Obsessive hobbies....

twich54 said:

Mark, have you ever experienced some of these nasty mishaps ??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NciePa8sY_U

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In the beginning I had a lot of crashes. I started with a micro-heli to learn the basics. If you got into trouble just kill power and all 1.5 oz of it would just fall to the ground. 9 times out of 10 you would just dust it off and keep flying.

In a few months I built a full sized heli defined by needing full sized servos and 550mm blades. I crashed the snot out of that heli. Frequently about $300+ per crash.
I downsized to a 500 sized heli that was much simpler and cheaper to repair.

Then I FINALLY started to take using a flight simulator seriously. That was a game changer.

I now average 1-2 minor crashes a year now but mostly my smaller helis. My last crash was June 2016. Of my larger helis, my TDR went down last in 2013 and my Protos Max and TDR2 have never been crashed.

I'm running my TDR2 pretty hard for speed runs. If it does crash it will probably be pretty bad and be near 1K to repair it. I had a friend who crashed his Banshee to the tune of about $2,500. His motor tore through the canopy on impact and was about 50 feet away. That was pretty close to catastrophic.

This has been a long project, but it is finally nearing completion.

In this picture everything is laying in place, but the drawers are not mounted, fascia boards not mounted and handles are not mounted.
I spent the whole day hanging drawers today.

It still needs more finish work, but I tried to get a good start on the finish before assembling it.

Cool, nice work.

Hocky said:

Cool, nice work.

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Thanks! The flash was my friend in that picture. Right now I'm still putting on coats of polyurethane and wet sanding. I'm up to 800 grit paper. Except for the edge trim where I want the grain to show I'm going for a glassy finish.

Looks great Mark. What are you going to use it for? I didn't see a description in any recent posts.

Brad225 said:

Looks great Mark. What are you going to use it for? I didn't see a description in any recent posts.

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Office storage space for lots and lots of small specialty tools and Plano boxes filled with helicopter parts, and for camera/video cameras, lenses, batteries, etc.. etc..

This was my SketchUp drawing for it that I made in January. I wanted a clean design with sharp edges.


I'm currently designing a companion piece for my office that will hold all my camera and strobe tripods and a number of other things.

I'm not happy with the design yet.

I want a similar look, but so far it still seems clunky/ugly. This is very rough looking. I'll use a Rail/Style Bit pair for cabinet door frames etc. I have a lot more work to do on the design and I need to measure everything I want to fit in it.



Before I build that companion piece, I'm going to rebuild a coffee table top that we eat on in the media room.
I'm planning on walnut framing and walnut inlay with recessed birds eye maple veneer, and a bullet proof bar top epoxy over it.
I still haven't figured out what kind of edge treatment to give it.



I'm also thinking of a front foyer piece that will have curved legs, a round, top, and lamination of contrasting woods as well as inlay work. I may even carve a bit on that piece.
I'm just starting the design of it. I may also do that before the companion piece in my office. I'm want that design much cleaner before I start it.

In my office holding lots of tools and parts.

It's official, my woodworking hobby has taken over.
There is a steady stream of new tools arriving almost every day.

My wife has been complaining that I'm spending way too much time playing in my shop are and I need to balance my priorities out again.
This Monday I spent half a day selecting hardwood to bring home and ended up with a bunch of Walnut, Maple, White Oak, Sapele, African Purpleheart, Brazilian Ebony, Blood Wood, and a couple others I don't remember, along with some Arctic birch plywood from Europe.

It has achieved true sickness.

Looks good Mark. I have the same router lift, just an older model in the end of one of my table saws.

The issue with woodworking is, there are so many specialized tools to make the job easier/more accurate there is no end to acquisition.

Other than maybe a spouse.

Fortunately, my major purchases have happened over years building furniture for clients.

On a different but related item.
I am working on the Crown molding and other trim right now in a new master bedroom/bathroom addition on our house. At 64 years I really can live without being on staging and up and down ladders constantly. Though it is my fault for being very picky about quality of work. As long as I don't run out of icepacks, Advil and wine it should all work out.

This is another project that developed a life of its own. What started with a bathtub replacement in a very small master bath then, 3 or 4 variations of that then became 700 sq. ft. of garage and 700q. ft of bedroom suite. Only to be compounded by my OCD wanting nice trim and baseboard in the finished garage.

My wife said after the major renovation to the 900 sq. ft. space we lived in for 10 years she was done with renovation of homes. Then she started thinking about the garage to keep pollen and bird poop off her car and a jetted tub for sore muscles after tennis matches. She came home after a match one day and said maybe I could do some drawings but no commitment on a go ahead at that time.
Needless to say the tub won her over.

From my last project.

Nicely done Mark ! ........ :bowdown:

Beautiful work!

Thanks!

The whole idea was to replace a square table that held a plant in my front foyer. One of our cats would sit on the corner of that table top and eat the plant. So I got rid of the corners. He cried about it for the first day but hasn't been eating the plant since then




Just built a pair of infeed / outfeed / side support tables for my table saw last weekend.

These are my next two projects.

The first is my 2nd generation Media room table with a sliding snack tray on the back to hold chips, popcorn, chocolate bags etc..
I'm building it out of a 3/4" baltic birch ply core with 1/4" thick white oak, curly maple and rosewood veneers. It will get an epoxy bar top finish since we eat on this table.
I'm increasing the height by 1" and making the remote drawer shallower than my current version.

The second is wall storage for my office that will hold my camera tripods, some books, office supplies etc..
I'm planning to hang it from a french cleat on the wall.It's evolved a bit since the earlier version I posted a while back.

Listening to my system is about 3rd or 4th in line of my obsessive hobbies, but is certainly moving up the chart thanks to these MartinLogans. Old Pontiacs, cars, and motorcycles seem to always have the #1 spot.

The red one is my daily driver, '76 Firebird Formula

The black-ish rusty one is a '67 GTO that I plan to keep forever. When I bought it, it had no engine, no front end, no back window (window channel had rusted out completely) and a barn roof had fallen on it and bent the passenger side "A" pillar about 4 inches down, among other things. Someday it will be it's original color, Mariner Turquoise.



Ryan

The table top for my new media room table. I hope to finish this project in a months time since I haven't made the legs, drawers or rear snack tray yet.

Book matched bird's eye maple framed in white oak with ebony accent, and sapele edge banding.





I'm just loving this stuff! Beautiful to my eyes!

Nice. I wish I was good with wood working.

Have the track wheels with big boy slicks on and ready for some road racing. Let's gooooo!

I used to be into cars and used to do Rallies and Autocross, but I've lost my taste for fast cars. I've had convertible sports cars, German luxury sedans etc.. Now I drive a Honda Crosstour and I'm completely happy with it.

It's taken me forever, but I finally have my media room table feature complete.
I'm doing the final sanding and finishing right now. After all this work I'm taking my time getting the finish just right.

It looks much better in person. The translucence of birds eye maple and curly maple are hard to capture. There is a sheen that changes as you move and the light reflects off of it. The ribbon sapele has some nice play off the light too.



Look carefully at the 3 drawers and notice the tolerances Perfection!
I cut the drawer fronts out of a single piece with a VERY thin kerf bandsaw blade so it would look nearly solid when in place.
Of course no one will ever see that once it is in place.

RCHeliGuy said:

The table top for my new media room table. I hope to finish this project in a months time since I haven't made the legs, drawers or rear snack tray yet.

Book matched bird's eye maple framed in white oak with ebony accent, and sapele edge banding.

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I'm just loving this stuff! Beautiful to my eyes!

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Gorgeous mark!!

So how many coats of what? And sanding between coats - I always mess that up it seems. You use sand paper (what grit) and lots of tack cloths??