OMG..I'm a Piddarler

Mark E Smith

Member
Messages
190
Location
Arkansas
Sitting out in my shop and looking at the table project I have been working on for six months now...I just rrealized...I'm NOT a woodworker...I'm a Piddarler. I sit in the shop and piddle around. I work on this, I work on that, but mostly I sit and drink beer, listen to my Bosch work radio and think about doing things, or I go off on a tagent and do something for the shop, because that is what Piddarlers do..lol..we don't work on projects, we piddle around. any good woodworker would have finished this project in two weekends or several days, not me. I had to work on my dust collection system, then reorganize my clamps, make a sharpening station for my planes, which I use about once a year, etc... etc...anything BUT what I am currently working on.... why...because I am a PIDDALER. So who is with me, any piddalers out there, woodworkers have been getting the credit for way too many years, I think there are way more piddalers then woodworkers. Unless you are getting paid to do woodworking, there is absolutely no reason the put a deadline on any project, just piddle around with it, you'll get done eventualy. I am a proud piddaler and I have NO stress when it comes to woodworking projects, because piddalers take foreever to do anything and we don't care...lol..in fact I think I need another beer, the table can wait, been waiting six months, what another month or two.....
 
OK, so I'm with you. My "problem" is I have so many different interests in my shop: building furniture, boxes, etc.; small turnings; molding acrylic for turnings; learning more about CNC projects. Lately, most of my attention has been on my CNC but I piddle with other stuff occasionally.

The last major project I finished - a queen size platform bed - took me at least two years to complete. I kept hitting that point where all I wanted to do was piddle with smaller items. It's not that I didn't know what to do next on the bed; I just didn't want to mess with it! I wanted to piddle!!!

I guess maybe we should start a forum section for those of us who like to piddle, huh? Nah - we'd be too busy piddling to post anything!!! :D
 
Piddlers of the world unite!

Yep, Guilty as charged. I'm taking time out today to just piddle around and do a few things in the shop now that I've got one phase of a project done before I go to the next.

I've got so many interests and I tend to fluctuate between what I want to do and more pressing things around the property that 'need' to be done.

But I enjoy my hobbies and they keep me occupied and 'relatively' out of trouble.

Then theres that J.O.B. thing that seems to absorb way more than it's fair share of my available time.
 
When I was a kid we used to go on fishing trips to the ozarks. One time my dad took us into I'm thinking Springfield Missouri? Anywho, they had a Bass Pro Shops store there, and this was WAY before they had big stores like they do nowadays.

This was like 35 years ago? (That hurt to type). It was a huge store, at least for that time. My little brother and I really could not understand how my dad wanted to go up and down every single aisle in the store. We were bored to death.

Needless to say, I now completely understand and have done the same thing myself at Cabelas and Scheels and if there was a Bass pro in town I'd do it there too.

My brother and I named Bass Pro Shops 'Piddlers Paradise'. Good times, Good memories now.
 
Needless to say, I now completely understand and have done the same thing myself at Cabelas and Scheels and if there was a Bass pro in town I'd do it there too.

My brother and I named Bass Pro Shops 'Piddlers Paradise'. Good times, Good memories now.

i guess i must confess i am a prodigiously prolific persistent piddler. I make it a point whenever i travel i always check to see if there is a bass pro shop anywhere in route. so far i have been able to visit shops in california, illinois, colorado, mo. nashville, destin fl, neveda and arizona.
 
Okay, I admit it, I am a piddler. I spend way too much time piddling. My piddling has gotten worse as I have gotten older. My piddling is not just confined to my shop.

I do try to do my piddling in private. I thought everyone did their piddling in private. I am shocked to learn that some people have piddled in Bass Pro Shops all around the country. I do most of my piddling when no one is looking.

My wife doesn't like it when she thinks I am just piddling. She wants me to accomplish something. She takes all the fun out of doing nothing.
 
Proud Piddler here, and married to another one (she's a quilter on her second long are quilt machine). We earned it. We worked hard, paid our dues, and now we're in a position we don't have to make money off our hobbies. People keep wanting me to make a bunch of something and sell them somewhere. I smile and tell them, then it would be work, not fun. I'll keep piddling and if something inspires me, I'll make it.
 
You know what, I had more important projects to start on this weekend, but I'm happy to say I spent it all just piddling around. Made another shelf to store some stuff in the garage, Sorted through dozens of wall warts, did some more organizing, Experimented with my electic operated ball valve that I need to put on the irrigation system.

Just kind of wanted to enjoy playing around in a clean shop for a while before I clutter it up again.
 
I'm too busy procrastinating so I never really have much time to piddle. :D

Although I don't really have a shop right now to piddle in, I've got various partially finished projects around the house, the yard, and on the guitar bench to piddle around with.
 
Yesterday all I was going to do was cut out the pieces for the top and base to a small box. In the process I found I had to . . .

Find a new place for my multi-track and featherboards that used to hang on the side of a replaced drawer unit,

storage and org 2015 (1).jpg . storage and org 2015 (2).jpg

Re-org some project supplies so that they were easier to find,

storage and org 2015 (4).jpg

clean out my router "nest",

storage and org 2015 (5).jpg

glue some scraps I was tripping over onto my currently running "scrap blanks" that will turn into coasters, trivets or who knows what by Christmas,

storage and org 2015 (3).jpg

Oh, and decide on a color of dye to even out some sappy walnut that is being used on a current project.

storage and org 2015 (6).jpg

I got the top and bottom pieces for the box roughed out as planned but . . . , that's a lot of excess piddlin' :rolleyes:.
 
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