Life and Woodworking
I’ve always been a bit of a tool and workshop freak. I’ve had some kind of work and tool area from the age of about 8. I started to get into woodworking in my early 20’s when I had access to my former father-in-law’s workshop. In my late 20’s I bought a table saw and started to collect tools, and built a nice european-style workbench, tool cabinet and several pieces of furniture. All but one of the furniture pieces found their way to the homes of friends and relatives as we moved and gave away many of the pieces I’d made. However at that time I couldn’t really afford the lumber or the equipment, and I began concentrating on my career and other family obligations and woodworking kinda fell by the wayside.
In 2006 I decided that I’d spent enough of my life consumed by career, family and never-ending home improvement projects, and decided that it was time to get back into this hobby.
I’ve spent the first year upgrading some of my older tools and machinery and acquiring some new ones, and hope to soon have some new furniture for my gallery here.
Getting involved with the Southeast Michigan Woodworkers has been a major help in getting back into this. A great bunch of people possessing a tremendous body of knowledge about this craft, and all willing to help those of us less skilled. Thanks Guys! (that includes you too, Cindy! 
)
For those club members needing help getting something posted on the wiki here, send me a PM or email via the SEMIWW Forum. Just go to the memberlist page and look for “Steve”.
My Shop
Interesting (and recommended) Tools
Gallery
Shop Stuff
Sometimes I’m driven to making stuff for the shop from poverty, but more often it’s just fun to design and build stuff. A bad day working with tools is better than a good day doing 90% of the other stuff I do.
Furniture
Restorations
I’ve long been both irritated by the fact that almost everything we buy can’t be repaired - it just gets thrown away. I’ve also admired folks who can restore old stuff - like antique furniture, tractors, houses and vintage cars. Sadly a lot of this restored stuff sits in museums or gets used only occasionally, like the restored 50’s era cars that some of my neighbors have that only get driven a half-dozen times a year.
I became interested in restoring old woodworking machinery because it plugs into both of these interests, and yields something that doesn’t sit in a glass case but gets used - a lot!
