Back in the shop

Buenas dias from Costa Rica

Of course by now you know it is another sunny 75 degree day here in C.R with the possibility of a sunny 75 degree day tomorrow.

Well I went back into to the shop today and did the big clean up. After an evening of hulling my coffee beans, I recently learned the yellow covering of the bean after it has been removed from the red cherry is called the parchment, and removing is is called hulling the bean. I did it by hand, rubbing the beans vigorously between my hands, which was pretty rough on them. I found a video on youtube using a cheap blender and filing down the blades to where they don't damage the bean. I think I will try that when the beans I picked yesterday are ready for hulling. Soon I will  be roasting them on my gas grill, I rigged up a cage that is attached to the rotisserie motor , can't wait to put that to use. Also a new espresso maker will be arriving mid January. Costa Rica has a wonderful custom called 3:00 o'clock cafecito that I look forward to as much as Merry and Pipin look forward to second breakfast.. Everything stops at 3:00 p.m. for cafecito and you always have it with sweet and salty bread. Life is good here in C.R. my friends.    

Back to the shop, as I reluctantly entered my shop to start cleaning it I surprisingly encounter a friend setting up his home over my bench. You never know what you will find in a shop in the tropics. As you can see in the pictures it was pretty bad in there and after about half a day of cleaning the shop was looking pretty respectable and inspiring. There is nothing like a clean well organized shop to help your work. On the back wall the before picture I had a peg board next to my plane cabinet. It seemed to be good for collecting dust and nothing more so I took it down. To my surprise the back was half eaten and filled with termites. It also smelled really moldy. On the other side of that back wall is my neighbor's back yard. They are always watering the plants that must be on the other side of that wall. That in turn keeps that wall damp which wasn't good for a wood product to be screwed to it. I really want to build a tool chest like the anarchist's tool chest just because of the humidity here in C.R. my tools all develop a surface rust to them no matter how often I clean them. So I hope to eventually remove the wall cabinet.

To give you an update on the Chinese checker board. If you can see in one of the before pictures I placed the board on two pipe clamps and places some loose weights on it over night. That seemed to do the trick of straightening it out. I hope to get some finish on it soon. I am still pretty exhausted from the building marathon and the clean up to where I might wait until Monday to get back at it. One thing I have noticed is the wood pieces cut for the other projects are down to about 11-13% which is pretty good.

So the moral of this story is always give plenty of time for your projects. Never try to rush it, you will only end up rushing yourself to destruction. Give the wood plenty of time to settle in your shop to a workable moister level. And always keep a clean shop to inspire you through the journey. So take care my friends, keep up the good work, don't grow weary in well doing, and God bless

Mark Hynek

Do you ever NOT want to work in your shop?

Buenas dias from Costa Rica

Once again it is a beautiful sunny 75 degree day here in Sarchi. The winds have picked up quite a bit to where it sounds like bombs are going off on your roof. They use corrugated tin roofs here in C.R, Christmas went well with the cantata we held at our church. The people really enjoyed getting involved with it even if they only had 3 weeks to prepare.

On a personal note we had a wonderful Christmas has a family, which brings me to the topic of this post. Do you ever Not want to work in your shop? I pose that question after what I experience over these past few days. Right now I can say I don't want to be in my shop. It is not because I don't have a love for woodworking, I wouldn't have a shop if I didn't. It is also not due to my working with only hand tools, If you read Tom Fidgen's blog theunpluggedwoodshop.com you can read how he mentions that you really have to love working with hand tools when you begin to re-saw wood. The reason I don't want to be in my shop is I am just burnt out right now and don't have any motivation to open that door. As I contemplated why this was so I cam to a number of conclusions or  observed a number of variables that contributed to my exhaustion from woodworking. This all has come about from my building the Christmas presents for my family, which I wasn't able to finish on time. But it wasn't just that the environment in the shop also contributed to my lack of desire or motivation to continue.

Regarding the presents them selves, which weren't beyond my ability, was first of all the timing of the arrival of the wood. I was limited on where I could get the wood due to finances. A friend from church who has his own shop had bought my router table. all my bits, and a number of routers. He paid my cash for some and traded my with wood for some other stuff. He would bring some wood over when I needed it and deduct that from what he owed me. Unfortunately I couldn't get in contact with him until a week and a half before Christmas. When he finally brought over the wood it was way to wet to work with. I left it out in the sun and two days later was at a lever I though I could work with. Unfortunately that wasn't so and the wood was very difficult to work with and very stringy when I planed it. The pieces warp but I had anticipated that, at least I though I did, and let the wood sit after an initial planing. The second contributing factor aside from the wetness was the timing as mentioned before. I was trying to rush the process though I felt I was taking my time yet I realized I wouldn't get all of it done in time. The closer I got to Christmas the faster I began to work, which brought more frustration and sloppy work. Finally on Christmas eve I had worked all day until it was time to go to church, having not yet finished what I had hoped to finish. I came to a point where I realized there was no way I would get it all done on time so I opted to work on just a few of the projects. My plan was to come back to the shop after the evening service and work through the night if I had too. I thank the Lord that He didn't allow me to do that, a friend from church who had not been at the evening service called to invite my family and I to his house to celebrate Christmas eve, which we accepted. We had a really wonderful time and I know now that if I had tried to work all night I would have produced a horrible present for my kids. So I managed to get two projects finished to put under the tree and planned on getting back into the shop after Christmas. One of the projects, a simple Chinese checkers board looked fine when I had finished the building of it, I still have to finish it, but once I brought it into the house the board warped horribly. Our house is an open air house here in C.R. so the moister and temperature of my shop and house are pretty much the same. the board read 14% which is normal this time of year but still warped. That brought about even more depression regarding my perception of my abilities. I though, "wow I can't even build a stinking Chinese checkers board, what in the world am I doing trying to build fine furniture by hand?"'

Along with those circumstances my shop looked like, as Tom Fidgen put it, a bomb went off and I just was not motivated to work in that shop. There is quite a different feel when the shop is clean and well organized. that help motivate one to work well.

So here I sit in my ranchito with my shop only 30 ft. away, yet I have no desire to enter it. I am thankful for having other hobbies I can enjoy one being coffee. I have 9 coffee plants in my back yard and am in the midst of the picking season. I have already picked my plants four times havesting about 3 lbs. of coffee. Right now having dried the green beans in the sun I am removing the last covering from the green bean before it is ready for roasting. I am also watching Tom Fidgen's videos from his member web site . It is a very peaceful relaxing environment. Hopefully tomorrow I will open the door to my shop, begin cleaning and organizing it and get back to work but I thought I would share my personal experience when things are not as rosy as they are depicted on the web, in magazines and such.

On another note the funds are looking well for January to where I should be able to purchase the wood for the shaving horse and rocker, hopefully drier than what I got last time. If it is wet and needs to sit a while I still have the Christmas projects and a tool I am hoping to build for the chair project, a travisher. I just can't afford a new one and so I picked up some O1 steel 3/4 wide, 3/16 thick, by 18 inches and hope to make my own. Watched a few videos on youtube so pray for me on that one.

Well, my friends take care, keep up the good work, and God bless

Mark

Santa's workshop is up an running

Buenas dias from Costa Rica my friends,

Once again it is a sunny 70 degree day here in Costa Rica. I hope you have been enjoying the posts, although not much has been posted about the rocker project. Thanks for visiting though. I haven't been write any new posts for awhile, things have been pretty busy in the ministry getting ready for the Christmas cantata in the church.

The title of this post also explains what has been happening here lately. As I mentioned in my last post about how we has missionaries live on the field and how December was a tough month, it taught  us quite a bit on our priorities and what we wished to teach our children about Christmas as the world commercializes the holiday more and more every year. So I have been in full swing building the Christmas gifts. The wood arrived late as my Tico friend was really busy in his work and couldn't get here sooner, so I have a little over a week for the kids presents and a bit longer for the in-laws (their coming down on the first). As you can see in the pictures I got 4 planks of 4/4 Guanacaste about 24" wide and 7' long. It came wetter than I had hoped but we are getting by. This may sound like a lot of water to you all up north but the average for the wood was about 20%. As I said we are coming our of the rainy season and back in October, the peak of the rainy season, the wood can be at about 24%. During this time the lowest you can usually get it is about 14%. during the height of the dry season you will probably get it down to about 11%.. We live in a high humidity area being that C.R. is the size of West Virginia, and is surrounded by oceans. Here in Sarchi we are about 3500 ft. above sea level so that is why the temperature is rather nice. An hour drive away you will find yourself at the Pacific ocean with temperatures up around the 90's and very high humidity.

So back to the building of the presents. I rough cut all the pieces for the different presents, I am building two pochade boxes for my girls, three ring toss sets with six posts to play a form of Frisbee golf, a Chinese checker board game, a small marble hockey game, and a small Foosball table. Later I hope to build. for my in-laws, two small versions of the card catalogue project Tom Fidgen built. So what I did was cut the pieces out and then planed all the surfaces to expose the wood. I then left it a day out in the sun turning it periodically and now it is down to about 15% and really didn't warp much. I have to say it was quite the workout planning all that wood but well worth the effort. The immortal word of Hulk Hogan come to mind when after a tough round of wrestling someone asked him how he felt he said, "the pythons are hurtin brother."

 Here is the end result with all the pieces drying and waiting to be formed. Just so you know I didn't use the table saw. It has turned into an assembly table, but will be leaving the shop next month as I sold it to a fellow missionary. She was a faithful servant to me for many years and I will miss her dearly.

After a day of planning I filled three garbage cans full of shavings. First thing tomorrow,sharpen my plan blades. 

I don't know if you can see the different colors in the grain here but the darker lines actually have a purple hue to them. It is quite beautiful when you see it in person. 

 I hadn't put the handle on yet but I really enjoyed building this project. This box was for the young lady who has come to help us, for the next year, with our children's homeschooling. Since I get all my wood 4/4 I had to do some resawing to get all the pieces down to 1/2" thickness. Tom's kerfing plane and frame saw really came in handy for this. I have two more boxes to build so I will be resawing quite a bit very soon.

I will keep you updated on the progress and then post some finished pictures. Well my friends, keep up the good work, don't grow weary in well doing, and have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

God bless
Mark

Have you learned anything today?

Buenas dias from sunny Costa Rica. It is another beautiful 70 degree day as we come out of the rainy season, or what the Ticos would say "we are coming out of winter." The sky is clear with a gentle breeze passing through. My coffee plants are full and ripe for the picking. The mango trees are flowering and will soon produce some wonderful fruit, and our avocado tree is really taking shape. Might I say I really love living in CR. If you ever have the chance to visit please do so you won't be disappointed.

Back to the blog though, sorry I was gone for awhile with thanksgiving week having passed by, we still celebrate it here even though it is a north american holiday, and December's activities starting up in our church we have been pretty busy. First, I would like to thank Tom Fidgen for mentioning my blog on his web site www.anunpluggedlife.com (please visit it if you haven't done so yet). Secondly, I want to give you an update on the Maloof chair project. Right now I have had to change gears on put that off until January as I am currently making Christmas presents for my family here in the shop. As a missionary living in a foreign country we live by faith and the faithful support of our home churches. That being said sometimes our monthly support can be rather low, we never know what will come in each month but trust God to take care of us. So December started off rather low in the money department causing my wife and I to really reevaluate our priorities and what we want to teach our kids regarding Christmas and materialism in general. Hence we decided to pool together our resources and figure out, based on what we had on hand, how we could give the kids a memorable Christmas with out the trappings of the latest new toy or electronic gadget that in a month or so will have been broken, forgotten, or is out of date. So my work in the shop this month will be focused on that. Hopefully in January, funds permitting, I can pick up the wood for the shave horse and the seat of the rocker. I will post some pictures of the Christmas presents when finished.

On to the topic of this blog, "Have you learned anything today?" I am an avid reader always challenging myself to learn something new, gain knowledge, wisdom, and instruction. As I was working on one of the Christmas presents, the Pochade box from Tom Fidgen's 2nd book "The Unplugged Woodshop-Hand Crafted Projects for the Home and Shop" I was able to observe my ability or lack of when forming certain joints i.e. cutting dados and rabbets by hand. As I grow in my ability to use only hand tools I try to effectively evaluate every step on how I am doing. I can say with confidence that my ability to  dimension lumber has greatly increased to where I can take a rough piece of lumber and get a relatively flat square piece of wood ready to be formed into what ever shape I need. Dimensioning lumber has also help me in my ability to sharpen plane blades and chisel edges to where I can produce wonderful shavings and an extremely smooth surface using a simple Stanley no.4 Bailey plane. Taking that mentality into the finishing process has really caused me to evaluate my ability. I have gone to more traditional finishes i.e shellac. Oh, and on a side note regarding my search for a suitable alcohol to use here in CR, I went to the pharmacy and purchased their medical grade alcohol which was 96% pure but to my surprise was actually denatured alcohol. I had looked all over the country in hardware stores to no avail and there it was right down the road. So the shellac is mixed and is doing well. Back to my learning, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do french polishing or not but started viewing many videos on YouTube. What can I say about YouTube but, my word there is no end to people wanting to teach others and get their fifteen minutes of fame. I would say discernment is the buz word when searching on YouTube. I did fined a few sites regarding french polishing but was a bit confused regarding filling the grain. The wood I use here in CR is similar to mahogany and so I wanted to give it a try filling the grain. On a number of YouTube videos, especially guitar building ones, many of them used a rubbing pad with only alcohol and sprinkled some fine pumice on the wood, the wood had been coated with a spit coat of shellac before the pumice. On another video from Marc Adams school the guy used pumice and rubbed it with shellac in his pad. One said don't the other said go ahead. They both seemed to produce a fine finish but my complaint was they never showed exactly how long it took to fill the grain. They would always start then cut to the finished product. To say the least my attempt at filling the grain turned our horribly with using only the alcohol the results were that it didn't seem like the pores had been filled. With using shellac at first it seemed to work but then when it dried a white hue appeared in the shellac from the pumice. If any of you have had experience with this please leave a comment or suggestion.

So getting back to the point here is that each day I try to see what I have learned even if I am building something I had built in the past. One of the finest books every written, aside from the Bible, in my opinion is a book written in 1940 by Mortimer  J. Adler entitled "How to Read a Book." The premise is that many know how to read but don't really know how to read in order to gain knowledge, understanding, and skill. When most read they gain only information and nothing more. In a sense this is the art of observation. The author stated that "the beginning of wisdom is a just appraisal of one's ignorance. So the beginning of reading as a conscious effort to understand is an accurate perception of the line between what is intelligible and what is not." Take that into the shop to see where you are, where you need to go, and discover how you can get there. The author also stated, "we can learn only from our betters. We must know who they are and how to learn from them." Search for those who can help you grow in your ability, get to know them and discover how you can learn from them. In all again use discernment for there are many wolves out there disguised in sheep's clothing.

Take care my friends, and keep in touch

God bless
Mark Hynek

Building my workbench and other items.

Buenas diás from Costa Rica

It is another sunny 70 degree day here in CR. The rain has really tapered off and so I think it is safe to say we are now in dry season or summer, as the Costaricans would say. I wasn't able to get back to the blog for the last week for various reasons, but I guess that doesn't really matter as no one is really reading this blog. Of course there are so many blogs and You Tube channels that I guess you really have to find a nitch to get noticed. Oh well, I will keep writing and building and see where it goes.

I wanted to show you all a small version of the conversion of my shop to a hand-tool only shop which is mainly the building of my version of the Roubo workbench built by Chris Schwarz. I built it out of a wood called Melina, which is produced here in CR. I bought 4 x 8 3/4 sheets of it and ripped it into strips of 3" for the stretchers, 4" for the top and 5" for the legs. I think it turned out well and I really like it. I didn't have a tail vise or screw for the leg vise but had two faces vises from my previous work bench. So I installed the face vise, which racked horribly but served it's purpose. I then used the other face vice and came up with my own version of a wagon vise. I did a reverse with the plate that is usually mounted underneath the top and the face jaw. I mounted the face jaw where it wouldn't move and let the plate float underneath. It's not pretty but it works great. One day I was trying to figure out how to use the other face vise as a tail screw for the leg vise. I didn't want to take it apart or cut any metal, but one day I was ruff cutting some wood on my sawyers bench when I look at my vise with my head cocked to one side. Suddenly the lights went off and I realized I could turn the face vise sideways, take out the supporting bars and mount the guide plate behind the leg. Again it isn't pretty but works great. Originally I used a piece of 1 1/4 thick wood for the vise but that bent horribly in the center so I laminated another piece to it which thickened it up and works great now. You can see in one photo the make shift bench I built on my table saw which I used to plane wood but was horrible as the table would move and I ended up chasing the table around the shop.

The other photo is of the project I am currently working on  for a fellow missionary in San Jose. He has a place out on the western side of CR near Dominical, a famous beach for surfers. He has a small bathroom and in one corner wants a small vanity top for his sink. He wanted it to be a floating top with a butcher block look. So here is what I came up with. This was my second completely unplugged project. He also want a shower floor built which I am currently working on designing.

On the subject of the rocking chair you can see Christmas came early with the arrival of some tools and products I have been waiting for. I got the hide glue which I am looking forward to working with. I also got a pound of shellac flakes, I am currently searching for pure alcohol here in CR, I think I might be able to get it at the pharmacy. Most people will say use denatured alcohol, one, they don't have it here in CR, and two, I was watching a YouTube video on guitar making, weeping Z guitars, where the guy had a video on french polish. He made the statement that he didn't like the poisons they put in denatured alcohol to make it undrinkable and preferred to work with a more pure safer product. He was using 95% alcohol. Another guitar builder on YouTube, Obrien guitars used Everclear which is 95% alochol with out the dangerous poisons. I also got some pumice for filling the grain, a scorp, drawknife, and some leather with some green sharpening compound to make a strop for the scorp. I am still waiting on one more package which should arrive next week with some items I need for working on the seat of the rocker. Hopefully next week I can pick up some wood if the funds permit it. Well, my friends take care and let me know what you think.

God Bless
Mark

Building my shop in Costa Rica part 2

Buenas días from Costa Rica,

It's a little rainy today as we begin to come out of the rainy season. They have a saying here in CR that the rainy season officially ends on November 15th. I always wondered if the president had a switch in his office to turn it off because it does happen pretty close to that date. Anyway I am continue to work on a project for a fellow missionary here in CR, who needs a vanity top for his bathroom. It is a small area for the sink and will be a floating top with out any cabinet underneath. I will see if I can get some pictures in on the next post. I am doing that while still waiting for some tools to arrive for the rocker, should be the end of next week. Along with that I have become even more unplugged, or should I say less apt to fall to the temptation of using a router table. Today I sold my router table, router, and all the bits to a fellow  Costarican woodworker from my church. This is his profession so I wanted to help him out and gave him a good price for quite a few nice bits and a good router, I think he will enjoy it. He is also a great resource for wood and getting it at a great price.Down here in CR if I go to a supplier alone they are likely to give me a gringo price which will be a little higher.

I have learned their system of determining the board feet of a piece for pricing. They do something different which in place of selling a piece of wood according to the board foot they sell it according to what is called a "Pulgada" or literally translated "an inch". As with many Spanish words, just as in English they can take on different meanings (you should see how many meanings they have for the word "Taco" here in CR). What they do is measure the width, say 12 inches (and they do use inches in this determination although the country uses the metric system) and divide that by four, so you have 3. Then you multiply that by they length which is measured in "Varas", which means pole or yard stick. The length of their "vara" is 33 inches, don't ask me why. So say you have 3 varas, you would multiply your first 3 by 3 and come up with 9 which is then designated as how many pulgadas you have. I hope that makes sense. Then you multiply the price per pulgada by 9 and you have your total for a board. The average price right now is 1,000 colones, the currency used in CR which is about $2.00. So 9 pulgadas times 1,000 colones is 9,000 colones which is about $18.00 for a 12 x 99 x 4/4. They do measure the thickness by inch and usually stick to 1, 2, and 3 inch thickness rarely going in between those numbers. So I hope you enjoyed that lesson in buying wood in CR.

As you can see down below in the photos from my shop I am using metal posts for the structure and then corrugated tin for the upper sides and roof. My father was a welder for 40 years in Milwaukee making car frames for the Detroit car manufacturers, so I picked up that trade from him. His younger brother my uncle had the cabinet shop that my brother eventually bought and where I eventually worked for 7 years, with my brother before being called into the ministry. I enjoy working with metal and welding but still find more joy in working wood. I would not brag on my welding abilities, the beads are kind of like giant blobs but they hold and the shop hasn't collapsed yet, praise the Lord. I really enjoyed building this building (kind of redundant) but wouldn't want to do this for a profession. As I said originally this was going to be a power tools wood shop so I added plenty of outlets, my dad was also a great electrician and taught me much about that trade as well. I think the shop turned out well and I am truly thankful for it. Is it perfect, who knows because in a subjective way perfect is different for each person, in an objective way no one can really know what perfection is, so in one sense it is and in another it isn't.

I also included more pictures of my first Maloof rocker I built.

Again thanks for visiting my blog and please let me know what you think

God bless,
Mark Hynek

Building my shop in Costa Rica part 1

Buenas días from Costa Rica my friends. It is a glorious day here in CR sunny and 70, which happens to be the average temperature here all year round. I know it is tough living here, but somebody has to do it. Any way, while I am still waiting to get started on the shaving horse and the rocker I thought I would share with you some photos of my shop I built here in CR. Along with that I just want to share my heart with you regarding my transition to hand tools and to give honor to those who helped me. As I said I have always been involved in woodworking but have for the most part of my life been a power tool guy, I always wanted a New Yankee workshop just like Norm Abram. About a year ago I started to build my shop and had planned it to be a power tool shop. The problem was I live in the center of town here in Sarchi. This is a town full of woodworkers, but a number of years ago the municipality passed a law that you couldn't have a professional wood shop in the center of town due to the noise and saw dust. Mine isn't a professional shop but my planer and table saw made quite a bit of noise causing some of the neighbors to complain. That intern lead to a visit from the ministry of health telling me I couldn't have a wood shop. Having explained that I wasn't a professional shop was good enough for him he just suggested I find a shop outside of town to plane down my wood, which I agreed to do. In the process of building my shop, last March my son Jonathan had ask for a set of woodworking tools for his birthday, that led me to want to build him a small bench. I didn't want to take the time to drive to another shop just to plane down some small pieces of wood so I broke out my handplanes, which I had purchase a number of years ago, blew of the dust and tried to get them into shape for use. This is where I would like to give honor where honor is due. One book that helped me greatly in getting the planes ready for use to where I was actually able to use them was "Hand Tool essentials" by Popular woodworking. Reading the articles on sharpening by Chris Schwarz really helped me obtain a decent edge to work from. (Someday if I ever meet him I will have to apologize for messing up his name. I always thought it was Chris Schwartz with a "t".) I didn't have any sharpening stones but was able to use my bench grinder, and it actually worked! When I tried out the plane it actually produced a decent shaving and I thought to myself, "Wow maybe I can do this." So that was the start of my journey into hand tools. Along with that book another book I had purchase that had been sitting on the shelf for about 4 years was "Made by Hand" by Tom Fidgen. I thought it was a cool book at the time but also thought I will never be able to do what he does, and at the time I thought he had some crazy hair. One day though I decided to e-mail him about one of his projects and ever since then we have been in constant communication. What can I say about Tom but that he is an incredibly inspiring guy. He has an awesome web page www.theunpluggedwoodshop.com, a great YouTube channel and just recently started a membership website www.anunpluggedlife.com that is like nothing else, might I suggest you visit it and sign up. Anyway those books and men helped me in pursuing something I wasn't sure I would be able to do or even wanted to do but in these last 8 months I have found and incredible joy and satisfaction that I had not gotten from using power tools. Please don't get me wrong I am not one of those guys advocating the elimination of all power-tools. There is nothing wrong with power tools, but for me the joy of building grew ten-fold when I started using hand-tools. I feel closer to the wood and it has truly become a spiritual journey for me, sorry if that sounds to religious or hippyish. Well, I am going to leave it at that for now. Enjoy the pics and I will post some more on the building of the shop and personal thoughts as well.

Take care and God bless
Mark  

The pictures are of preparing the area for concrete, and pouring the concrete. Might I add after that experience of pouring concrete by hand I can confidently say that God has not called me to be a mason.

Intro part 2

Hey there, it's Saturday morning here in Costa Rica experiencing a beautiful sunny 70 degree day with a great cup of coffee. Spent a couple hours in the shop working on a project for a fellow missionary here in Cost Rica, I'll post some pictures when I am finished. I just wanted to say again to anyone who stumbles upon this blog to please leave a comment. I know there is not much now for content but hopefully we'll have more in the coming weeks. As I said the original point of this blog was to take you with me as I build a Maloof inspired rocker with only hand tools. While I am waiting for a few hand tools to arrive in Costa Rica so I can get started I thought I would show you some projects I have already built. Along with that I will be building a "traditional English shaving horse" using the plans from Leevalley to help in the building of the rocker. The photos I have posted today are of a project I did for a family from our church. This was my first project completely unplugged project and I have to say I thouroghly enjoyed the journey. Here in Costa Rica they don't built traditional kitchen cabinets but instead build the sides with cinder block and pour a concrete slab for the top, then they tile it all and add a wood face.frame with drawers and doors. The wood I used is a comon wood used here in CR, we call it Guanacaste for the region it is harvested from but the Nortamerican name is Elephant Ear. It is a beautifully grained wood that can be difficult at times planing, but in the end was worth all the effort. Thanks again for your your comments and input and please keep visiting the blog..

Take care and God bless
Mark Hynek

Introduction

Hello, my name is Mark Hynek and I am a Christian pastor and missionary living in Costa Rica. My primary job is to preach the word of God, help existing churches, and work with youth groups. A secondary job, or hobby is woodworking. I love working with wood building many different things. This has been a passion of mine since I was a young boy. I live in the town of Sarchi Costa Rica which happens to be the furniture capitol of the the country. The people here have a passion for handmade furniture. I am new to blogging so there may be some bumps along the way, but I want to throw my hat into the blogging community to share my passion of building fine furniture. This last year I have converted my shop to a hand tool only shop leaving behind the noisy, dangerous machines, along with the nasty chemicals of modern day finishes and glues. My greatest satisfaction in woodworking is found in the process or how I like to put it, "the joy is found in the journey." I hope you enjoy the content and please comment on what you like or don't like. Please give suggestion on how you might approach a certain technique or aspect of building a project. I hope to take you along the journey of building various projects, through the difficult parts and through the triumphs of learning something new. There is a plethora of teaching videos and blogs regarding woodworking so this won't be so much a teaching blog as it will be sharing how I build and how I find the joy in the journey.

Take care, stay in touch, and God bless.
Mark Hynek