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You know you've got it bad when you head to the local lumber yard intending to buy some cheap, priced-down cosmetically challenged maple (for a workbench...although apparently it has blue-green fungus in it, and now I'm not so sure it's a wise idea to use it), and come away with over 120 board feet of Khaya (minimum was 1/4 of a m3 to qualify for the special price - about $2.00 per board foot for narrower stock, and $3.50 or so for the 14-18" wide boards). It's the nice, heavier stuff too, and all the under-13" wide pieces are dead-on quartered (far as I can tell), and I suspect they'll make good necks as well as solidbody stock. Only now I have a massive pile of Khaya. And I'm tired. Because I not only moved that into the new house, I also schlepped about another 120 board feet of various timbers over at the same time. And I haven't even moved any of the maple tops or any of the acoustic guitar woods, and I've still got three large-ish mahogany boards awaiting transfer. Oh dear.

Tomorrow's also the Big Day: I pick up my new bandsaw. Have to borrow a car to go do it, still don't have the three-phase power to plug it into (that comes later, after someone takes a look at my electrical system; I don't have the first clue what to do in a fuse box), but a bandsaw I shall have. Oh yes. And the DIY center is delivering a bunch of MDF and Melamine for to be turned into workbenches and shelving. I figure I can use the big bags of rubble to glue me up a nice, big benchtop (2 layers of MDF, screw-on Melamine worktop. I figure that should be enough mass).

In Life news, I've started me pre-internship training, and my first proper internship (ie, the date from which you will see much, much less of me), 10 weeks of Internal Medicine, begins on September 11th. So I've got the summer to relax a little, study a little, and build a lot, hopefully.Mattia Valente38898.6061226852

Mattia,

I'd like to have a bit of a problem like yours, i.e., lots of nice wood to move, taking delivery of a great new tool and setting up a new shop.

Just curious, are internships in the Netherlands as much a bone-grinding test of endurance as they are in the U.S.?

At any rate, best of luck!

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Man, I can't even picture what that looks like. Sounds like a massive
amount of wood.

Poor boy!    Keep us updated on yor progress; looking forward to seeing the pictures of the new workshop!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Congrats on the wood, the saw, and the start of your internship! Life is going to get very busy for you, but I have no doubts you will handle it all well.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Hehe...It sounds like more than it is, really; picture a pile about 20" wide, 6' long and about 4' tall. Ish. That's the amount of wood I moved today. The Khaya was 13 boards, 5'5" long, 4 of them wide (13", 3 17-18" wide boards), the rest between 6" and 10", some of it shorter (4'). I still estimate I moved around 900 lbs of wood today. Minimum. Some of it down 4 flights of steps. I'm hoping to attack some of it with my Knight Jointer tomorrow, see how both react (the wood and the plane!).

Pat: internships aren't quite as bone-grinding here as they used to be, slightly more of a civilzed setup focused on maximum learning rather than maximum exploitation (in theory, anyway), 2 years of the stuff and then I can call myself an MD. And hopefully get a research position, and then specialize. But we'll see how it goes!

Mattia, congrats on the zoot pile, the saw and your internship as well, looks like ya gonna be drinking lots of coffe to keep up with your agenda, please post pics when you take 5!

[QUOTE=Mattia Valente]hopefully get a research position, and then specialize.[/QUOTE]
In treating WAS/TAS? Oh, never mind--I just remembered how you started this thread!

Mattia,

It is a beautiful life in pursuit of dreams, tools and just the right tree. What kind of saw are you getting???

[QUOTE=Tomas] Mattia,

It is a beautiful life in pursuit of dreams, tools and just the right tree. What kind of saw are you getting??? [/QUOTE]

It's a 22-year-old, pristine condition (looks much newer) 16" Cattini Enzo (Italian saw, company now out of business), 10" resaw capacity (or was it 12? Plenty, anyway).

And now I gotta run, catch a train to get the car to pick up the saw.

Mattia

Well...I got home. Just now. Everything took a little longer than expected, but thanks to some help from Russ and ingenous modern technology (as in, a board of MDF and some PVC pipe as rollers), the ABSURDLY heavy (maybe this is normal, but it felt insanely heavy) Cattini Enzo bandsaw is in it's new home, the shed I call shop. Russ mentioned y'all would be laughing at the fact the largest car I managed to borrow couldn't even fit a 6' long saw and close the hatch properly, but what the hell, it got there in one piece.

I'm taking tomorrow off, celebrating a friend's birthday with a picnic in the park, giving my muscles some well-earned rest (they all seem to be aching today), and back up to do a bit of shop-building on monday afternoon (glue up the main bench worksurface, before the rubble gets carted away).

I'm very, very impatient to try out that big newfangled piece of Italian power tooling. But I'll have to settle for giving it a good cleanup and greasup (WD-40 OK for this kind of thing? Other things better?), since it looks like the previous owner didn't believe in dust collection, and the case is a little bit...full.

Also, I've just realized I haven't eaten anything today. Hmm. Ah well. Tomorrow's another day!

Mattia,

Congrats both ways, first of all.

Regarding WD-40, as you may know, this stands for "Water Displacement formula number 40). WD-40 is great for freeing up stuck things and (of course) displacing water, but it is not a lubricant. It might work okay for the clean-up portion, although other stuff like aerosol automotivebrake cleaner might work even better. If you have compressed air, use it first.

If you need some low-viscosity lube, sewing machine oil (remember that stuff?) works well. 3-in-1 oil will also work quite nicely, and is probably fine for the bandsaw. I often use aerosol lube for low-visc work, such as Rem-Oil (made by the firearms maker, Remingtion). Any equivalent will work equally well, I'm sure.

If the saw has screw threads used for adjustments (I'm picturing the crank mechanism on my Performax drum sander), a thin coat of molybdenum disulfide grease (found at auto parts stores, etc.) works well for a lube.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

It is also important to paste wax the table or use some type of rust prevention.