![\"Shopbot](\"https:\/\/www.bissellwoodworking.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/shopbot-assembly-day3-3.jpg\")
<\/a>Our Shopbot CNC router has a cutting area of 4′ x 8′ x 6″ deep and takes up a 14′ x 11′ room<\/p><\/div>\n
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Lots of Work – No Time for Lunch<\/h2>\n
Since April of 2015 we have been very busy – so busy in fact that I barely take a break for lunch anymore.\u00a0 I used to take a full hour+ for lunch and walk the 1\/4 mile home to eat it but I haven’t done that in years.\u00a0 Now I just take a break long enough to eat a sandwich and then I’m right back to work.\u00a0 Custom furniture making is generally a feast or famine existence and I’ve learned over the years (35 years in the business as of April 2017) that when you’re busy you work as hard as you can while you have the work. When you don’t have work you catch your breath and do the things you didn’t have time for when you were busy – and then start worrying. Here are just a few of the custom pieces I’ve made since 2015:<\/p>\n
<\/a>Custom bathroom vanity in cherry with curly maple door panels and ebony pegs.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Custom sheet music cabinet in cherry, maple and curly maple.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Detail of a dovetailed cherry blanket chest with drawer<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Asian night table drawer pull details. Cherry with curly maple and ebonized cherry.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>2 Door wall cabinet in cherry with rosewood stained finish.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>2 door wall cabinet bevel and hinge detail<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>2 door wall cabinet detail. I’d forgotten how difficult this cabinet was. Nice details throughout.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Our New Sawmill!<\/h2>\n
For many years I’ve thought it would be great to be able to mill lumber from our own land for use in the shop.\u00a0 In 1963 my parents bought the 140 acre mostly wood property where my shop is located and had it logged in 1972.\u00a0 Since then no logging has been done so there’s quite a bit of mature timber on the property – pine, hemlock, soft and hard maple, birch, cherry, oak, ash, aspen.\u00a0 In 2010 we had some lumber milled from trees that were blown down in\u00a0 a thunderstorm. I used quite a bit of this lumber for furniture for paying customers but also made myself a very nice bureau with cabinet (see below) that was made entirely from our own lumber. The logs were taken to a sawmill near here and dried at a nearby kiln.<\/p>\n
<\/a>7 drawer bureau with cabinet made from cherry, hard maple, soft maple, aspen and pine from our own trees.<\/p><\/div>\n
We have just purchased a sawmill of our own and plan to build a solar kiln in the spring. While we certainly won’t be able to supply all the wood we use in the shop I am looking forward to adding some of our own lumber to the mix.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Our new Woodmizer sawmill and some freshly sawed lumber. The insert is a picture of me taken in 1966 just outside of where my workshop is now located.<\/p><\/div>\n
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If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading all this. It may be a while before I write another blog post but rest assured I’ll still be making furniture.<\/p>\n
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I just don’t seem to have time to write blog posts or at least I’m not willing to find the time.\u00a0 My last post was almost 3 years ago! I had a prospective customer visit the shop this summer and … Continue reading