Website Under Construction

For anyone visiting this website please note that we are resurrecting our YouTube channel and reimagining this website. This website will in the future show galleries showcasing my work. Not only will there be a link to my Etsy store but there will be a contact email for anyone interested in custom work or special orders. Any of my work showing here may be available even if it is not showing in the store. 

At this point the ongoing promotion on the YouTube channel is cancelled, the involved videos will be temporarily hidden until I can redo the descriptions and make it clear that the promotion is no longer available. Some subscribers might not like that. I will be fair there are only a couple of people who actually validly followed instructions. One person won a prize and even though it was announced and a great deal of time to reply was given they never collected on it. People who I think have any kind of valid complaint will be offered discounts on my Etsy shop items. At this point, the incentive program is more trouble than its worth. I have other things to do besides try to manage this.

My current focus is on the Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/MyFamilyCountryProd?ref=seller-platform-mcnav and beginning to sell items locally on consignment. My goal is to turn this from a self-sustaining hobby into a legit part-time income. Long term I want this to be my bread and butter.

Contact email for products or inquiries (no sales offers please) is myfamilycountryproducts@gmail.com

At Last Some New Material Sufficiently Seasoned

I have access to virtually unlimited material for turning and have been working harvesting a good supply. My only problem is that most of it is too green to turn without risking my finished pieces cracking and splitting (Which I found out the hard way).

After some waiting, I have a small amount of Birch and Maple pieces that are ready to work. The bud vase in the photo was turned today out of a chunk on Grey Birch. I have another blank ready to go but didn't have time to finish it.

There were other issues addressed today. My lathe needed to have to motor shroud re-attached and the tailstock locking bolt replaced. I picked up that hardware during the week and was able to put it all on today. Unfortunately, another small bolt fell out earlier and I have to find or replace it sometime soon. My lathe has been limping along for a couple years now. I'm hoping, with earnings from my turning, to upgrade to a professional quality machine before this one expires. The motor on this one has some issues and was never very powerful, to begin with.

Since my last post my youngest son and I have been harvesting Spruce poles from the back of our property to build first a scaffold to perform some necessary work on our camp as well as to add a small greenhouse where a lot of my future woodworking will be done. The current workspace is completely inadequate. The intention is to get all that work done before the summer is out.

Successful Experiment

I have been cutting and drying Spotted Alder in the hopes of being able to turn it on the lathe or do other work with it besides the basic hair sticks I've been making. Spotted Alder is considered by most to be junk. The only use I've seen locally is people burning it as emergency firewood. It isn't even very good at that. It burns plenty hot but is reduced to ashes in very short order. It also is reputed to soot up the chimney in a hurry.

So why do I want to turn the stuff on the lathe? Well in making hair sticks I've noticed that it takes a stain well and the colour can be pretty nice. I also have unlimited access to the stuff. It grows here faster than I can use it.

Today I got my chance. I had a good dry stick of it and if I made slimmer bud vases it was hefty enough for the job.  I turned the three little vases pictured above today. I think they turned out beautifully. We oiled them only. That is the natural colour. I am pleased with the results and will be making a lot more of them. I just have to wait for more of the wood I harvested to dry out.

Turning it was a challenge. It has a tendency to splinter and chip, even worse than Spruce. I had to keep a keen edge of the chisels and I had to make very delicate finishing cuts. Even with that, I had to do quite a bit of sanding to get a nice smooth finish. Sanding removed material faster than any other wood I've worked to date and I had to work carefully or I'd obliterate the details. No complaints though. This experiment was one hundred percent successful.

Getting Restarted

Working in my woodshop area this past winter was well nigh impossible. When it wasn't too cold or too dark, I had too many other things on my plate to deal with. Spring is bringing a change to all that.
It's warmer and the sun is not down yet when I get home from work. Now I have a little bit of time to devote to my woodworking.

I did purchase a few tools and accessories for the shop. Most notable is the self-centering chuck for my wood lathe. That has resulted in the picture above. I am looking to make small saleable items. They are for sale through the website here by sending me an email. Above are bud vases. The darker coloured ones are cherry and the light coloured ones are apple wood. I happened to have saved a small amount of those during the winter and they have seasoned enough to work with. I am looking for other useful items I can make and suggestions are welcome unless you're telling me to make pens. I know they are popular but every potential vendor in the area is already selling those for other craftsmen in the area. I don't really want to wedge myself into an already crowded market.

I have cleared a number of items off my to-do list and I am hoping to consistently start making posts here as well as create new content for the YouTube channel. Thanks to everyone for giving me a look.

Unexpected Post

Yesterday I had pretty much given up any hope of making my weekly post today. Thursday afternoon our Internet connection died. It flatlined. We tried rebooting the whole system. We tried bypassing the router. I checked the connection box outside. The tower on the roof looked fine. Not even a whiff of a connection.

My experiences with troubleshooting Internet issues with our provider have not always been good but we had no choice but to give them a call if we ever expected service again. (They are the only game in town for us by the way). Part of the problem is that we live in a rather remote corner of the province. Our home phone runs through our Internet connection so we can't just call and work with a technician. In the past, our troubleshooting procedures have required a certain amount of creativity. On one occasion we actually formed a chain of people within earshot of each other and a pair of walkie-talkies all the way to a local farmer's home so that we could troubleshoot over the phone. This time was simple. The tech actually listened to the procedures that we'd already gone through to try to solve the problem and he decided our tower top modem had died. He put in a service order and we were supposed to have a repairman visit within 24 to 48 hours. To our surprise, this guy arrived this morning within less than a day. The muddy road had frozen overnight so we didn't even have to hike in his equipment. As anyone can see we are back in business.

I'm off work all this coming week and a few days next week so expect something to happen at MFCP Woodworking. I'm hoping to at the very least make some footage for a number of upcoming videos for the YouTube channel. I'm hoping to spend some needed effort in promoting our giveaway. To date, I haven't been able to pay it a lot of attention. There are a lot of things on my plate but there should be time to get a few things done. I may post something midweek. We'll see how it all plays out. For now, I'm just glad to be back online.

Hair Stick Giveaway Update

Last week we announced our first promotional giveaway and it is moving like a herd of turtles. We had hopes of getting enough response to do an early draw but that doesn't look like it will be the case. At the rate we are going I'm not expecting to get more than 25 entries much before the closing date if we even get that many. With that in mind, the draw or draws will take place on January 6, 2019. The winner or winners will be announced on that date.

We are not going to let this discourage us. There are enough responses already to make drawing a name out of the hat necessary. This is after all our first go at this so we are regarding it as a learning experience. On the bright side, there are still three weeks left before the draw so with a bit of work this still could reach a level where we can consider it a rousing success. The company where I am currently working will be shutting down for a week and a half during the holidays here so I will have more time to pay attention to this.

For anyone who hasn't yet entered here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/ox9324EzJG8

Free Hair Stick Giveaway

As promised last week we are having a promotional giveaway. If you want to participate here's what you need to do.

1)  Go to our Youtube channel and view the video. https://youtu.be/ox9324EzJG8

2)  If you aren't already subscribed, subscribe and click the notification bell. Winners will be announced on the channel after the draw(s). We will try to get into contact with winners but if we can't another person's username will be drawn.

3)  Comment on the video. Tell us you want to win the hair sticks and tell us what colour you want.

4)  Share the video either on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media. We would like this video to reach as many interested people as possible.

That's all you have to do. If you are a winner message us if we haven't been able to message you asap so that we can get the appropriate shipping information.

We are hoping to get at least twenty-five respondents and will hold our first draw as soon as we reach that number. Usernames will be drawn out of my cowboy hat. After four weeks from today, we will do a further draw if there have been more than twenty-five respondents. If there are a large number of respondents we will do a third draw at that time as well.

For everyone interested good luck in the draw. If this is successful will do regular draws in the future when we introduce more products. For what is currently available have a look at our rustic hair stick page.