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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!

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!

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!

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.

“What have you got going on today, my good sir?”  “Well if you must know, it’s Monday. Which means?”  “General domestic duties day!”  “Yes, that’s it exactly. Laundry, general tidy up, vacuum the floors, mopping the floors, and making beds and cleaning the kitchen counters, sink and cabinets, and a scrub of the bathroom.”  “Jinx – ha! You owe me a coke! What, still going, let’s try another…”

Yeah, so house bound with cleaning and then back in the shop to continue the table build up. Only a few more major cuts to make, then a test fit, and then break down for sanding through the grits, and then assembly, and a spray finish. The only stain I’m going to use will be on the plywood drawer panel. I hate that bleached yellow plywood colour. Hideous. Looks uber cheapo too.

If it rains at all this week, I’ll work on my turtle man figure. I have the armature locked in, a suitable base ready to go. I really want to finish my table first though. As I learned from my screen door, the longer you leave it, the worse off your raw materials get over time. My door uprights warped a touch, one far worse than the other. They were perfect when I milled them, and then got a cup and slight twist over the next 18 months. Still made them work though, which is good for me. I sank a tonne of time and effort into those pieces of wood, and the door as a whole.

Once this table is finished, I’ll have nine weeks to think of what to do next. I really want to tackle a water fall edge slab table. I’m just not keen on spending an obscene amount of money on a five foot long slab of something dark, or nicely figured. It doesn’t need to be exotic, but a fancy grain pattern or a rich mix of colours would be a real treat. But not too hard of a hard wood. Something I can work without busting up my less expensive tools. I’m not exactly running a 7 Hp cabinet saw over here, if you catch my drift. I bought most if not nearly all, used or refurbished at a discount. But that means things wear out on you because you don’t know how hard people pushed stuff before you got it.

I’m lying in bed and I’m trying to think of the last time I felt dread on a Sunday, about the impending return to work on a Monday, as it has to have been years since I last felt that way. I’ve had bad moments prior to a dentist visit, a colonoscopy or my vasectomy, but not for work. I’m part of a lucky few, whom works from home, for myself, and can keep busy with home DIY projects, hobbies and volunteer gigs in between paid jobs. It is very pleasant, and for however long it lasts, these are some wonderful Sundays, rain or shine that I’ve gotten to enjoy with my kids and wife.

School is out for the summer in T-minus three weeks less one half day. Then nine weeks of kids at home 24/7, just like the lock downs and several portions of the previous three school years. Bikes, beach, pool, playing catch and being outside should help a bunch now that it’s summer time, or close to. I wish my kids had friends that lived closer so they could romp at the park freely with their peer group. Just a little too young to go alone right now. Patience!

I have made significant progress on my Hickory multi use table, and baked my Ogre Rogue bust, and mounted it on a wooden base. I built the armature, and bulked out the torso on my Ninja Turtle full figure sculpt, so I can start on that if I feel like it.

My main focus right now is the structure of my table. I can scale back once I make it to the sanding stage. I am making a point to sand it in pieces prior to assembly & final glue up. I hate having tucked away hard to reach corners, so I’m going to attack each piece by itself. The only part to get stain will be the interior of the drawer, which has a plywood base. Everything else will get a clear coat, to show off the wood. I still have a whole slew of dados to cut for the shelf, and my cross braces are not to thickness yet. I’ll have to run them through the planer a few more times, in order to sneak up on a tight fit.

My wife and kids are currently out camping with friends for the night, and the morning dew has thoroughly soaked my kids shoes. Had to fun over and drop off boots, and supplemental breakfast snacks for the lot of them. So much for a lie in this morning. But on the plus side, I can work on my table this morning without sleeping through all of my available spare time. If I choose to do so. I could instead play some guitar or start my next sculpts armature & base material. The morning is my oyster as it were.

Finally got around to watching The Batman. It was ok, a touch too long for my taste. Could have dropped twenty minutes without interfering much. I’m not sure if I would rank it as one of the best Batman films. It was good, but nothing struck me as being of added value except for the portrayal of Gotham City itself. I had the subtitles on so I could tell what was going on. I wonder if I’ll regret not going to see Dr. Strange : MOM, now that it isn’t in AVX theaters any more. We will see. It was nice to see an action film take a moment to let a scene breathe, but it does tend to lose momentum if you do that too often. Some of those slower moments could have been trimmed a bit I think, without loss of the overall intent of the story telling. Looked great though. Andy Serkis felt under utilized, but what else is new. I hear a second one is on the books now. Maybe that’ll be 2.5hrs or less? One could hope.

As of 8:00am yesterday my family is off & away on their trek out west – again. Sad to see them go, but if it’s where they want to be, then keeping them local wouldn’t be fair. Thank the heavens for Facetime and video chat options. As the summer grows near, and we get out and about, swimming and keeping busy the kids won’t be as affected by the missing half of the family.

Beyond a few extra details I think my Ogre Rogue bust is just about done the sculpting portion. Next thing is to bake it, and then paint the damnable thing. Although, while the touch has returned to my fingers I may move on to a Ninja Turtle in Sculpey, and save a batch painting session for later in the summer. The tips and tricks make their way back into the process once you tinker long enough, so it might be beneficial to keep this train moving along. I skimped on texture with my Ogre, because I knew how rusty I’d be. Now I have that worked out, my next project can have a touch more fidelity to it.

I’m sitting down to breakfast as we speak. I’m going to putter around with my table build for a bit longer, and then possibly start on an armature for my Ninja Turtle sculpt. Full figure this time around. Intimidating! Oooh. Could be cool if I get it right. Will worry about quality later on! Now is the time to start anew. Dig deep and start your next failure faster than you ever thought you could. Ha! Ciao Bella!