The two Adirondack chairs rolled off of the assembly line this weekend and are ready for paint. My wife is going to take care of that part of the job…a shade of blue.
Its time to clean up the shop and get to the next project. This week I hope to produce enough of the garden railroad trackbed in the shop that my son and I can begin laying it over the upcoming weekend in the yard. Constuction of the track bed should go pretty fast with the jig that I made before doing the chairs.
Additionally, I am once again looking to work on my experimental “design” for a twist-milling jig for the lathe that I attempt a few months ago with limited success. The prototype that I made had way too much wiggle in the router to make clean cuts. I am going to disassemble the prototype #1 and try to make a second prototype that is based on John Kleinbauer’s CNC design for the lathe called a “wood turtle.” I’m not sure if I am going to go the full “CNC” route as John does, or stick with the modified manual design like prototype #1 (who am I kidding, I want to play with the CNC!) This is a low priority project that is really just for fun. I bought John’s plan over the internet and they look good. I might not get to it for a while.
For now, the shop’s main projects are:
1. garden railroad trackbed
2. two Greene & Greene desks
3. modified Wood Turtle
Like this:
Like Loading...
About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 
Did you ever get around to making a WoodTurtle? I’m a Wood Turner and just getting into my research for a CNC lathe / addon to my lathe.
I did, but it did not prove to be accurate or sturdy enough for my purposes. It was fun to build though and it worked in general. I think that if I had spent enough time on it, I could have strengthened it and gotten it to work better.