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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.

“Oh, hey! Fancy meeting you here…”

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“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.

A dreadful Sunday.

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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.

Table build up on the bench this month.

Early morning supply drop.

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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.

And they’re off!

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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!

Sculpting: Ogre Rogue progress.

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I am turning the corner on my Ogre bust sculpt. Adding in the clothes and details. I have a modified war hammer axe in the works to pin onto the left shoulder. Should have an attached left hand to go with it to finish off the silhouette. Haven’t sculpted hands in a while. Should be a frustratingly difficult addition to my project.

Dashing pretty boy Ogre Rogue.

I think I’m going to tackle a Ninja Turtle next. I have done a bunch in clay over the years, eight or so to he more precise. But never in Super Sculpey. I’ll do one up so that I can paint it. Maybe a full figure and not just an armless bust this time around? I’ve got months to figure it out. I’m in no rush.

Also my table build is progressing at a good pace. Still cutting down and building the pieces. Going to be a lot of sanding to do before final assembly and then moving on to finishing. Flat slab top, thin drawer below, with a slatted shelf near the bottom. A mixed utility small table. Adapt and move forward!