Today one of the guys I work for sent me home with this pile of Yellow Pine flooring left over from a job. After I plane the backs of the boards smooth they will probably be a heavy 1/2" or 5/8" thick. Some of these will be 11" wide after I take off the tongue and groove. Some are as narrow as 6", which is still plenty wide.
I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, or where I'm going to keep it. My tiny basement room is already plenty crowded, and a couple of these pieces are still 16 feet long, which wouldn't fit down there even if I could get them down the stairs and around the corner in the first place. I might make a bookshelf or something, but I don't really need any furniture right now.
Below you can see a couple of new things. In the middle is my new bowsaw. I have been frustrated with my coping saw for a while now, and instead of spending $15 on a new one that probably wouldn't be much better, I decided to go ahead and get the Gramercy Tools bowsaw kit, which consists of the two brass pins and one of each of the three blades. For $25 and three hours of work, I have a good small bowsaw that is miles ahead of my crappy coping saw, even though I haven't added handles yet. I made it from Oak, and left the frame a little hefty, so it's not quite as elegant as the Gramercy frame, but I don't have to worry about snapping the frame by over-tightening it. I also left the frame quite rough, not even taking off all of the original finish from the Oak's previous life as a cabinet door.
At the front left corner you can see a crochet of sorts (one word that I have seen these called, and the only one that is coming to mind right now). So far the only use it's been is a resting place for my brace. Normally used to secure the end of a board for edge planing, with a dog in a hole on the front bench to support the board. The rear end is supported by a dog or a clamp in my case. It works okay, but I can't say I'm overwhelmed. Peter Follansbee seems to like these, but he has a screw through his. I might try that. I've also seen one of these used to support a board for dovetailing on a portable bench, but the wood kept shifting on me. Maybe the angle on mine is too open and doesn't pinch the wood enough.
I see you manned up and made your bow saw. I sissy-ed out and just bought the thing. Seems you and I have hand-tools-only woodshops. I'm a carpenter so I've used my share of power tools, but I really enjoy going down into the basement and not cranking out white noise to make something.
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