Peter Brown's ShopTime

I originally wrote this post in 2008. It seems oddly applicable today! Is your shop time plagued by a similar scourge? ~~~   There seems to be no shortages of people places or objects to bestow your esteem, regard, respect, approval or reverence. So how is it that I ended up here? Recently I find myself making sacrifices to a god that I didn't even know existed until a few moths back. This god is now the ruling force in my workshop, second to none with the power to change the outcome of even the smallest of event. That's right, the god of Oops.

Do you need a geeky plexiglass LED light? What am I saying? Of course you do!

This came out really cool! I was originally trying to create a baked marble effect. (a sort of cracked glass look) Apparently it is not noticeable in black marbles. Which make perfect sense in hindsight (as most things do!) Finished with wipe on poly, the oak and mulberry seem to go well together!

I'm very pleased with this project! It's just so interesting! The epoxy and jean turned very nicely with my bowl gouge and I was actually getting nice shavings off it! Turns great on the lathe!

This is actually the second box I made this weekened. The first one came out great, but I had a major allergic reaction to it. So much that I had to toss the wood and wait a day to get back in the shop to make a second. As good warning, some woods are more prone to this than others... So I ended up using my leftover from my wine barrel blank . As such the shop smelled strongly of wine during most of the build. I suppose I can pretend that is the reason for me acting a bit silly on film! The copper was just a 1" copper pipe from the hardware store. Cut open, pounded flat and heated with a torch. I also got to try mixing epoxy with coffee grounds. I helped fill some gaps in my copper inlay, and also smelled quite nice. Although I forgot to film it, I did spray the box with two coats of lacquer. I guess I just got a little ahead of myself!  Thanks!

So I posted what I thought would be a fun video on You-Tube last week: A ring made from colored pencils: What I didn't anticipate was how well received it would be! As of this point it has 190k views and about 125 shares. Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!  Also thank you to all of you who subscribed! I have a ton of new ideas. They are one part woodworking and one part crazy. I think many of them will prove to be interesting. At the very least I hope to stimulate some other ideas, or get people motivated to risk failing at something themselves! So stay tuned, and thank you again for the support! I hope I live up to it! -Peter Brown

OK, so it’s one part wood turning and one part crafting and not to everyone’s taste but I really dig the outcome. Light on my desk. I need to make some space for it... I bought some cool Edison style light bulbs a while back and just thought I needed to try this industrial thing. My office is very modern and it works for me. I wanted it to look like someone was locked in a basement with a bunch of junk and needed light, so they cobbled together whatever they could and came up with this. In all truth it’s kind of what happened! I raided my shed and found a bunch of electrical and plumbing parts that I mashed into useless gears and buttons. I already want to build another one, maybe a bit more refined this time…