Thread: G'day from WA

Hi all,

Thanks for all the handy info within the forum, I've done a lot of reading already and thought it time to say hi.

I've been away from woodworking for about 15 years, my last build was a lounge bed made out of jarrah scavenged from an old shearing shed in the southwest. Sturdy as, and likely never to exit that house again unless deconstructed.

Over the easter long weekend, I decided that my existing coffee table wasn't up to the task. It was a beautiful unapreciated antique with chess table inlay which could do with some restoration (a job for another day). Problem was, it didn't have much surface area, and was always too cluttered to actually play chess on. I wanted to stow it in a corner, and free it up for it's intended use. So after a day or two playing on sketchup, I had the blueprints, and spent the next 4 days wandering around Bunnings picking up the stuff I forgot last time. Here's a pic of the blueprints and the (almost) finished table drying in the laundry -





Simple design, with just enough roundover plunge routing to make it look like maybe I had some skill. To be honest, I was just hoping it'd be decent enough to not have one of my tradie mates call it a waste of good Jarrah. Despite some rookie mistakes (router tearout on what became the back end, lazy screw hole alignment, some splintering on crosscuts, and using Bunnings as a wood supplier), I'm happy with the result.

I finished it with Scandanavian oil, and really like the look it gave the grain. Sure, it would have been cheaper to buy a second hand one off gumtree, but then what excuse would I have for buying more tools?

Along the way, I must've inhaled enough sawdust for the wood in my veins to get a little addicitve. I ended up spending the hours between waiting for coats of oil to dry scouring the web for cheap/free wood, so that I could spend money on tools instead. 3 days later, I became the new owner of some 8 pieces of 3m+ long and 25-40mm thick and 200mm wide hardwood picked up at a salvage auction. Some of it is rough and wonky as hell, but well worth the price I paid. I estimate that once I manage to get it dressed, the savings on raw materials will more than justify the cost of equipment to get it up to DAR status.

Step 1 - get some thing more useful than the cheap foldable Ryobi workbench I'd been using. The "quality bamboo" top had warped form moisture, and although replaceable, it's a bit small to do much on. It didn't take long for me to have a lusting eye for a Triton 2000. Gumtree provided. Though I had to liquidate some assets to fund the purchase, the price was a bargain, coming bundled with a maxi extension table, a Triton TSA001 circular saw and a dust extraction kit, all for less than the RRP of the workcentre.

Here's a photo of the Triton 2000 on the back of my 2007 Triton -



Also pictured, a bunch of free 18mm ply offcuts to for making jigs or backing for future projects I picked up on the way home.

So here I am with a pile of wood, and a cornerstone to the workshop ready to operate. My salvage jarrah will definately need a run or 12 through a thicknesser before I need to figure out what to do with it, so I've got until next payday to do some virtual building in sketchup and decide on its future form. Maybe a workbench?