints and the screw hole voids.

Frank told me that I had done a great job on the leveling of the floor since it was a former garage and the room from front to back had a difference of 5". You can see below that he was using a level to check for "levelness". He actually didn't need to adjust the table at all as the floor's levelness transferred right to the tables dimensions.

Meanwhile, Frank's two assistants began to construct the rail assemblies and the pockets. They eventually would be erected into two assemblies before being applied to the table. Each assembly was composed of the end rails and the two adjoining side rails.

The red felt (to go along with the rooms red theme) began to be applied.

The pockets began to take shape thanks to an electric staple gun.

Once all stapling was completed, excess felt was trimmed away.

Now it was really beginning to look like a pool table! After the felt was completed, the rail assemblies were set on the table surface and were bolted on from underneath.

RACK 'EM UP!!! What do you think??? It's a great looking table.

I upgraded on the ball set. I simply loved this set, which is supposed to mock a stone look. Actually, it is supposed to look as if they incorporate granite in them.

Here's a closer look.

The A.E. Schmidt Billiard Company is the second oldest pool table manufacturing company in the USA. Second only to Brunswick. Out of St. Louis, Missouri, the A.E. Schmidt tables are crafted as heirlooms, to be enjoyed now and treasured later for their superb play and timeless beauty.

Country Music and Me

2005-03-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that years ago, I would be one of the first to admit that I had a lot of fun making light of country music. However, that all changed one particular day when I walked into my Grandmothers house and one of my cousins had a Garth Brooks concert video tape playing. I stopped to check it out for a few minutes and was absolutely captivated!

Garth Brooks was known for his lively stage shows and, man, did this tape ever display that. You know, within a week or so, I had a few of his CD's and that is what started me on the path of listening to country music. For a while, I didn't really consider myself a "country music fan" as it were. I basically listened to my Garth stuff in my truck while driving. I eventually tuned into the area country stations and began to hear the many other talented artists and my world rapidly changed. I found myself listening to ONLY country music. Country music has hooked me "hook, line and sinker". I don't know. Say what you will. But, country music touches me like no other music has ever done so. It's a long way from back when I used to absolutely love Jeff Lynn and his band - Electric Light Orchestra.

I love the lyrics and the stories behind the country music songs of these days. I love the fact that I can listen to a country song and hear all of the words and follow along. And I'll admit, that there are plenty of country songs that have literally brought me to tears. Not necessarily from the story that they are telling, but by the thought that country music has gotten so close to my heart and certain artists have reached so far into my sole.

About twelve or thirteen years ago - don't know exactly how long ago, Garth Brooks presented a free concert in Central Park, NY. When that was announced, I just knew that I had to go. There was no way I wasn't going to go see my hero in person. I ended up going up there alone. I was in Central Park at around 6:30 in the morning for his concert that wasn't starting until 8 that night. Didn't matter to me. And believe me, I wasn't the first one there. There were thousands there ahead of me. Somehow, I managed to be in the right spot at the right time as the picture below can attest to how close to the stage I got to be. I'm telling you, it was the most electrifying day in my life. I will never forget that day. Oh yeah, it wasn't hard to spend the day with the two young ladies who came down from Canada for the concert either!

This was a fun day!

But Garth ran his course, he made his multi-millions of dollars and "retired" from the biz. I will always be indebted to Garth for getting me into country music. However, I've moved on and have found a multitude of other artists that have become favorites. Let's take a look at some of them.

Kenny Chesney is my guy these days.

Without a doubt, Kenny Chesney has become my favorite male country singing artist. I don't think there is a Kenny Chesney song that I don't like. BUT, if I had to pick a favorite of his - I guess I would have to say "The Good Stuff" ranks right up there for #1. The song is basically about this dude who has a small tiff with his wife or girlfriend and heads out to this bar and finds the old bartender alone at the place. The bartender asks what'll he have and he says "the good stuff". The wise old bartender informs him that he wouldn't find that at the bar, cause the good stuff is really things like - the first long kiss on a second date - the way your bride looks with rice in her hair and eating burnt suppers the whole first year and asking for seconds to keep her from tearing up. In the end the bartender tells him to go home and tell her that he loves her and to look into her eyes so filled with love and to "drink it up" because THAT'S "The good stuff"!! It is such a great song! Another thing that I like about Kenny is the fact that he never forgot where he came from. In fact, he employs two of his former high school buddies on his tour and management staff. I think that's pretty cool.

Brad Paisley is one whale of a talent!

Another male vocalist that I truly enjoy is Brad Paisley. Brad has the distinction of being the youngest performer to ever be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. And rightfully so. His style of music is only his own. Like Kenny Chesney, I don't think there is a single song of his that I don't like. Two of my favorites - The Fishin' Song and his most recent hit, Mud on the Tires.

In my opinion, the "King" of country music has to be George Strait. George is a no frills country singer. While others go with elaborate stage shows and clown around on stage, George simply lets his music do the talking. In fact, his songs scream with talent. Album after album after album have produced one hit after another. They say that the country music flavored movie "Pure Country" which stars Strait in the lead role as Dusty Chandler, isn't a biographical effort to detail George's role in country music, I say, it's pretty darned close. Anyway, I have seen the movie a number of times and enjoy it every time I watch it.

"Kix" Brooks and Ronnie Dunn have been the top country music duo for so many years, it's almost a foregone conclusion that they will win the award every year. Well, almost. But these two guys are a perfect match for each other and their style of music! I saw them a number of years ago at the Allentown Fair and I am glad that I did. Like George Strait, they just keep rollin' out the hits. Hits to many to mention but a few are Whiskey Under the Bridge - Boot Scootin' Boogie - Next Broken Heart and We'll Burn that Bridge when we get there. And for the longest time, I have always thought that Ronnie Dunn has the greatest male voice in country music.

Brooks and Dunn on stage

Ronnie Dunn can really belt out a tune

I have also seen Montgomery Gentry at the Allentown Fair. The only thing I regret about seeing them when I did is the fact that I didn't really appreciate it at the time. You see, they were a brand new act at the time and I think they only had one hit song and that was "Hillbilly Shoes". There hit "Cold one comin' on" is one of my all time favorites and their latest "Gone" is also a fantastic song. I stated a bit earlier that Brooks and Dunn had a virtual lock on the country music duo awards. Well, it was Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry that knocked them from that post a few short years ago. These two make up one ass-kickin country duo - HELL YEAH!

Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry - HELL YEAH!

But it isn't only the guys that I like in country music. Oh hell no - not by a long shot. I have often said that county music has some of the prettiest damned women in the world.

I said that I thought Ronnie Dunn had the best male voice in country music, well, Sarah Evans is his female counterpart. I first fell in love with Sarah's voice back when she came out with the song "No place that far" that she sand with Vince Gill supporting her with background vocals. Sarah has this great ability to make her voice - well, I like to say it "flutters". It sounds so darned pretty when she does that, and it never sounded better than in this song with Vince. One of her more recent songs that I really love is "Perfect".

Sarah Evans is Perfect!!!!!

If George Strait is the king of country music, Reba McEntire would be my Queen! I think Reba is absolutely gorgeous and man, does she have the voice of an angel. It doesn't hurt that I also love her smile. Reba will always have a place in country music and she has racked up the hits over the years to support that theory. She has branched out from her music over the last few years with success on the stage in Annie Get Your Gun and more recently, is the star in her own weekly television show.

Reba - one of my all time favorites. So darned pretty!

Martina McBride is another of my favorite female songbirds. An interesting fact about Martina is that she got her break in country music by running the t-shirt stand at Garth Brooks' concerts. That's right. She ended up marrying Garth's tour manager John McBride and she began to get the breaks and that eventually culminated in her being voted top Female Country music star. And on a personal note, in my opinion, Martina has the absolutely prettiest eyes of any female in country music. They are stunning!

Martina!!

One of the latest entries in female country music is Gretchen Wilson. Oh my lord is this girl hot! I mean that a number of ways. Her first album, Red Neck Woman, featuring the song of the same name, has become the fastest selling debut country album of all time if I'm not mistaken.

Gretchen Wilson - way more than just a Red Neck Woman!!

And last but certainly not least, is Faith Hill. I have fawned over Faith. I have claimed that she is one of the most beautiful women on the face of the Earth and I think I still believe that! I forget which video it was of hers, but they showed her dressed up in different styles of clothes from different era's and damn, she looked great in every one of them. She is just a classic beauty! And she has some pipes - the woman can sing!

And then there's Faith Hill!

So, if you ever see me toolin' down the road in my truck and I'm seemingly singin' away, you can be sure that it's country music that I'm singing to. Beleive it. Hell yeah.

The Bar!

2005-03-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

I have been quite busy since last Spring. With what? you might ask. Well, a number of years ago, I spent the entire summer months working on our home here in Ringoes, NJ. That entailed siding the entire house to match the existing siding on our detached two car - two story garage. Besides the siding job, I also (1) stucco'd the chimney (2) replaced a number of doors and windows (3) eliminated a pair or unneccesary windows on the far North end of the house (4) closed off the two openings that marked the old attached two car garage (5) fabricated a handful of attic ventilation louvers for - what else - ventilation (6) added new crawspace ventilation vents (7) encased all of the trim on the house with aluminum, making the exterior pretty much needing no upkeep except for an annual wash down with my pressure washer and (8) hung new aluminum one piece gutters all around the house.

In regards to the number of things done that summer, #'s 2 - 3 and 4 had much to do with "future plans". Being that I had had a brand new large garage built years beforehand, I could now plan on using the old two car attached garage for some other purpose. Finally, last year, I decided to move ahead with the project. The 23' X 23" room was going to be transformed into a beautiful bar room complete with fireplace for warmth, a nice big bar for entertaining, a self built poker table and a dart board for "guys nights" and of course, what would a bar room be without a pool table?

I began the project last April and I am in the middle of wrapping up the final aspects of the room these days. As I sit here and type this, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of the pool table. I am waiting for the warmer spring weather to build the poker table and a few other projects for the room since I will need the warm weather to facilitate the finishing of the projects. I will be using the same finish that I used for all of the oak in the room, and to tell you the truth, it was some potent stuff. With the warm weather, I will be able to use my wood shop to finish the stuff instead of trying to use the house. Don't want to stink it up.

I still need to order the foam for the window seat area for cushions (which I am probably going to make myself). Break out the sewing machine! Besides these items, the room is pretty much done.

I hope the pictures below came out ok. I am very new to this blog website and so, I am still a bit ignorant as to how things work.

To give you an idea of how the room looked before I started the conversion, here is a pic of the Northwest corner.

Now, the same corner just about a month or so ago.

If these pics come across ok, I might give a more detailed look at the process of turning the old garage into a really great place to congregate with our freinds.

Stay tuned!

Let's Get Started!

2005-03-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well - - I was just cruisin' some of my favorite stops on the internet and somewhere along the line, I came across this opportunity to create my own blog. I thought, what the heck, why not have somewhere to rattle off my rantings. AND, if you know me, you KNOW I rant!

This blog will consist of the occasional crap that I call my life. It's not all crap, in fact, my life is pretty good thank you. I enjoy a number of things in life and usually have no barricades in participating in them. Woodworking and fishing are two of my life's enjoyments and they will certainly be included in this effort along the way. I love to share pictures of what is going on in my life and I will be uploading pics with regularity when I think something is pertinent to being shared. If you are interested, please, play along. If not, that's cool, just feel free to stop in now and then.