{"id":164166,"date":"2024-09-13T06:28:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T12:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=164166"},"modified":"2024-09-13T12:43:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T18:43:04","slug":"two-years-post-surgery-im-finally-getting-my-other-life-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/13\/two-years-post-surgery-im-finally-getting-my-other-life-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years Post-surgery I’m Finally Getting My ‘Other Life’ Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been retired for 20+ years. I was lucky to be able to retire when I’d barely turned 57. For my first nine years of retirement, woodworking was my primary interest but bird photography almost completely replaced it for the last eleven years. For a very long time I’ve wanted woodworking to be part of my life again but a bad back prevented it from happening.<\/p>\n

Thirteen days from now will be the two-year anniversary of my third back surgery, a 4-level lumbar fusion that eventually, after 18+ months of recovery, improved my back symptoms enough that I could get back to some serious gardening. Which made me wonder – were my back symptoms improved enough to allow me to do a moderate amount of woodworking? I know from experience that spending hours on end walking on a concrete floor is a killer, even with a healthy back.<\/p>\n

So ten days ago I decided to start an experiment. For the last five years or so my bad back has prevented me from even giving my garage\/shop a deep cleaning so I started with that. And accomplished it. Next, I decided to see if I could get all my power tools back in order. So I’ve been adjusting them back to specs (a big job), removing rust where needed, having blades and knives sharpened and completely rearranging and reorganizing all the large power tools in my shop.<\/p>\n

And I’m still standing! Which gives me confidence that I can get back to doing woodworking projects again. In moderation. Maybe. I don’t intend it to replace my bird photography – only to supplement it.<\/p>\n

So today I’m going to show my readers what I’ve been doing. Fair warning – if you have no interest in woodworking, there’s a good chance that today’s post will bore you to tears. But it’s my life and my blog so that’s what I’ve decided to do.<\/p>\n

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My table saw is the heart of my woodshop. It’s a Delta Unisaw, a huge high quality cabinet saw. I think of it as an 800 lb. gorilla because it weighs over 700 lbs., it has a 3 hp motor (many table saws have 1 1\/2 hp or even less) and it’s a bear to move but I was able to move it to where I wanted it to be.<\/p>\n

It’s even bigger than it looks here because it has an outfeed table in the back that, in this photo, is hanging down where it can’t be seen. When I’m cutting large stock like sheets of plywood or very long boards I have to open my garage door in order to raise and use the outfeed table. Thankfully, most of my cutting won’t require me to use the outfeed table.<\/p>\n

I spent two of the ten days just working on the table saw – moving it, cleaning and waxing it (wax makes the top of it slippery – a good thing), adjusting it back to specs and arranging to have my old, but high quality, saw blades sharpened.<\/p>\n

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My jointer is probably the second most important power tool in my shop. I spent a lot of time removing rust and adjusting it. I still have to get its three blades sharpened.<\/p>\n

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Behind the jointer are my router table and…<\/p>\n

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drum sander. Thankfully, neither of these tools has required much maintenance work.<\/p>\n

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I’ve moved my planer behind my table saw where it’s hard to get at but that’s OK because I don’t need it very often. Here you can see part of my folded-down table saw outfeed table on the right and my mortising machine on the workbench at upper left.<\/p>\n

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My chop saw and drill press. I had to make a lot of adjustments and even modifications to both of these tools.<\/p>\n

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My band saw and air compressor. I still have some work to do on the band saw.<\/p>\n

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The back wall of my garage\/shop is where I store dozens of pipe clamps for gluing and two old sawhorses, one atop the other. I inherited all of that stuff from my dad – lots of stories and memories there. The wheeled cart on the right is where I keep all of my narrow stock – stuff like dowels and narrow pieces of wood. Readers will recognize some pool noodles that I use for making window lens rests for my pickup.<\/p>\n

I still park my pickup in the garage and as you can imagine, it’s a tight fit – thus the rubber ball hanging down from the ceiling to keep me from pulling my pickup too far forward. Crash!<\/p>\n

That rubber ball is essential but I hate the damn thing. It hangs down at forehead level and I run into it countless times every day I’m in the shop.<\/p>\n

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I’ll end with one of the most essential items in my shop – an ugly prep table used for assembly, gluing and painting.<\/p>\n

And a lot of other things. As my dear old dad used to say, “You can never have too many horizontal surfaces in the shop”.<\/p>\n

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It’s woodworking projects like this that I’ve missed doing. It’s an antique-style pie safe that I use for storing kitchen items like slow cookers, food processors, pasta machines, mixers and the like. I built it quite a few years ago and it’s still one of my favorite woodworking projects that I’ve ever tackled.<\/p>\n

Well, I applaud you if you’re still with me. This certainly isn’t a post you’d expect to find in a blog called Feathered Photography but it’s what has occupied my life lately so I just went with it.<\/p>\n

I hope to get back to bird photography very soon but for that to happen our weather will have to cooperate, smoke will have to clear out and fires will have to be brought under control. In the last two days, four fires have sprung up in areas where I photograph birds so it’s quite discouraging.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note:<\/em><\/p>\n

Table saws are hugely dangerous so I’d have bought a SawStop table saw instead of a Unisaw if SawStop technology<\/a><\/span><\/span> had been available back then. But I still love my Unisaw and I will until the day I have fewer than ten fingers. May that day never come.<\/em><\/p>\n

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For a very long time I’ve wanted woodworking to be part of my life again but a bad back prevented it from happening. (10 photos)<\/p>\n

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