Motorcycle diary of Joy Dutta

I find myself very much hooked to woodturning by now, so I decided to have a better lathe. Thanks to craigslist I sold off my earlier central machinery lathe within 24 hours of posting an ad.

I was deciding between the Jet and Rikon mini lathes and visited the San Carlos Woodcraft today morning with Bhaskar. The shop guy recommended the Rikon for its better feature set over the Jet, and a $50 discount on the Rikon made them both equally priced. They didn’t have the Rikon in stock, but booked one for me at the Dublin Woodcraft. We drove for 40 min to go there and found it to be a bigger store. There was also a free demo of sharpening woodturning chisels by a local artisan, and it was a perfect tutorial for both of us at that moment.

Here is the Rikon model I got.

Came home with a lighter wallet but lots of anticipation to turn bunches of spindles and possibly bowls in the coming weekends. Keep checking my woodturning gallery often.

Woodwork projects with Bhaskar are without doubt getting ever more interesting. The proof is now at hand. With a couple scrap maple and a single piece of walnut from a wood shop made this project possible in a weekend.

I recently finished two small projects for my uncle’s house. An artwork frame to begin with, then a patio staircase. Two weekends well spent, with excellent bengali food prepared by aunty.

Both were first-timer projects for me but things went well with the little experience I gained in one year. What I like the best in doing these is the design part. Even for making a simple frame there are many easy ways to spoil the work. The staircase took me a couple evenings to finalize the design and a few back-breaking hours on a cloudy saturday morning to finish. The satisfaction is just the tonic I need every time.

Lathe machines always awed me since I worked with one during freshman year at college. At that time we had a machine shop course and did only metal works. Now having woodworking as an active hobby, I badly wanted to see the wonderful world of wood turning. There are a whole lot of stuff that can be done on this one piece of machine. From spindles for furniture legs, to bowls and even wooden pens that can make excellent gift items.

I got a killer deal of an almost new 14×40 central machinery lathe for beginners (worth $140) for $50, including a set of turning chisels. The best part is that the lathe is whisper quite which meant even late nights were no bar for working on it.

I am gonna make a whole gallery of turned items very soon.

I just needed a welcome break from the routine life. Lately, weekend woodworking has been a lot enjoyable, but something was just not right for a while. No cruising the highways, no roadside eating, no getting away from the traffic congestion. I had become lazy enough and desperately needed to ride. Somewhere. Anywhere.

A bunch of fine woodworking magazines for $15 - suddenly caught this ad in craigslist while looking for some scrap lumbar. Location - Auburn, CA. A quick check on the map, and there it is - I-680 followed by I-80 and then some nice country road - CA-49. Those magazines suddenly seemed like a bonus for a charming ride. Not to mention those are the finest in its class and makes woodworking all the more meaningful.

Despite the chilly morning, it brought back some memorable moments from my epic ride last winter. I braved the freezing wind effortlessly with my gerbing jacket liner and heated grips. How I missed the fresh air and the fog in the valleys. Riding early in the morning in these areas always makes one feel like riding through some fairy land. Auburn is a pretty little town, away from the crowds. The guy I visited had a nice farmhouse with a gravel road connecting it from CA-49. My concours is not fond of gravel at all so I had to handle it very carefully. To add to the tension, two big free-roaming neighborhood dogs scared the daylight out of me. It was a LOT of pain to reverse the bike as the front door of the house was at the end of a downhill stretch. It was almost embarrasing with the couple watching me fight the 600lb beast.

A delicious snack at the local KFC while I glanced at a couple of mags refreshed me up after the 160mi cruise, non-stop. I was glad to find my riding stamina almost matching up with the refueling interval (180mi).
I wish I took a little detour on the return way, but as always I am impatient to execute the next plan, which is making some wood project I have in mind for a week.

320 miles from 8am to 3pm. I would say this is an excellent warm up ride for the upcoming big ones this year.

And, 17 FineWoodWorking magazines for $15 - can’t beat this kind of deal, I am sure.

A workshop, even a small one, should be the heart of every household. Doing regular maintenance and building own furnitures is not only a way to save in the long run, it is one of life’s most important lessons combined with quality time and loads of fun.

Every visit to HomeDepot is a pain to me. Not only that I get stuck over and over again at the tools aisle, I somehow can’t come out without lightening my wallet. According to my friend John, this “common-with-men” behavior signifies I passed the manhood test. For the female species, the same is true with JCPenny/Macy.

I have more or less a compact and functional workshop now, packed within a 5′x12′ storage room. A portable table saw takes most of the space and is the king of my workshop. A powerful shop vac keeps the place clean. A homemade router table with dust collection system added a lot of utility. And just today I added a long awaited drill press.

My workshop is now the most peaceful place for me in the house. I can unleash all my creativity in that space and kill a bunch of time whenever I wish. The big difference of this and my other hobby of photography is that the latter has a lot of dependence on light/timing/events/subjects. In my workshop, any idea can materialize at any time.

I can’t wait to finish a small toy I am making for my 5yr old niece, the game of Abalone. The shape of the board begs to be made out of wood. There are so many gift items that can be made, and I hope it will keep me excited for a long time to come.

Needed some more space efficiency in the shoe-cupboard for the helmets. A simple design for a wooden cloth hanger was in my mind for a few days so I thought that would be an useful thing to do.

Helmets are heavy, so a little modification to my original design was necessary. Firstly, I put two round wooden sticks an inch apart for load sharing. Secondly, I drilled the holes for them at an angle so the helmets don’t fall or come to the edge easily. The project seemed to come out well after several hours of labor on friday night after work.

Always wanted to have a pegboard setup like I did today. Feeling very satisfied to have a proper tool storage now. Next, a basic workbench and I will have a fully functional mini workshop for a variety of complex carpentry projects.

I really need some basic furniture and dont feel like going to IKEA when Home Depot is behind my back and ideas are bubbling inside. Looks like the following projects are in short order: shelves, wooden hook array, workbench and a computer desk.

One very good side effect of this hobby: time just flies.

I finished my first carpentry project here just now. The result is rewarding though not too exciting. I just needed to practise my skills of cutting, joining and sanding a small piece of wood. The shelf I made is 24″x8″x5″ and is entirely made out of one 2′x2′ sheet of 1/4″ thick block wood. The circular saw cut it like butter. I joined the pieces by small right angle brackets. It was difficult to get small screws so I had to sand out the extended part of the screws by a dremel tool. The rounded top part was the suggestion of my apt mate Piyush who supported this whole idea of making own furnitures. This shelf is going to be hung beside our main door to keep mails, keys and miscellaneous stuff.

I will be quite ambitious about the next projects. I desperately need a couple of shelves/drawers in my room. Havent yet decided how to go about it. In the meantime I will be making small corner shelves for various uses.