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

Author: greatwallstudios

Married, Graphic Designer, enjoy playing the electric guitar, model building, wood working and sculpting.

The Shelf Unit Episode: A Tale Told in 275 parts.

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The unit is finally taking shape after a few weeks of lingering on the bench, languishing in stoppage after stoppage. I still have quite a ways to go on it, but progress has been made over the last week.

I hand cut all twelve mortises. Well two of which, the through and throughs, were done on the table saw once I had build a quick & nasty jig to clamp the legs to so as to not put my hands near the blades. But all of the .25″ deep mortises were chiseled out by hand over two or three days. I am currently busy with paid design work. So I’m slow moving with home infrastructure projects.

Hand cut chisel mortises.

Then I completed a dry test fit which lead me to do some last minute rasp work for better fitment. Nothing major. I put the whole base together to test things out which was tricky to do single handed, as my pressure fit mortises are shallow, and I knocked it down a half dozen times tugging on corners that weren’t square. But I got it to stand freely of it’s own accord.

Test fit of first two hand chiseled mortises.
After considerable wrangling I did manage to get the whole base dry fitted together and it stood by itself for 24 hrs without collapsing. A good sign!
You can see here how shallow I cut those mortises. Just a tiny pocket to rest in. So delicate.

Then as of yesterday I began to glue up the cross braces for the base, three pairs of them. Glued and clamped for assembly. No real hassles here. I glue up on my bench over blue plastic garbage bags. Only need to glue a vital piece to your wooden bench once to know never to do it again.

The braces in glue up. One tricky leg needed a set square clamped in place in order to remain 90 degrees. Probably should have done them all like that. Next time!

The top box was formed several weeks ago. Measured, cut, built using a dowel construction method, sanded, glued up, and sanded again. Still needs more sanding and then I can stain both it and the base portion together. Then I will use dowel to connect the two pieces, apply finish and bring it inside.

Fixing a dowel burst on the display surface. Peeled back a strip of pine, chopped out over long dowel, glued and clamped pine strip. Seamless.
In need of about two more hours of focused sanding. Then it’ll be ready for stain & finishing.

I’m excited to see it all come together. I used three 72″L x 16″ W x .75″ H pine laminated boards for the top box. Plus 1.5 72″ x 5″ x .75″ pine boards that I cut down into 2.25″ H strips for stretchers and braces and used along the back of my box to strengthen it against any possible racking. The six legs are made of Ash, and are 1.75″ x 1.75″ x 8″h. That I had laying around from a new set of stairs that got put in at the cottage two years ago. I’ll post a photo once I get it all completed and set in it’s final resting place in our living room.

**UPDATE** I managed to get Walnut tinted Danish Oil stain on the base and shelf portion, as well as put in the dowels to join the top & bottom together. Waiting on the glue to dry as we speak. Last item is a 400 grit scuff followed by some Osmo poly clear wax to pick up the shine/gloss. So excited!

Walnut tinted Danish Oil on the base.
Walnut tinted Danish Oil applied to all of the shelf unit.
Test fit for base placement prior to drilling out and fitting the dowels to join the two pieces. Almost finished. Can see the finish line from here!

There is something to be said about doing lots of something versus trying to do it once perfectly.

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I have come across this time and again, in everything from sculpting, drawing, and wood working right through to cooking and writing short blurbs daily. When you can afford to not give a shit about the end product, and focus solely on the process and the actual ‘doing’ of the thing, stuff tends to fall into place after a while. It’s not fool proof, and mastery is never guaranteed (not that I seek mastery of any one thing anyway.) If you can fall in love, or at least in-line with the process you can usually achieve a fairly high standard in that medium once you really start to apply yourself, and add in a little reflection or introspection about how you operate within the process, and how you’ve come to understand the process. Mayhaps, like myself, you achieve better results though you make the wrong choices. Enough of them that they cancel out and you get a little better at the thing you work at inspite of yourself, or your failings, and short comings.

I do love to watch YouTube videos about the hobbies I have, and I tell myself I’m learning about it as I watch others ‘do the thing’. I have, learned a thing or two, but mostly it’s an escape from working and learning deeper about the process of whatever I’m attempting. Videos aren’t bad, there is a tonne of noise and needless entertainment there, but don’t get carried away. You will certainly learn more by just going and ‘doing the thing’. A morale boost is great if that keeps you going. But try not to mire yourself in a YouTube video rabbit hole, you’ll loose hours of your time that way.

I’m no expert, and this is solely based on my personal anecdotal experiences. Your experiences may differ – greatly – from mine own. But that’s ok. We’re not all one size fits all.

In alternate news I had put my workout regimen on hold for five to six weeks this summer, which I now regret. I was creeping closer to 200lbs, getting under 2 bills was my goal, and I was roughly three pounds from it, but now I’m back to being about 10lbs from my goal. Ideally I’d reach 185lbs, but I think that will require not just a shift in picking up weights regularly, but fundamentally eating better. I’d rather run, cycle, swim and lift weights every day than go back to a veggie heavy diet. Wreaks havoc with my insides. My ulcerated bowel does not enjoy excess roughage, like at all. Too much dairy in a day – forget about it. It’s a tricky see-saw balance act. But in the end I’d like to work towards being under 200 lbs again. I need to revisit my plan. Perhaps to back to two a days with the weights, and add in more lunges, squats, sit-ups, and push ups. Like everything else. It’s not about perfect, but doing some of it, everyday, even if it’s ugly and unrefined. Ha. Yes, unrefined is a great way to view myself in a workout session. Just look at how skewed my sunglasses are. Unrefined fits me well. Ha!

Now I need to have breakfast and get ready to start my work day clock. Ciao Bella!

Unsalted Butter. All of the intestinal distress and none of the taste.

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Don’t use unsalted butter, what a waste of calories, and to add in gut wrenching intestinal distress with no flavour boost is just nonsense. I’m sure for folks with heart disease or some medical/cholesterol related illness the rubbish golden block is unavoidable. But, that being said, if you’re going to do that damage to yourself via food, use the salted, flavourful, delicious, sunshine in a mushy brick of gold, butter with all of its glory intact. Made the mistake yesterday of using unsalted butter on a fresh from the farm cob of corn, and it was so bland. Oily and bland at that. I had to stop eating and worry if my taste was disappearing as I ate. But no. Not Covid symptoms, rather a disappointing salt application. Or lack thereof.

So here we are – again. A Tuesday in September. School is back in session once more, and while I’m WFH, I have the house to myself, some peace and quiet before I start the work day clock. Yesterday I caught up on some household duties, which was laundry. Merely gathering it all up and pushing it through the wash/dry cycle. Today I will actually sort it all and put it away. I’m telling myself that once I get the shelf unit done, that’s when I will actually tackle the interior messes. Papers to sort, broken toys to either fix or throw away. Sorting toys into their appropriate bins, boxes and bags. It’s about a weeks worth of work. So I want to settle in to focus on it, rather than attack it piecemeal in between paid projects. A lull is coming. Usually by early to mid November, then I’ll have all the time in the day to do home DIY projects, and clean like a maniac. But as I have paid work coming in, that stuff needs to sit and wait some more.

So what is new? Not a whole bunch. I have a new Elf bust on the sculpting pedestal. The shelf unit is well underway, with the dry fit completed yesterday of the base portion. Any model kits I have will wait until it gets snowy outside, and I’m mid lull. I haven’t roughed out any plans for book threes collected short stories. I wrote a couple of interesting characters earlier in the Spring and summer that I could follow around. Some criminals, and some detectives. Not necessarily linked, could be two very different things, or get smashed together to be one big conglomeration. I don’t know. I love the freedom of not knowing. Makes it fun. My children’s book will come back into vogue when the winter hits and I don’t want to go outside – like, ever. Hate the god damn cold. I have finished busts that need to be painted and clear coated.

The Markham Fair will be upon us in a few weeks, so we have to get on top of our entries. Building, harvesting, cleaning, tagging & bagging for display. It’s a whole thing. Plus we have to get it all over to the fair grounds, that’s a major task in and of itself. Then you have to deliver and move the giant pumpkins. That’s an endeavour, believe you me. But the air gets crisper, and the sun sets earlier, and the fair food smells so damn good. The midway lights and sounds and smells really brings it all home. The kids love it. We’ll be there for portions of all four days. Starts September 29th and ends October 2nd, 2022. You should go. It’s a lot of fun.

At some point I do need to finish the trim in the downstairs bathroom, but that’ll be two hours work, and not much fun. But I can strike it off the list. We need to think about our Fridge, which is temperamental, and the water heater overflow is filling a bucket per week, one drip drop at a time. So that needs seeing to. Might as well have the water softener looked at too. I can’t get it to not run every single day.

New projects, gotta jet. Ciao Bella!

Basking in the afterglow.

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What a weekend we had, two in a row of rock’em, sock’em outdoor adventure fun. The weather held out for us so that we could all enjoy the whole Saturday on the water experience. I cooked various meals for all of us who gathered. Mainly on the bbq, and stove top but nonetheless I didn’t set the kitchen on fire, or burn the house down. The bbq on the other hand may have let me down just a bit. Burned my bacon twice! Luckily that’s how my wife and kids like it so it didn’t go to waste. I went low & slow the second time, but failed to turn them in time and it went into over cooked territory. If I had a large flat top grill, I’d do it all together and nothing would get missed. But that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Everyone who wanted to got a turn on the 3 person tube, plus the ski-Bob, and had a chance to attempt to wakeboard. We spent much of the summer getting out eldest to be able to reliably wakeboard, so she put on a show for her cousins. The other two had admirable attempts to get to their feet and stay up on the water. Which they both did, briefly. Golf claps and cheers for all! Well done. The water was rather cool this late into summer, bordering on Fall. So big props for swimming and going in the lake of their own accord.

We didn’t party much into the evenings, as the fresh lake air made us all sleepy by 10:00pm. Did watch the Blue Jay’s pull out an 11-7 win one night, which was great. Texas was really leaving their pitcher out to dry by bringing him back in after the second and third innings punishment. It was a weird one. Pretty early on it was evident they didn’t have anyone warming up in the bullpen. Kinda odd. But again, late in the season, I’m sure injuries and tiredness play a part.

I think I will mosey on down to my office by way of the kids laundry baskets and get some Domestic Duties Monday chores on the books. It’s two weekends we’ve gone away so there is lots to catch up on around the house. The sooner I get the shelf unit done, the sooner I can start cleaning the toy zone disaster area. I was informed some big projects won’t come until next week, so I need to finish up what I have now in preparation for those two or three items dropping next week. Happy Monday! Ciao Bella!

A Breakfast Fit For Royalty.

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My go to big hot breakfast spread is made up of the following items: Bacon, eggs, sausages, waffles, toast and beans. If I had a big enough cook top I’d add the potential for pancakes into the mix. Also a waffle iron wouldn’t hurt as I am not a huge fan of these pre-made frozen waffles I can get my hands on. Actually, now that I think about it we have an Olaf waffle iron that my kids got for Christmas last year. We just never brought it home, or to the cottage. But then I need to make batter too. One more step in the process I suppose.

It isn’t all that fancy but it tastes good to me. I used to make that sort of hot brunch for myself a lot when my kids were little, or when we only had the one child. Now I’m working more so I don’t cook myself lunch anymore. I’d bung something into the microwave without another thought, rather than break out any pots, pans and fresh ingredients to chop up and prepare.

Gotta get prepped for water sports on this lazy Sunday morning. Time to get dressed and splash through some waves. Ciao Bella!

Hosting the Ham-Fam-Damily for outdoor fun times.

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As stated one day previously two of my brothers share a birthday two years apart. So in celebration of their 45th & 47th we’re hosting a food and fun filled family weekend at the cottage. Music, boating, paddle boards, swimming, booze and fun. Hard to miss a good time up here.

Calling it done: At least for this material.

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I haven’t sculpted a full humanoid figure in a number of years, so starting off with a Ninja Turtle in a medium I don’t typically use was going to end up one of two ways. Either the best thing I had made to date, or a low res copy with lots of learning curve errors for the type of materials I used. Can you guess how I feel it went? Yeah, the latter and not the former. I will say this though, free standing, a plus, looks like a turtle, kinda, and now it’s done. Three pluses in its favour. A great introduction to Apoxy Sculpt. I like that I don’t have to bake it afterwards. But as I don’t sculpt full time, I’m not able to wait for things to semi harden to go back in and make crisper adjustments, like I would with Sculpey. I have six some odd pounds of sculpey so any more sculpting done this year will use it ( Super Sculpey), rather than the last 1/3 of the Apoxy sculpt I have left. I like the idea of apoxy for weapons or add ons that want to harden before I finish the figure/bust I’m working on. Green stuff is great that way too. Next steps, more sculpting – yeah! And also painting my two finished items.

Work on the shelf unit is coming along slowly, as per usual. Have the box built, and round overd applied to all front facing edges. Needs a hell of a lot more sanding, and some minor fixes on the top display surface. Then I can stain and apply finish to it. Which completes the top. The base requires twelve mortises to be cut, and I want to use my table saw for the through and throughs. The rest get hand chiseled out. Which takes forever.

Plus the actual legs are Ash, so that’s a great hard splinter wood to work with. But sturdy as all get out. Measured the top box, and it is reliably 15 ” and 15/16ths tall. I was 1/16th from my goal of 16″. Not bad, not great. I think the noted thickness for my boards was approximate and not definite, which is where my discrepancy comes from. No matter. It’ll fit under the windowsill which is my main priority. The floor could dip, cup or bow, and I’ll be glad of the extra room to maneuver when I comes time to bring the thing indoors and really get moving on cleaning up the kids toys.

I’m not totally sold on painting the shelf unit white. I’d like to stain it dark, like Walnut, to match the rest of the furniture. We’ll see how it looks unfinished once totally assembled. I can make my decisions then. That’s future me’s problem to wrangle with. My reasoning is, as I can’t let this go right now, is that white paint will show dirty finger prints and scuffs, and hard wear, whereas the dark stain will just start to look more rustic and worn. Which will match the state of the house – ha. I know it’ll get beat up, so why try to draw attention to that by being a brilliant white?

As an aside : I really should put wheels on the toy box so it can get moved into the room to aid cleaning up too. Just a thought.

Today is Friday, and a warm hello to two of my older brothers whom both have birthdays today. If I recall it is #45 & #47! Happy birthday Amigos. Here we are last year on the hottest day of August playing Swamp Golf at the Thunderbird course in Kanata Ottawa. Our father melting in the background.

File not found: A modern expression of heart stopping panic. In two parts.

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Ah, just being dramatic is all. School is officially underway, though I believe Monday will feel more real for some reason. Probably because this school week started on a Wednesday, and so much was going on here Monday & Tuesday. I am trying to get back into my own groove now that I’m back to having six hours to myself to work, and complete tasks around the house once more. I really need to tackle the kids toys in the living room, but that means getting the storage unit done, which means wood working and not doing paid work, of which I have a bunch to do in the coming weeks. There has to be a happy medium in between. Some compromise I can find between waiting to get hours of sanding, staining, gluing and cutting done, or tossing the whole lot in a garbage bag. No easy fixes to be found here.

I’m still surprised by which post titles seem to get likes without being shown as read. Perhaps in another life I should have gotten into creating headlines for tabloids and such. I don’t imagine that act being very lucrative though. Click bait style grab’em by the eyeballs seems to be the flair of the day. I want to read articles with titles like; “A Reasoned and Nuanced Admission of Hatred For Hello Kitty”, or “A Timely Exploration of (Ex/In) cel Believing Everything is a Date”, to name just a few. Perhaps those articles have been written but I don’t cast a wide enough net when looking for reading materials.

Speaking of which, reading that is, I’m one book back on my one book per month goal for 2022. I’m still reading the eight book for August, even though we are well into September. The Grapes of Wrath was a heavy choice. I’ll stick with it, mind you, but I’m not flying through it like a sci-fi novel, or something less colloquial. I don’t think I’ll get too upset if I only hit 11 of 12 books this year. Nothing to beat myself up over. Just you wait until I try Moby Dick, The old man and the sea, or War and Peace. May not get through too many beyond those in a calendar year. I’ve heard they can be challenging reads. I won’t know until I give them a go. But before I go that route, I have a Carl Sagan book to read that I am excited for. The Demon Haunted World, oooh…. I’ve heard good things. I have seen that book quoted a number of times over the last few years. Time to read it first hand, well, after GoW anyway.

Maybe I’ll go sand for a bit as I await feedback, edits, change requests or all new projects. No point sitting around typing, when I could get something checked off my list. Another time then. Ciao Bella!

First Day of School 2022/2023

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It started on the wrong foot from the get go. Terrible nights sleep, over sleeping the morning alarm, failure to check shoe sizes for indoor/outdoor footwear, tears & trickery to get my youngest off to class. Ugh. I feel bad for tricking my youngest into going today, but in my defense I put off all of yesterday’s work until today, so that we could all have a grand last day before school together, and I absolutely had to have today free to work on the ten or so projects I have on the go, with four different clients. Plus, my youngest is never all that sick, and just wants to hang out and have me take them places on the DL. Given the walking at the zoo for three hours yesterday I knew they could go today. Mask wearing and playing with pals. Not exactly a ball buster of a first day of senior kindergarten. Not only that but I had to run errands that matter for this weekend. So no time to play hooky today, I’m afraid.

The oldest was excited for school today, thankfully. I was running behind I never got any morning photos, I hope my wife did. I had plans for signs, and a photoshoot, but rotten guts, a bad sleep, and all manner of other oversights on my part lead to a bad start to the day. I was so focused on the kids getting fun out of the nine week break I didn’t double check the shoe situation for either child. We’ll have it sorted by Monday, so no major issues.

Lots going on. Need to eat my breakfast slash lunch just after 1:00pm. I’m cranky and moody. But my work is coming together as needed. Plans for the household DIY projects are on pause for the moment. Check in later for more details… maybe. Ciao Bella!

The great day before school starts Zoo run.

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Got out the door just before 9:00am, and were among some of the first guests into the Metro Toronto Zoo this morning. After a three hour walk around the park we called it a day and have come home for cold drinks, and to rest our weary feet. It’s great to have a membership because we don’t feel like we have to see every single thing on the day. We can go back just to see one specific exhibit whenever we like. That’s a pretty sweet way to make your own way around the park in my humble opinion.

Tomorrow school starts! OMG! It’s finally here, can you believe it. On a side note, the proposed trip to Wonderland was quashed when they only open on weekends after Labour Day weekend. Oh well. Maybe next year.