There are more than a few daily entries which i don’t recall writing, nor do I remember what is contained within them several weeks or months later. It’s a real trip to get notified of a new like for something that doesn’t ring a bell. Then I go back and read it and I’m like, yeah – I totally wrote that, I drips of me. Reeks of my sensibilities. I might write on the daily, but it sure isn’t about quality at this point. More to the point, it’s just about the act of doing. I’m so close to 200 days now. I can just about taste it.
Had a great day with my youngest’s birthday party. Spent four hours in the pool, and my skin is shouting its obscenities at me now. I didn’t know it would go on for four hours of the mid day high uv sun, but it did. It was a blast. Then tonight I had a drink round my friends house, chatting on the porch. Got three healthy Rye’s in and now I’m watching The Watchmen, in an attempt to not get the spins when I flop into bed. I also napped for an hour or so today, due to all of the sun exposure and I’m not as tired as I would be otherwise. Could be worse. The aloe came to my rescue. I’m not lobster red, but I feel it, even after several cool water plunges to take the worst of the radiant heat out of my back & shoulders. Kids all had fun, and no one got hurt. A win all around. I’ll take it.
My wedding anniversary is coming up asap. We hope to have a lunch or dinner together to celebrate. Been a few years since we’ve had a childless date. I think we saw Jerry Seinfeld in Oshawa a few years ago. That was a fun evening, no bad seats in such a small venue. Oh, pre Covid times, how I miss you so.
As much as I love the look of Walnut, it comes with a fair few issues to work through. Namely gouges and tear out during milling, and chunks coming loose when hand chiseling. I will have quite a few places to patch when it comes time to do a final sanding. I need to glue it all up first, then make a Walnut dust paste to patch all of the imperfections. I hope it doesn’t ruin the overall project.
I used packing tape on the outside mitered corners, and painter’s tape on the inside edges of each glue up. See fig 1. And fig 2.
Fig 1. & fig 2.
I used a good amount of LePage glue in the joints, which I spread with an acid brush. I folded it all up into a box, and added additional painter’s tape to the final corner. I used two box clamps and a set square to keep the hollow Walnut box as square as I can get it. See fig 3. And fig 4.
Fig 3. & fig 4.
I also clamped around the middle of the box to make sure it didn’t bulge or have the seams pop open or slide around.
After the box had dried in the 27°C heat of the day for several hours I unclamped the hollow Walnut box and began to cut in my Hickory splines. I chose to do three per corner edge on the top. And depending on how the experience goes, I might add two more on both bottom edges too. I started with a Crown Dovetail saw, cutting just inside my marked lines, and then used a .25″ chisel, cutting along a 45° angle from both the top & bottom to remove the gap where my Hickory splines will rest. If you’re legit, you’d take note of grain orientations and how your boards were sawn, and grain patterns, but I’m just trying to get something done here. Two of the three had good pressure fits, but a possible gap situation might have occured from a too deep of a run with the Dovetail saw. More Walnut dust paste will be needed. See Fig 5 & fig 6.
Fig 7 shows the glued in splines.
I only managed to cut in three splines on one side and glue them in yesterday evening. See fig 7. Once the top panel has three more glued in I can flush cut them off. I added them purely for visual interest and not for strength. Though, they may help in that respect.
I had managed to complete a dry fit test and have it all stand up on its own. I will take that as a win at this point. I know I have several hours of touch ups to do after the build up and assembly is done.
Parts layout. Still so much sanding left to do!
Once I complete the top portion I will shift focus back to the legs and skirting braces. Lots of sanding to do here. I think I will finish it off with some Danish Oil to tie the whole thing together. Ciao Bella!
Lots to do, lots & lots to do in preparation for tomorrow’s birthday festivities. First up, earlier in the week was a provisions shop. Juice boxes of five different flavours, fruit gushers for the adventurous, three types & brands of chips to be voraciously consumed. A suitable candle to mark the occasion! My wife ordered the take home goodie bag contents, and paper plates. We’ve had confirmation for all expected attending guests. Pizza will be delivered, and beverages for adults are currently chilling waiting to go over to the venue.
Today I will go over to clean up the shrubbery and grass. And next on the docket is to wrap gifts of asymmetrical design and packaging. I long for the days of rectilinear boxes with 90° angles and few to no curves, domes or jutting angles. But I will not be so fortunate this day. A true test will be if my kids haven’t secretly used up all of my cello tape on private art works leaving me in the lurch… Fear Not! I have enough (I just checked).
Perhaps an early morning pool vacuuming will be in order, so I have that to look forward to tomorrow at 9:00am. Looks to be great weather, warm and sunny. Perhaps tonight I’ll bake a cake for the occasion? Who knows, maybe I actually will. You never can tell.
Yesterday I completed a dry fit test for my end table. Now I need to sand the interior and glue up the top box. I ordered dome clear satin Osmo to finish it off, but delivery tells me I could have to wait until July 12th for it to arrive. So maybe more Danish oil to finish it off? Time will tell. I do have parts of next week to work on it, assuming my next report comes in today or this weekend at some point. I do have hours of sanding to look forward to so best get cracking! Ciao Bella!
Slept like shit for some reason, youngest was having multiple tantrums this morning. She popped a lense out of her new sunglasses, and had a wobbly over not having them to wear anymore, even though she threw them, dislodging the lense. Finally got them to school with only moments to spare before the bell. Now I’ve pulled the car apart looking for this mirrored lense and I can’t find it. Twenty plus minutes later and the damnable thing eludes me. Fuck. Brand new pair of children’s sunglasses too. Hopefully it’ll pop up sometime soon. Couldn’t have gone far, unless it flopped out of the car on a shoe or backpack. Then it’ll be gone but good.
Only have an hour to tinker today, as it’s volunteer day with youngest’s class trip. Which is about four hours of middle of the day. I’m happy to see her interact with all the other minions. Should be a lovely day for it. Yesterday was awful hot, today the humidity is way down, and it feels almost cool in comparison. The difference a day can make. Huh.
May try to cut some more mortise edges today, but I don’t think I’ll get very far. Had some terrific news on the marketing report side of paid work. A potential for six reports over the course of the summer and into the fall. That’s great news for me. Not so much my wife! Means I’ll be tied up working over the summer holidays, but it means cash on hand for our little family trip in October. Fingers crossed they all go off without a hitch, even with Sar2 Covid BA/5.a or where ever we are at now. They sort of stopped giving it a name after Omicron came through. Still mutating, and still a major problem. Stay safe out there people. Ciao Bella!
It all started when I was gifted some Ash boards from the family farm, that were rough sawn, and stored in a shed for twenty plus years. I gladly took them home after sawing the sixteen footers in half by hand, and tossing those heavy suckers in my van.
I planed them for what felt like hours, and then had to man handle them across my jointer. Which took forever to do. This was back when I had my tiny 10″ Ryobi table saw, which kicked on full tilt, and scared me to death. Cutting 2 inch thick ash boards that were 80 plus inches in length took some doing, and set my heart to pounding. I settled on four inch wide boards by roughly eighty inches long, and two inches thick.
I then cut down four cross members, two in Ash, and two in a douglas fir that was pretty heavily knotted. It was at this point that I began to run out of warm season, and all my flat, square milled lumber got shut away in the garage for seven months.
The following spring I dug out my lumber, which was still square and decided to hand cut some mortises for the top and bottom of the door uprights. I first used a circular saw to cut two slices through the end grain about four inches deep. This was super sketchy, and my super old school, under powered Kawasaki circular saw died after a cut & a half – twice. So I finished it off with a Stanley hand saw. You know the old kind that weirdos play with a violin bow to make high pitched whiney muzak. I had to climb up on my work bench in order to get this to work.
I gathered up my chisels and a hammer and got dug in cutting away the channel where the cross members would rest. This would prove a difficult and arduous task. It took several days, and my channel was not straight, nor were they even. I took a file to them, and worked that for a few days too. It was at this point that I started to refinish a rocking chair for my very pregnant sister in law, and that took my whole season.
The following year ( this year 2022) I took some rasps to my channels, and evened them out a fair bit. I then used a brand new Dado blade to cut some even tenons for the cross members. It was an endless cycle of dry fit testing, rasping, filing, and planing until I had a suitable snug fit. Then I measured out my center line, and cut out two mortises for the third, and final center cross member. I hugged it out with a forstner bit, then used a multi tool to cut through the rest, and then hand chiseled it to a clear rectangular hole. It worked quite well. After assembling it all as a dry fit, I noticed my angles were all wonky, and then realized my flat, square lumber, was now bowed, and twisting ever so noticeably. But as I was about to begin sanding I hit the most egregious spots with a hand plane, and sort of made the best of it.
I took the time to glue the frame together. Then in each corner I drilled out a 3/8ths hole and glued some dowels through the joints. Flush cut those, and then did endless rounds up through the grits on every single surface of the door. I stopped to add copious amounts of filler, which meant no more natural wood look, but I was now going to have to paint it all white, to match the house trim.
I used an oil based primer to paint on four coats of pristine paint. Then I cut down some Cedar strips, 16 lengths in all, which would sandwich my screen mesh in place, for the two openings on my screen door. After much cutting and sanding i put the first layer in place. Cutting the mesh material was far simpler than i was imagining it would be. So i put those in place, and pin nailed my last strips on, holding the mesh as tight as i could get it.
It was at this point I placed my hardware on the door. Pilot drilling holes for the handle and a push plate. I also then hand cut in my hinge recesses. Drilled and attached those. Fought with the door for an afternoon to cut in the receiving hinge slots on the house, and hung the door single handedly (do not reccomend). I then added backing trim to stop the door swinging too far inwards and binding. Added a latch, and an extra handle, and Bob’s your uncle. Done like dinner.
I didn’t take any photos while cutting the cross member tenons, but they’re there, and I did them myself.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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