The workshop is coming along slowly, but moving steadily now. If I stopped bringing more stuff into it, it would help. I fell into several great situations where I got all sorts of tools and equipment free. I have so much to get rid of to a good home that much will be free and the rest will be pennies on the dollar. Anyone who is within driving distance of me (Norfolk, VA) should call or email be about making a visit. Plan to bring a big truck, van, or empty SUV.
I am just about done with building the equipment I had ready to assemble. There will be lots more in the future, but for now I am pretty much done. Now, I need to finish some wiring and install the stuff.
Retirement is great! ... except I seem to work twice as much as I did when I worked full time. My back feels it more, too.
I am getting back into seated skills more. I started back into scrimshaw and have the engraving and woodcarving bench set up. I grind sitting down most of the time.
I go to the store once a week to help them transition. I'll do that for a few more months and see how things are going. I like working in the store when I get to pick and choose what I do. On the day I work, I typically head in around 5AM and get home around 6PM.
I have amassed boxes of jewelers and general shop use small hand tools to put on The Exchange dirt cheap. I also need to reduce my hoard of motors and other stuff that I have accumulated. That will probably have to be for local pickup as shipping would be high. I have all sorts of electronics and control stuff I need to downsize.
I have been sorting things into bins that I call, "Projects that I need to do/finish", "Projects I want to do/finish", and "Projects that I probably won't do/finish". You can guess which bins I will be giving away or selling off.
I also need to reduce the boxes of wood and amount of steel I have in the shop. I plan on some "Cushing Giveaways" and other things like bundle boxes on The Exchange. I believe that if I forged a blade a day for the next ten years I would not run out of steel or wood. I have 100 pounds of Don Hansen W2 just waiting to become swords and large knives with hamons. There is a large milk can of steel in the shop that weighs a LOT. It is so full I can't put a single bar in it. Most bars in the can are between 36" and 48". Then there is the knife project cart with another 100 pounds of Japanese steels to be made into kitchen knives, tanto, and wakizashi. All that plus well over 100 blades already forged or profiled ready to HT and finish.
Then, I took on the order to build the 2023 Club Knives for the oldest knife club in the state.
Along with all the shop stuff, I am getting ready to do some remodeling on the house (myself):
I am going to convert the garage into a large pantry with extra refrigerators and maybe a spare oven.
I am getting ready to convert the upper deck to a Florida room.
I need to rebuild the big trailer bed so I can haul all the wood and building supplies home.
I need to pretty much completely rebuild the old smithy. 10 yards crusher-run and a new arrangement of the forge and anvils, etc. I will build a welding area in it, too.
I will put 20-30 yards of topsoil in the back near the shop to widen the area between the shop and the creek. I will move all the blueberry bushes to the sunny end by the turn-around.
So, to answer your question I am doing ok with my leisure time since retiring.
Don't get me wrong, I love this level of work. Judy and I are taking time to go to dinner, visit with friends, have friends over for gourmet dinners and BBQs, and are planning a nice two-week trip to Gulfport, MS and New Orleans in the fall. Next year, our trip will be to Askokan followed by a couple weeks in New England visiting my brother and all the places I spent in NH as a boy.
I thought I posted the photos of the diagonal bracing. I will pull out the drafting pages on the shop build and take photos of how it works. It is just basic physics and geometry. A triangle cannot change shape regardless of the force applied to any corner. Using the wall studs as the upright side, the countertop braces as the top side, and the diagonal brace as the hypotenuse you get a rigid right triangle. All you need is a reasonable size hypotenuse board. I normally use 2X6 or 2X8. In some cases I use 2X10 or 2X12 when I am adding a shelf across the braces. I use 2X6 for the countertop braces. These sizes provide plenty of area to screw to the 2X4 wall studs and to each other. I did get a bit crazy and glue up the joints in the grinding room. I put 3/4" plywood on the braces and 20-gauge stainless steel over the plywood. I truly believe an elephant could walk down that countertop.
All this brings to mind another issue. Due to changing computers and phones a couple times I have lost a lot of old texts and emails from people I offered stuff to. If you are one of those folks send me a new PM/email/text and remind me what I was going to send you.
Stacy
. How is retirement going? Somehow, you strike me as belonging to the "never-going-to-slow-down" group (yes, that is an oblique reference to the obscure area of Group Theory ... which actually invisibly pervades much of our everyday life.....). 
