zbhover

Hello, my name is Zach and I joined this group a couple weeks ago and asked a couple router questions so I figured that I would introduce myself. I’m from central IL, I’m 22 and married and have been woodworking since I was 10.

When I was 10 my dad got a cheap-o wood lathe from Menards, he didn’t have much luck making much with it, but I got hooked! Before too long I had chips flying and I was making all kinds of stuff, before that I helped my dad in the garage a lot, but then I started making my own projects. A few years later I was ready to upgrade to a better lathe and I saved some money from woodworking projects I sold and I bought myself a Jet Mini lathe, which I guess was “MY” first tool. Later on I bought a bed extension for it.

At the beginning of high school I was still doing some turning, but my dad and I then got into building hovercrafts. We built two from plans while I was in high school and that really got me more interested in wood working, plus I learned some skills with fiberglass, molding, composites, drive systems, and pretty much became a work-a-holic. Well after that I ended up getting an associates in industrial maintenance mechanic technology worked through college as an industrial mechanic part time at a local aluminum foundry and then got hired on full time when I graduated. All at the same time I was still turning, doing other woodworking, and designed and built 3 other hovercrafts from the hull to the props, and we started a small hovercraft business which I now just make parts for now and then. I mostly do large wooden pulleys on my jet and cheap menards lathe, along with some rudders, wooden idler pulleys, etc.

I’m still working in the local foundry as an industrial mechanic and love it! I get to build stuff and fix stuff, and its not my money I’m spending… LOL…. Plus the guys I work with are great, they let us do a few “government” projects for home, plus next door to us is a Cope Plastics building, and we get to go through there scrap and I have got a lot of building materials from them. Lately I haven’t done much turning except for hovercraft parts, but I have done quite a bit of other woodworking.

A little over a year ago I got married and we bought a repo’d house and fixed it up. I did a little framing, wiring, plumbing, dry walling, new windows, put up all new pine doors and trim, refinished the original pine floors, did an exposed banister staircase, refinished and made new doors for out kitchen cabinets, made a cage for my turtle, etc, etc all of this by myself or with a little help from my wife or dad. I figure I can do pretty much anything and what I don’t know how to do I can learn, plus I’m cheap and hate paying people to do something I could have done… LOL

Now a couple weeks ago I ended up buying a 3.25hp triton and am finishing up building my table for it, soon I will start building a nice pine entertainment center, and will slowly be building some nice cherry bedroom furniture, along with a china cabinet, buffet, maybe a table and chairs, and I also need to build some more maple cabinets for our kitchen. As you can see I’ll be busy for quite a while, but at least I’ll stay out of trouble…. And those are just my woodworking projects, I also have a subaru engine in my garage that I need to design and build a hovercraft for, a couple sandblasters to build, a new workbench to build, paint and hang some pegboard in the garage, insulate and put a install my old furnace in the garage, supercharge an 8hp engine to modify a ½ scale radio controlled hovercraft that I built a few years ago, and maybe even build a thickness sander….


Well sorry for such a long introduction, I’ll probably be posting a couple picture of some past projects that I’ve done, and also some drawings of some of my future projects.

If you want take a look at some of my projects at my website zbcreations
Click on other pages, for more of the project type stuff….

Btw I have been enjoying reading some of the post over the last couple weeks…

Talk to you all later…

bye

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karateed

Holy crap!!!!

Are you sure you're only 22. I got tired just reading how much you've done/learned in such a short time. Congratulations on a great start in life.

Ed......:-)

curiousgeorge

Hey Zach. I enjoyed reading your into. Sounds like you might have a lot to contribute to the forum. I will be looking forward to seeing your projects.

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George
For those who haven't already done so...
PLEASE! PLEASE! Fill in your first name and location in your profile.

challagan

Welcome to the forums Zach. Would love to see some of those hovercrafts you built! Nice job.

Corey

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My Carving Website: The Iowa Woodcarver
http://iowacarver.tripod.com/

My Shop Website - Woodshop 51503
http://woodshop51503.tripod.com/

Dr.Zook

Welcome to the forums Zach. You have been busy.

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Dave
the "Doctor"

In woodworking there is no scrap, only firewood.

Please edit your profile with a name and location so we can better assist you and make for a friendlier forum.

Mike

Welcome Zach. Industrial maintenance is one of life's great educators. You will soon be saying: "Let's play engineer. You design something wrong and I will make it work." I think you will have a great deal of fun on the forums.

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Mike
Please edit your profile with a name and location so we can better assist you.

nzgeordie

Welcome to the forum Zach. For 22 you seem to have packed a fair amount into life. Hope you enjoy reading and contributing.

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Pete
I've cut it twice and it's still too short! But only at one end.

zbhover

Thanks for all the welcomes to the group....

Yeah, I've been busy and have done a lot of stuff, but I can't stand just sitting arounds for very long, so I keep pretty busy...

Yeah I've done the "lets play engineer" thing quite a bit, our engineers will make somthing and we'll modify it so that its easy to work on, and will hold up to all the abuse that it can get on the factor floor. Even better than that my bosses brother used to be our head engineer and is now our R&D guy. He'll build a new machine and when he goes on vacation for a couple weeks we'll cut it apart and put in access panels, doors, re-enforce stuff, put on bigger motors, cyls, idiot proof it, etc... LOL....

And every now and then we might rotate his work bench 180 degrees so he can't find any of his tools in his drawers, or move his brigdeport over a foot or two so the air hose won't reach it... LOL

I'll start posting a few pictures of some of my projects and some drawings of future ones when I get time....


Once again thanks for all the welcomes...

bye

zbhover

I thought I would just let you guys know that I put up a couple posts with pictures in the turning section and the woodworking section....


bye