Took the kids for a two hour play at the Tree Top Trekking village, which they loved thoroughly, and I was able to participate and enjoy the obstacle course aswell, even masked up. Then we had a big group lunch where they played for another hour or so, all told it was four hours of fun from start to finish.
After a brief rest at home we finally got to meet our newest nephew outside, while masking up to protect the 7 day old newborn. Can’t be too careful! He’s a sleepy cutie pie, who didn’t make a sound. The kids were enthralled by him, though my youngest got bored of the baby lump action and went for an hour long trampoline jump-a-thon to stay busy in the warm and welcome sunshine.
I need to go do a smaller grocery shop in a few minutes, so I’ll cut this short. Much as I predicted, I have done nothing with my illustrated book this weekend. I did build an armature for my next sculpture. I finished off my other bust a day or two ago. Trying to bring the memory back to my hands. I think I’ll either do a ninja turtle in Super Sculpey or a Killer Croc bust. I have several clay ninja turtles, but nothing in ceramics, or polymer clay which you bake to harden. But I’ve never done a DC’s Killer Croc before. Might be fun to try something outside the usual for me.
I have made headway on my screen door build. I put the dado blades on my table saw for the first time, ever. And made the tenons for my three cross braces of the door. It’s a very tight press fit, so I’m shaving them down a touch so it won’t shatter or explode from the stress. I see a lot of wood filler, sanding, additional planing and painting in my future. I had hoped to stain the door, but my prowess with wood is low, so thick primer to cover my various failings it’ll be! Gotta love it. I’m glad I got over my fear of the dado blade set up. Cut like a hot knife through butter. Better than I’d have done with a hand saw or my tiny Skil bandsaw. Which is a glorified scroll saw at this point. Not good for anything more than .5″ thick hard woods. My doors are 2″ thick, and 4″ wide. So the Skil bandsaw isn’t really an option.
I will most likely need to mill up more thin strips to line the inside panels of the screen doors, so I can sandwich the stapled on mesh material. So I have a fair few steps left to go. Plus I still need to drill and chisel out the mortise for the center cross brace. But the tenons are shorter, so I don’t have as much to dig out, hopefully. I’m definitely going to need to pin the top and bottom braces in place with dowels to not have to rely solely on the press fit and glue holding. I have a handle, push plate, and hook latch to add after it’s all sanded & painted. Plus I’ll be cutting in the hinge plates to the side of the door, and the frame at the back out the house. Maybe a router jig would be better for that? Not too sure. I have weather stripping for the door to butt up against so it won’t swing inwards and get wedged in place. Good lord I hope this all works out. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this door these last few years! Bah! At least at this point I’m spending time and not money on the project. Happy Lazy Sunday to you all.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 