Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Month: June 2022

That End Table episode we’re all talking about.

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This time around I thought I’d go a little bit fancy. Which is, or course, a relative term. To me that meant attempting repeatable tapered Hickory legs. Which required me to build a whole new jig/sled to accomplish exactly that. And would you look at that it worked. I was duly impressed with myself.

Then I cut down my skirting, and added a relief to the underside, which recieved a round over, to soften it up a bit. Followed by setting up the dado blade as fat as it’ll go, and cutting the slots for said skirting, and adding the .75″ long tenons to the end of each leg.

I rounded over all four faces to each leg, and did a test fit of the skirting. Wouldn’t you know, three of the four were spot on, and the first was a touch loose. Not a big deal. I can manage.

The glue up of the three Walnut boards to make one large panel was mostly uneventful. I had to joint a bunch of complementary edges, and RIP off the bark, or ruined portions. Use thirteen clamps to wrestle the twist out of the boards. Scrape the excess glue off, and then move through a series of hand planers, and my Bosch electric hand planer to even out the end product. I also took my card scraper for a spin to get a better starting surface once I complete the structural elements and begin the sanding process.

I saw a tutorial somewhere that said for tighter outside edges on a mitered box, you should over shoot 45°, for something like 44.8°. But my table saw doesn’t do that, perhaps a higher priced Cabinet saw would, but mine does not. So a straight 45 it was. Praying for no slips or binding against the fence. We will only know during the glue up.

I used a 1″ forstner bit to hog out the bulk of my mortises. I had intended to chisel out the rest, but I cracked an edge, so had to pause to blow glue into it, and reclamp it. Switched over to a coping saw to save any undue stress on the base piece of Walnut.

I will progress through, 60 / 80 / 100/ 120/ 150 / 220 / 320 grits with an random oribtal sander. Then after I glue up and I need to do touch ups, the very top most surface with get a hand sanding at 400 grit.

After assembly of the hollow top, I will cut in eight (8) splines on all four corners, to add some visual interest. Then round it all over to look a bit cleaner. The tenons of the legs are through & throughs on the base. So a pocket of colour should be seen when you get up close to it. Not finished yet, but you get the gist of it.

Fan-tabulous wet bulb Wed-Nes-Day!

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Going to be a hot, wet & humid day on the books today. A real damp in the wool, sweater of a day. Dribbles and rivulets of stinky stuff down your back, collecting in your socks kind of a day. Have mercy!

Looks as though I’ll be working on my end table today, which is cool. I sorted out a tapered jig yesterday, which allowed me to safely make repeatable cuts on the table saw. Which is nice! Going to do some more structural building today. I like the idea of keeping everything in pieces for sanding, and then doing the glue up in stages to try to correct for any errors I’ve made. It’s not fast, but it yields better end results. A Win-win for yours truly.

After I get through this Walnut end table, I’m going to go on hiatus until September, as I’ll have the kids around, and my report building schedule will pick up a bit. Doesn’t look as though it’ll be peak 2018 numbers, but better than last year, if I’m lucky.

My random post from before is still getting random likes from people/bots that didn’t read it. Which is weird. Lots of Crypto Bro types, or bots from those sorts of people. But as they say, it’s doing numbers. Just not authentic human engagement. But it’s doing numbers!

Summer Solstice is here, and the temperatures go !UP.

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Start of the season with a 40°C plus day, what a way to kick off the summer huh? Wowzers. That’s going to smart. Plus we have a big birthday coming up this weekend. Not as involved as my Wife’s get together, but worrisome enough. Juice boxes, gummy snacks, chips to feed an army of ankle biters. A swim in the pool, some pizza and maybe cup cakes, and we’ll call it a day! Hope for good weather, but not insanely hot or viciously high UV rays.

I’m going to consume my breakfast, then go work on my newest furniture build. A hollow body Walnut side table, with tapered legs. Let’s see how we make out, shall we.

** Update: The tapering jig build was a success, I now have four matching legs with the same taper! Woohoo! Repeatable outcomes are glorious. I was however unable to run my table saw over 45° to make the outside edges touch, like a YouTuber taught me too. So I’ll have to take extra care on my glue ups to make up for any slips, shifts or off cuts from my mitered corners. I am going to add splines to my Walnut side table, so could that potentially add enough visual intrigue to hide any bad miters? I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough. Lots of cutting left to do before sanding or test fitting my structural elements. Had a real good go with the electric hand planer, manual hand planes and glue s raper today. Even got my card scraper in on the action. Left a suitable finish on the hard as nails Walnut. Onwards we march.

All the best on this hot & sweaty Tuesday the 21st in June of 2022. Ciao Bella!

Just gonna squeak one in here on ya, if’n you don’t mind.

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Had a brain wave the other day about building a walnut side table that was hollow, but could accept the floating bottom walnut drawer I had made a few months ago. Make it tall, on thin Hickory legs, do a thicker walnut skirt, and try a tapered edge on the legs. Round it all over, and then see how close i got to my plans. I’ll draw it out first, and then see if i was actually able to pull it off. That should give me a sense of where i am making my mistakes. I also need to finish by June 30th, before 11:00am, as that’s when schools out for the summer. Pushing against a dead line, and following a plan. Could be fun. But i have a report coming late this week, so that’ll cut into my time significantly. Chop chop, quite literally.

So I have cut up four Hickory legs, the last substantial portion of my slabs. I milled and cut up some rough walnut, and have glued up a single four foot long panel, which will be chopped down into my hollow top. I cut two inch strips for skirting too. I need to figure out a jig for careful, and repeatable tapered legs. Dado out my leg slots to hold the skirting on. I’ll keep the legs poking up above it, to tenon into the hollow top. Then it’ll be round overs on round overs, and sanding until my hands go numb. A quick and easy project.

Walnut skirting and the as of yet un tapered Hickory legs. Followed by a four foot long walnut panel glue up. Didn’t skimp on the clamps this time around.

Here’s how my other table build turned out. Doesn’t look too out of place in the basement. Good height for the sofa that’s there anyway.

The Ninja Turtle is progressing. I like the Apoxie Sculpt, a tad sticky though. But fast to work with. I may still end up detailing it out with Super Sculpey, but for now I’m enjoying the process with Apoxie Sculpt. This could potentially sit for months if need be before I come back to it. I’ll focus primarily on the furniture build, as that can warp, buckle and twist if I don’t build it sooner rather than later. Learned that lesson the hard way with my screen door.

Today is domestic duties Monday, so I need to get the second load of laundry in, run the dish washer, vacuum and tidy up a bit today. I’ll need to sort and hang the laundry too. I hear the temperature is on the rise through this week. Going to feel like 40 °C for several days in a row. Yikes. Also need to get rolling on my youngest child’s birthday party later this week. Busy – busy. Ciao Bella!

Happy Father’s Day to all filling the role out there in the day to day lives of children.

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Doesn’t matter your stripe or colour, nor creed. If you do the work, Happiest of Days to you kind soul. Keep up the good work.

I have nothing on the books today beyond an hour of weeding the garlic patch at the farm, so pretty chill atmosphere around these parts today. We took a quick tour through a local animal conservation area and fed some animals along the way. A great way to spend an hour in the morning sunshine. Not hot today, and a crystal clear blue sky overhead.

Waiting on a brunch meal with extended family, and the kids are playing quietly by themselves. For how long? No body knows, but I’ll take whatever we can get today. It is Lazy Sunday after all. Ciao Bella!

The Coffee Table Build Episode.

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The one that started out being about turning two book matched Hickory slabs into one monolithic water fall edged table, with a fat & chunky Ash leg on the opposite end. Then I pulled the slabs out from storage and the small one was perfect, and the show piece was cracked in three so badly it snapped in my hands. So new idea. A smaller coffee table using one live edge slab as the top, and the broken pieces of the other as the legs. Then I hated the live edge aspect, and cut it down into a more traditional rectangle. Chopped the Ash chunk into four legs, and decided it was a boring blob of a thing. So I cut skirting, and then I thought, what if I use a Dado to inset the skirting on the interior side of all four legs. After that I figured I should add a drawer that was shallow, and use the skirting to hold up and slide the drawer out, rather than metal drawer slides. Much cheaper option too. Then I thought, well the drawer is so shallow I could build a slatted shelf about 6″ up from the bottom of the legs. I looked at my available raw materials and saw I had to go front to back with six slats rather than across the width. I was hoping to make it look and feel longer by running the open slats across the longer axis, but materials dictated I go otherwise. Not angry. My last vestiges of doubt were on just doing a clear coat vs staining with Danish Oil with a Walnut Tint. I don’t like the bleached look of Ash, so tinted stain we go!  Now once all of this dries I will clear coat with a Varathane brand Diamond spray finish from a rattle can.

I did my glue up in stages to try to offset my amateur hand cut mortises. The tenons I did on the table saw, so I knew they were as good as I could get those. I hand chiseled out a few other odds and ends, but the bulk was done via circular saw on a track, and my Rigid 4512 Table saw. This was the first time I’ve ever used a bow tie to stop a crack. That took some doing, but I don’t hate the end result. I used a flush cut saw to trim off the bulk of the bow tie that sat proud of the table top. Finessed some other over hanging bits with the flush cut saw as well.

Come the fall, I would like to purchase either one long slab or two matching from the same species and actually try a waterfall edge coffee table. I opted for my electric hand planer, and manual hand planes to finish the top surface. I built a router jig out of angle iron to try to flatten the surface of my slabs, but I haven’t yet built the rails/ Saw horses it is meant to stack on top of. I have it ready for next time.

It’s not perfect by any way, shape or form, but I’m slowly getting better at whatever I’m playing at. Should look fine at the cottage or in the basement with my first ever coffee table build from years ago.

Table build progression from raw materials to stained end product. Clear coat finish not shown.

185 degrees of separation.

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Now we are staring down the barrel at the possibility of a 200 day writing streak, and I’m at a loss for words. Now the question becomes, can I reach 250, 300, 365? Can I do a whole calendar year of writing every single day? I don’t know. I just don’t know at this point. It has definitely become a part of my day. Same with lifting weights either first thing as I wake up, or last before I pop into bed. Making time for stuff is kinda getting easier? I’m not sure how to say it. I don’t believe it to be outside the realm of possible to do at least 5 minutes of whatever you like, almost every single day.

But a caveat may be prudent here. I for one, am self employed, and I work from home. I have my hours set up so that I can take my kids to school in the morning, and pick them up at the end of the day. I have a small list of clients, and I don’t work more than 40 hrs on a busy week. The rest of my days are far lighter on average. So I’m not single (for starters), I do a lot of the cleaning, and household work because I am home, and I have the time to do so. And my spouse makes pretty good money, so my wages are offset by what we save for not doing before and after school care for two children. Plus I take them to appointments and look after them on their sick days, so my spouse doesn’t have to miss work, unless it was communicable and she ended up catching it too.

So knowing all that. I can safely say, I find it possible, under my current circumstances (one of privilege) that if I put my mind to it, I can read, write, sculpt, do some wood working, and play my guitar, dance and sing with my kids every day, if only for 5 minutes, because that makes me happy, and life a joy to behold in those moments. When I was working in house for sixty plus hours a week, that was not the case. So there is a continuum or sliding scale. Depending on my work load I may do all of the above in a one hour stretch, because I need to work the rest of the time, but that’s the exceptional busy week that comes and goes as the quarters pass.

I should take this time to mention how much I enjoy working with Apoxie Sculpt. My second run at my Ninja Turtle has been far more enjoyable in epoxy, than the Super Sculpey firm. Which, in these parts at least, comes to your door as a crumbly hard mass that needs to be worked heavily prior to use. I tend to add one firm block to two regular pink blocks to make a pliable medium stiffness in bulk. I always use more than I think I will. Probably not filling out my rough forms with enough tin foil or tape. At $27 a block for sculpey, the $3 tin foil is better used to bulk things out. Live and learn I guess. I look forward to working on the turtle! He is shaping up to be a bit of all right. I won’t put anything like 200 hours into it, but maybe 20-30 hours will do it. I don’t reach that level of polish on any of my sculpts. That level of detail doesn’t tickle my cockles. I’ll leave that to the professionals. When it’s done, if I don’t hate it again, I’ll show you what it looks like. Stay tuned. Ciao Bella!

Ooh they do take lovely photos though, don’t they.

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I get subcontracted to produce marketing reports on the semi regular (when Covid isn’t being super shitty) and one of the external clients produces some of the most consistently amazing photos that I get to see. I don’t go to these events, but after reviewing the photo sets, oh boy, sometimes it feels like I went. The colours and composition is just fantastic. I tell you, paying a good photographer real money to capture your event is worth its weight in visual gold. You could live off of these photos for weeks if not months, building social media engagement, advertising, internal intranet posts, newsletters and what not. Don’t skimp. Just because most folks can afford an SLR now, doesn’t mean they know how to frame up a shot or get the best out of the available lighting. It makes a real difference when I get photography from a paid professional, vs a bunch of volunteers snapping random shots, that are blurry, poorly composed, or the lighting is flat, too dark, to bright. I can only do so much to remedy that on my end. But these bad mamma jammas are legit. Can’t show none of it to anybody but the client, but woah buddy, you’d like these pictures of the events.

The same thing applies to product photography. Get your shit infront of a professional, don’t try to do it yourself. Or failing a real photographer get the best 3D model/rendering you can afford. Will beat a cell phone image any day of the week. But I digress.

Hot one today. My friend who works in weather forecasting says we have potential for tornadoes in southern Ontario again, today. As well as a wind storm front passing through here tomorrow. Going to be a wild couple of days around here. Hopefully not another Derecho. Because that shit tore through our farm property and did six figures worth of damage is not more. Yikes.

Getting very close to final assembly and glue up of my small multi purpose table. I have a slight issue to fix with the shelf, but otherwise should be good to move forward and complete it sooner rather than later. I also stripped my ninja turtle sculpt back down to the armature. I hated the pose, and then a bunch of stuff was miss proportioned, so as I have no dead line nor client in mind, I took it back down to bare wire, and reposed the armature. Had to drill out new holes, but I’m ok with that. I may add water or sewer features to the base to hide the extra unused holes. A chance for some mixed media materials to be incorporated. Fun times!

I figure I will wait until my turtle is done before I do any painting. My Ogre is baked and based. Ready and waiting on my turtle to get done. Ciao Bella!

The fridge and I have settled upon an uneasy truce.

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I tried a few things, cleaned the fan, the air intake, and vents. Then decided to pull everything out of the fridge freezer and thaw it out completely. That put about two liters of old freezer water on the towels I’d placed on the floor. It was to be expected. Well not that much, but some. I have extricated all of the ice cubes, thinking that would be the bulk of it, but those vents are deep, and many. So a buckets worth poured out when I moved the fridge after the thaw was over. Glad for tile in the kitchen and not hardwood or carpet. Clearing the vents, seems to have worked out (for now), not certain what kicked this all off. Was fine up until the Derecho storm several weekends ago. Must have put excess moisture in the air in the freezer that acted as the catalyst to our current predicament. Luckily we have the old beat up fridge in the basement that I pulled drinks out of to store our food safely. And we borrowed a large cooler for frozen goods that wouldn’t fit downstairs. All is well. Although fridge now ticks & rattles a bit. I did have to move it four or five times, so not sure what I’ve done there. But for now, looks better than it was. A win for the moment at least.

Temperatures are rising, so summer is clearly just around the bend. Heat and humidity, and sunshine that hurts to be in full view of. Gotta love it. Spring and Fall are by far my favourites, but a giant clear blue sky, a clean pool and laughs with the family are hard to beat nowadays. It’s not until you run into old friends that we realize just how isolated we’ve been the last two plus years.

I need to cut the grass and do some out door stuff this morning, before I settle on restocking the fridge and freezer. Ciao Bella! Stay safe out there.

Attempting to fix the fridge freezer snafu.

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The freezer works, now a little too well. Instead of reading zero, it’s at minus six, which means the vents have iced up all the way through, which makes the fridge portion hot as it has no cold air coming into it. I tried scraping the ice off, not very effective, as I can’t tell how deep the ice goes back into the vents. I tried hot water on the vents, but that made a mess. So next steps are to unplug the whole thing for forty five minutes to help the unit reset itself. Or I attempt to defrost the freezer portion, or… gulp. Hire a repairman to fix it for us if parts are readily available. Bah hum bug!

In other news the sculpture got a really solid head start yesterday. I have the torso, abdomen, legs and feet on, plus both arms down to the wrist. No head yet, or hands. I haven’t given much thought to the shell yet either. Or how I will get it to attach to the main body. The shell will be 75% tinfoil and masking tape, so I think I can reasonably contain the overall weight for that portion of the free standing sculpture. I don’t know if it will be any good, but why let fear of sucking stop me eh? Never has before. There is no confidence like that of a mediocre man! Give’r!

I have some finer hand cuts to make on my table build and that should mostly finish up the structural portion of the project. Then on to sanding for the foreseeable future. Top surface, four legs, three sides of the skirt/rails, drawer front, drawer panel, cross braces, inset slats, and the internal drawer dividers. Plus I need to stain the drawer panel, and then wax the panel edges, and the internal rails so it pulls in and out smoothly without catching, or snagging. I hope to avoid racking this way too, but I’m no craftsman. This way also meant I didn’t have to buy drawer slides, which are expensive. To have those on here, I’d need much wider skirting, which would reduce the space on the shelf, if I could even have one at that point. Maybe a larger Walnut drawer would have been a nice touch. Or if I’d cut more Hickory strips I could have glued up a wider panel to do the same floating drawer. Maybe when I build a waterfall edge coffee table I’ll add a deeper Walnut drawer to it for storage. If I can afford a darker hard wood to use that is.

My family is on day six of their journey out west. They are currently in Alberta where they will receive upwards of 100mm of rain today and tomorrow. Not a trip through the mountains that I’d want to do in such heavy rain. I don’t envy them much. Manitoba and Saskatchewan were less than impressive if I were to go by what my mother wrote. Flat & empty. Sounds like no fun at all.

I wonder if the fridge went bad after the 26 hrs power outage, because I’ve never had this particular issue before. Mind you the fridge is almost twelve years old now. Hopefully we can remedy it ourselves as inexpensively as possible. This is not my area of expertise. Down right terrifying.