Tối nay làm một vòng xe đạp khoảng 40 km về, trời thật mát mẻ, dễ chịu… Thời tiết mà cứ như thế này thì đạp xe cả trăm km cũng sẽ không thấy mệt lắm! Cái xưởng đã dọn dẹp sạch sẽ, sắp xếp lại ngăn nắp, đâu vào đấy, xoa tay hài lòng! Mấy chiếc xuồng cũ đem ra rửa sạch, kiểm tra lại một vòng, vẫn chưa thấy có hỏng hóc gì đáng kể!

Vấn đề kinh khủng nhất với một cái xưởng mộc là… bụi mịn! Bụi hạt lớn, mạt cưa chỉ cần quét sạch là xong! Nhưng bụi siêu mịn thì thua, ngay cả máy hút bụi cũng không làm gì được! Chỉ có cách là quét dọn xong dùng vòi phun nước mạnh rửa trôi hết! Chuẩn bị đóng chiếc kayak kế tiếp Serenity-2, em thề đây sẽ là chiếc kayak sau cùng!

I’ve been building and playing boats in Nhà Bè district, HCM city for the last 5 ~ 6 years, it’s time to move to a new place. The new location is not too far away, with almost twice the floor – area, in this same water – bound region. It took some times to setup all living, working and workshop facilities, and to concentrate on working and playing again!

Almost finished with upgrading my woodworking workshop, just some more painting, fitting and cleaning up jobs needed! This would be a “well – equipped, well – organized” place to carry out my upcoming projects, which is getting more and more sophisticated! Several assets showed below, including my new Makita MLT100 table saw, the Dremel power tools and other wood carving tools, the Maktec MT362 router and its home – brew routing table, the air compressor and nail gun, a dozen types of chemicals for epoxying and painting, etc… basic things for what could be called a boat – building – workshop!

Drawers for storing various hand held power tools, all these tools need proper care and maintenance.

Makita MLT100 table saw, with this, I can cut wood to the desired sizes, without having to have them cut at the wood mill nearby.

Dremel’s MultiTool and MotoSaw, suitable for small wood working. These are intended for some marquetry works later on.

Maktec MT362 router and its being – built routing table. I used the router itself to install the steel center plate holding the machine underneath.

Various chemicals, the excellent Titebond II wood glue, the 511 epoxy putty, wood carving tools, air compressor, the new Bosch circular saw.

Some more shots around my workshop. Sooner or later, I would need a dust collecting system, or maybe just a vacuum cleaner.

Often, I’m not quite pleased with my boat building products, it’s not up to the quality level I’m expecting. And quite regularly, I’m in a dilemma situation that I don’t know what I should improve on: my craftsmanship or my seamanship. (Well, I know, all sound big bold words: craftsmanship & seamanship, but let use them anyhow). The fact is that I’ve just turned to woodworking and boat building for around a year, there’re lots of things still to learn and to improve.

I’ve decided to invest on improving my ‘craftsmanship’. Many hours spent on reading documents and browsing woodworking, boatbuilding forums. Also decided to upgrade my small workshop with more professional tools: a table saw, jig table saw, router and a routing table, air compressor and nail gun, etc… I’m in the preparation process of building Hello World – 3, my next boat, a boat I can trust my life on in the upcoming journeys, and I want to do it as good as I can.

As for Hello World – 3, there’ll be no fixed schedule. All boat designs and boat buildings is kind of compromisation, there’s no such thing as “ultimate perfection”, but I’ll do it until it’s good enough, with no pressure on a launch day, and as my free times permit. There would be lots of new things built into this Hello World – 3: electric pump, battery, electronics, and solar charging system, etc… That’s still a long way to go, concentrate on the basic task of building woodworking tools for now!

It looks like that I’m turning into a cabinet maker for now, of the 3 pieces of “cabinet”, one will be the pedestal for my new Makita MT100 table saw, one would be a routing table (to be fitted with the Maktec MT362 router), and the other table will be used for small cutting and carving tasks with the Dremel’s MultiTool and MotoSaw. I’m adding more and more into my tool collection: Bosch (and it’s subsidiaries Dremel & Skil), Makita (and it’s subsidiary Maktec) and Fein.

These ‘furnitures’ are really basic things built with plywood, some wooden frames, and all painted, so I put ‘aesthetics’ aside and focus on usability. One day, I’ll build all my wooden household objects in finer quality myself, but for now, just these simple woodworking facilities, which I need to complete within this month. The plan is to have Hello World – 3 building started somewhere next month, a huge pile of planned works to be done before the rainy season returns the next year…

Additional assets for the workshop, a small coffee table and 4 chairs, for taking a beverage in the hot tropical afternoon. All built from cheap plywood, and painted with wood color, this is also to test my new idea of painting and color pigment mixing, all takes only a day to complete, a quick and dirty job indeed. Building fine and good looking furniture, like building a good boat, takes lots of time and labour, so I’m pleased with these crude but functional things for now.

My humble woodworking corner with a modest collection of tools for sawing, cutting, drilling, planing, chiseling, sanding… dozens types of chemicals for epoxying, painting, varnishing… For now, it’s still a small corner with basic tools, but it’ll be growing into a “well – equipped” boat – building workshop soon!