2010-2011 Update

Well, its been a year since my last post and despite the fact that I have made little to no progress on the biambo project, a lot has happened.  I have survived another year of Mathematics at UCSC and only have one more to go until I receive my bachelors.  So close, so very close....   Yet, while working as a full time student I have also spent many weekends building my skills and feeding "wood," so to speak, to fuel my passions to create something useful and beautiful.  

Many Sundays I have commuted with my good friend Joe up to Oakland to volunteer to build the Jay's Fence Project at Lake Merritt.  Some finished pictures as well as its construction can be seen through the following links.  

http://gardensatlakemerritt.org/gardens/japanese-garden/

http://www.daikudojo.org/Archive/200809_japanese_garden_fence_and_gate_project/

Other weekends have been spent participating in the Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival in San Jose and a small demonstration at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  Its good to support the craft.  

On my last week of school before finals,  my friend Joe and I had the privilege to do a Japanese Timber Framing workshop in Ashland, Oregon.  This unique experience gave us the opportunity to work under Robert Laporte from Econest and Dale Brotherton, a master Japanese carpenter from Seattle.  For nine days we would work 9 to 12 hours, building the entryway made out huge port orford cedar timbers.  The following links show some great images of this amazing experience.  

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?facebook=true&sourceId=984136008703

http://www.econesthomes.com/japanese-timber-framing-slideshow/

My summer has mostly been spent working with two local handymen in Santa Cruz.  Its a been a soft introduction to the work I would be doing as a carpenter.  One has had me help him repair his old camper top to a truck, the other is having me help him build a green house.  

Fortunately and unfortunately, most of my paychecks have been consumed for building up my own personal workshop.  I recently purchased a Delta 10" Contractors table saw and a Hitachi Jointer/Planer F-1000A combo.  These are the tools needed to square up my lumber.  Technically I feel I can and should do it by hand, which safer, better exercise and more educational.  However, I also feel it is important to become familiar with these tools as they will be heavily used in the kinds of professions I'm interested in.  

Lately, I have been using my new tools to square up some stock for making some saw horses and a mobile clamping bench.   Today they were used for surfacing some old growth redwood boards that will be used to make some adirondack chairs for my mom.  

Hopefully my next post will have more pictures and will be sooner than a year.