The Wood and Sound Shop is open! The space is complete and ready for use! I'd like to thank my parents immensely for their support and help with this project, without them this would not be even close to possible. My hope is that the music and wood projects that come from this shop will be filled with thanks and gratitude towards those who have believed in me along the way! Now, on to business... recording a few songs and getting a press kit together is my first plan of action and I hope to be booking shows within the next month..so keep your eyes peeled for D.L. Barlow flyers! As far as the woodshop goes I am looking for all the experience I can get. So, If there is anyone out there who has any small pieces of furniture (no bigger than a chair I would say) that are need of minor repairs, or old hand tools that need restoring, I would LOVE to put my best efforts into doing so free of charge. Just be sure whatever you give me to work on isn't highly valuable or sentimental....I don't want to ruin any prized possessions. Anyhow, I am super stoked to get to work on all these things and will be posting updates as things progress!

Finished saw tote. Really pleased with how this turned out! Even carved my own version of the vintage wheat symbols.

Got a couple of old saws at an estate sale. One is a disston the other is unmarked. Hope to bring these guys back to life...sharpening, setting and jointing then making a new tote for the disston.

#moxonvise completed! The handles are a bit rough, but it works great. @itsfordoc the piece of wood from your woodpile made the back!

Four boards worth of shavings from dimensioning by hand

Set of winding sticks with rosewood inlays. Next project, a moxon vise. #moxonvise

Built my first jig today: a shooting board. From what I've read it's one of the first jigs any woodworker should build. All necessary edges are square and it works great!

So here's the next project in my woodworking venture...turning this space into a woodshop. Cleaning and clearing out should pose no problem but the walls are the thing that have me stumped. I want to cover them somehow. Covering the walls is mainly for cosmetic purposes but also to keep the dust off of my work. Anyone have any affordable ideas?

Mostly finished bridge. Just needs a bit more sanding. For my first ever effort building a bridge I am very pleased with the results. There are a few notches and scratches and the wings are a bit uneven and thin, but overall the shape is decent and I got a lot of practice with a chisel (which is probably the best part).

Here's my work so far on the bridge. Overall not too bad. I messed up the pin holes a bit, but they are workable. I routed the saddle slot all by hand (not an easy task!) and it ended up a bit wide. I've since made a shim to fit in the slot to correct the width. I may plug up the pin holes and try drilling again. Next is carving the wings of the bridge.

Bridge blank and bone for nut and saddle arrived in the mail today. The piece for the saddle was cracked in half during shipping but I am sure LMI will remedy this. I am super excited to get started on this bridge as it will be my first attempt at building a guitar part and my first attempt at repairing a guitar as well. Wish me luck!

Found some clearance 2x4's at my local your building center and made this workbench. Had a board in my shed that I was able to use for a temporary top. I plan on building a better top with laminated 2x4's when I get a chance. It isn't pretty but it's much better than the POS I was using.

Starting my day with a cup of coffee and flattening my oilstone. Already put two hours into this puppy yesterday...should be able to finish up today. #oilstone #vintagetools

Good hunting at the flea market today. All this for 50 bucks! I'm especially happy with the sharpening stone, off-set Japanese dovetail saw and the three chisels. There it's a bit of cleaning up to do but I am up for the task!

When just starting in working on guitars the first thing to be done is to aquire some tools. This Stanley no. 4 plane was handed down to me by my dad. It was pretty rusty so I decided to try my hand at restoring her to working order. After some research, and realizing I didn't have most of the stuff people recommended to do the job, I took to it with some good ol' WD-40 and 100 grit sandpaper. The results were very satisfactory and she is shining like new again! I even gave sharpening the iron freehand a try with the sandpaper. Some who are more experienced will probably wince at that idea, but I firmly believe that learning to use what I have to get the job done will greatly benefit me when I do have the right stuff. All in all this project was a great success to me. I put her back together and took it for a test run and she's working great! Although some may argue it could be a touch sharper I had no difficulty getting nice shavings.

So...I've been stricken with the itch to get my hands on some guitar work. I'm trying to get stuff around to build a guitar but that process seems to be going very slowly...so I figured why not tear a guitar apart instead? This is a Kay guitar I bought a while back. I LOVE the sound it has but never get to play it as much as I would like because the action is very high and the intonation is terrible. I think the neck needs a reset but today I noticed the bridge is being pulled up significantly. So I thought I'd try my hand at removing it. I used a putty knife heated up by an iron to carefully remove the bridge and then cleaned up the area underneath with sandpaper. I'm pretty pleased with how this operation turned out. Down to bare wood underneath and only have some minor chips in the finish around the edge.