Well, I haven’t posted in more than a year but things are ramping up a bit here at the Aerie, I may be closer to retirement at my “real” job than I anticipated which means I might be closer to being able to make sawdust full time than I hoped. As such, I’ve been working toward some changes at the shop: I’ve been building a stock of slabs to build furniture with as well as accumulating a substantial supply of bowl blanks and other turning stock. I’m building a new wood shed to store this new supply while it dries and cures; you have to figure at least a year per inch of thickness to air dry. I’ve hopefully found a wood kiln being built within a reasonable driving distance to finish drying my stock sooner.
I’ve also bought the building permit to break ground on a new, much larger shop that I hope to be able to move into by this summer or fall at latest. This new shop will allow me to not only hard mount my lathe onto the concrete slab so I can turn off-balanced turning stock without the lathe shaking and walking across the floor but will also provide me with the available room to build my 20′ Mahogany Barrel Back boat and the line of cedar strip canoes I plan to include in my stock. I plan to include carved chairs and other furniture with my products from the shop so the larger work space will be very beneficial.
Finally, once I’m in my new shop I hope to be able to implement a program that I’ve had in mind for several years: I want to offer an opportunity for students who want to learn the basics of woodworking, metalworking and leatherworking at no cost to them. My hope is to help youth from families who aren’t financially able to explore these disciplines otherwise to possibly prepare for possible future employment as woodworkers or simply to learn new skills. Once this program is implemented I’ll rely on donations as well as funds raised from sales of products from the shop for its finance. I already have a Patreon account but am not advertising it yet because I have no firm time line for the program’s launch.
I’ve bought a couple new cameras so I plan to start producing videos again soon for my YouTube channel so I would appreciate new subscriptions, likes and comments to my videos. If I can get another 500 subscribers I can realize financial benefits from my videos again.
Every penny I receive from Patreon or Youtube will go back into the shop to purchase supplies or tools to be used with the Mentorship program.
Until then, check back for regular updates and a re-vamping of my website and check out my YouTube channel, subscribe if you aren’t already a subscriber. I’ll be starting to have drawings for items I make in the shop for subscribers again soon so theres another incentive!
See y’all soon!
