Finally post processed the photos I took at The Woodworking Show with assistance from our photographer friend Justin last Saturday.  I’m sorry it took so long, I know I promised I’d have it up weeks ago but the holidays have been pretty busy and we’ve been working on Brian’s house a lot.

For those who didn’t manage to attend the show, representatives for most of the major North Texas groups were there. The North Texas CNC User Group was there and I was working at their booth on Sunday with Bob Campbell, Cecil Craft, Gerald Rice, and Charlie Parker. The DFW Scrollers had the table right next to ours where they were teaching people how to use a scroll saw all weeekend. The North Texas Woodworker’s Association, North Texas Wood Carvers Guild, and North Texas Wildfowl Carvers were all next to each other on the other side of the snack bar from us. I was particularly impressed by the Wildfowl Carvers managing to make some very intricate carvings during the show, though I only got some lousy quality cellphone shots of Cal working that I’m too ashamed to post.

If any of this work is yours, please post a comment or use my contact form to claim credit so I can link your website or email address or some way for people to purchase work from you.

We’ve updated the site to WordPress 3.0, and done a bunch of cleanup and maintenance while we’re at it.  Please comment if you see any problems.

I thought I’d spend a little time trumpeting the excellent designs our friend Kenneth from Whittled in Wood is making. He moved to California and retrofitted his machine, so it’s been a while since he’s cut many parts, but he’s been making up for it with a vengeance over the last few months.

Pinewood Derby Batmobile

Kenneth grabbed a Batmobile model from the Google Sketchup model warehouse, and exported it as a photo. Then he imported that photo to Vectric’s Photo VCarve and cut it into the Pinewood Derby Kit.

Kids Clothing Boxes

Kenneth was inspired by some of the “friction fit” snap together designs many people have been coming up with lately for CNC mills. He needed some storage boxes for his kids clothing, and designed these. He let his kids pick out the insignias for the sides.

Tree Bookshelf

Kenneth’s lovely wife had a brilliant idea for a bookshelf. She envisioned a giant stylized tree, with all the limbs supporting books. She drew it out, and Kenneth designed it in Sketchup. He used the “Sliced model” skeleton style that’s been popular lately with snap together puzzles and models.

Here’s what the finished trunk looks like

More details are available in two posts on his blog:

http://whittledinwood.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-bride-is-pleased-with-her-list-of.html

http://whittledinwood.blogspot.com/2010/04/trunk-of-tree.html

Piano Boxes

Kenneth has been commissioned to make small piano-shaped boxes for a local piano teacher. These are still in prototype form. Kenneth is trying to decide whether to hinge them on the outside, or leave the top loose but the outside unblemished by hardware. I personally suggested internal hinges. What do you think? Let him know: http://whittledinwood.blogspot.com/2010/04/piano-box.html

The boxes are used to hold tokens the teacher gives out throughout the year, which can later be redeemed for prizes.

Anyway, I’d like to take this time to announce that Kenneth has made us official distributors for his designs. If anyone wants any of this in the North Texas area, we’re the guys you should come to. If you’re closer to northern California, give him a call.

You’re currently seeing our first fully completed cut. Also, we managed to restart that piece we were cutting last night until we hit the 500 line limit on the trial of Mach 3 with pretty good results too.

Pics:

Here’s a video of us cutting it, from start to finish.

And here’s the sanding process that finishes it.

Brian hasn’t announced it here yet, but he’s started a new blog chronicling all the work he’s doing refurbishing his house. He’s also covering some of the mill work in more technical detail and announcing our plans for each night ahead of time.

http://briansprojects.wordpress.com/

Here’s a selection of some of his cooler posts with some photos.

Spice Rack design and build for his kitchen

http://briansprojects.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/spice-racks-for-the-kitchen/

Spice Rack

Kitchen Before and After

http://briansprojects.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/kitchen-pages/

New Kitchen

Old Kitchen

Snow Photography

http://briansprojects.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/my-global-warming-is-broken-can-i-borrow-yours/

February 11th Snow

http://www.ntcncug.com/index.htm

I attended this yesterday and I’m heading back right now. This users group has been a blast so far, with tons of operational machines, workshops on software and techniques, and plenty of useful networking. I’ll see if I can borrow a camera to take some photos for our loyal readers. I also added some of the contacts I made to the link bar, go ahead and check them out.

Over the last few days we had many of the parts for the controller arrive.  The PDMX 132 controller is the main component that arrived (this thing is huge).  There are only a few items remaining that have not arrived that are required to being building the controller.  Enjoy the pictures: