bio - a little LONG WINDED (sorry!)
frank shic (walnut ck, ca)
>greetings all! bjenk's recent post inspired me and i thought i'd take a few minutes to introduce myself as i've been enjoying everyone's sage advice for the last two years!
i'm in my early 30's and i currently work in vallejo for a PREMIERE health care maintenance organization while i live in walnut creek where i bought a typical OVERPRICED fixer-upper two years ago. i spent the first two weeks putting in laminate floors by myself with just an old delta miter saw that my father-in-law lent me and a rotozip (stop laughing!).
after moving in, my wife enjoyed the new floors - they were previously carpetted - but she kept complaining about how ugly the place was for what we paid for it. the previous owners had attempted to liven things up with the guest bathroom by painting BASE molding pink and nailing it to the top of the walls without any attempt at mitering whatsoever but the best example of what can go wrong when you watch too much DIY television was the master bathroom - the ENTIRE bathroom was painted BARNEY purple including the top of the toilet tank!?! although i must admit that the 70's kitchen (complete with ZODIAC glass inlaid on a mustard laminate countertop) looked a little bit better after they repainted the dark oak particle board cabinets white.
i'm a pretty easy-going guy and i probably could have lived with the house the way it was, but once my wife started talking about HIRING a general contractor to renovate, i started doing some serious researching and began learning how to renovate things myself. after spending three months on the guest bathroom and making a LOT of mistakes - including an extremely PAINFUL one involving two layers of self-levelling compound which i had to chip off the floor by hand with a chisel - i had managed to install new tile floors, crown molding, recessed lights and a pedestal sink.
as i started feeling more confident in my new found abilities, i purchased my first electric drill, a REAL miter saw, a basic router and tried building some basic saw horses as well as a garage shelving unit from plans i got from a black and decker general carpentry book. they weren't perfect but from thereon i was HOOKED!
next came in rapid succession: a tablesaw, another router, a biscuit jointer, a jig saw, a kreg pocket hole jig, a jointer and a thickness planer and finally a drill press - did i mention the air filter/dust collector? (my wife and i kept getting into VICIOUS arguments about dust in the garage and the rest of the house!). a bookcase and a set of end tables came out of the garage in between purchases as justification and validation for my tool spending. i subsequently built a bathroom vanity and linen closet with the aforementioned toys and just recently finished a set of kitchen cabinets which went fairly smoothly with a sliding table add-on.
i've had a great deal of fun being a NORMite but after racking up several minor injuries involving kickbacks on the table saw as well as a couple of projectile incidents with the router i started looking for safer methods - plus i was getting really SICK of having to wear ear plugs, a dust mask and overalls to protect myself EVERY time i turned on a machine.
after watching mike dunbar's video on easy sharpening with sandpaper and managing to accomplish it on some cheapo marples chisels and groz plane a WHOLE NEW WORLD opened its doors to me and i found myself enjoying the actual woodworking experience instead of constantly worrying about where my fingers were and whether or not i would leave the workshop today with all ten of them. the best part? my little daughter can run around and not MAIM herself - although she recently learned that the vise is a very, very HARD object!
and here i am, eagerly gobbling up any pearls of wisdom that the veterans have to offer! thanks for reading!