30
Oct 16

Tidying up and small jobs

Didn’t get the jig built. But did get the lawnmower and a lot of other annoying floorspace eaters cleared out to the garden storage box, so I’ve now gone from this:

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being under my feet to this:

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It’s a remarkable change 😀

Mind you, while getting that done other stuff had to be moved about so for a while, this was my bench…

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So not ideal. I finished breaking down almost all of the boards from friday (there’s still one 6’x6″ walnut board I haven’t cut yet) and stacking them and generally doing small bits of tidying away (like putting some mdf on the floor under the timber because that floor looks manky):

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So a little crowded again, but the dremel, the bench grinder and air compressor are all going up on french cleats on the wall or elsewhere in the shed, along with those clamps; and as to the wood, well, that’s three or four projects on the go so it’s not just sitting around taking up space, it’s raw materials. I can live with that.

Still way too small a shed though.

And then I started trying to get some more things off the bench to free up more space. So the holdfasts finally got storage holes in the legs…

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(I couldn’t drill a second in the right leg because there’s a tumbledrier in the way. Don’t ask).

And the scrapers finally get a small holder to get them out of the way and kept together.

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And last small job was to get the hammers off the bench and onto the wall. So a small lath of 2×1 and some holes drilled at a 15° angle and some 18mm dowel and glue gives this work in progress:

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I’ll let that cure overnight, then drill some pilot holes down from the top of the lath through the dowel centers, and drop a screw down the middle to add some strength, then chisel and plane the back flat and screw it to the wall. Then I’ll hang the hammers on it and hold my breath…


29
Oct 16

Shop till you drop

It’s been one of those consumer weekends so far. Friday was the trip to the timber yard (and would have been another trip to go buy a plastic drum for dust collection, but they weren’t open); and today was a trip to B&Q to buy one of these:

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Yeah, I know, it’s plastic, but it’s cheaper than you could build one for. Tomorrow the lawnmower and garden tools and a lot of this muck are going in there:

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After that, I might be able to actually stand in front of the vice for rip cuts…

And then there was the testing of the mattress for the cot, for which we roped in a volunteer…

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It was deemed to have passed inspection.

And lastly, I solved yesterday’s storage problem with the vigorous application of a circular saw (yeah, yeah, power tools, I’m unclean), and now I have a stack of rough-cut parts for two or three projects.

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There are still a few 5′ and 6′ boards to stack, but I can manage those, just about.

And with any luck, I might get back to project work tomorrow sometime, and get the steaming jig rebuilt, a drying jig built, and if I’m fast, get one of the walnut frame pieces steamed and bent.


28
Oct 16

Back to the yard…

So I have a few other projects I wanted to try on this year, and I needed the material for them and I figured it’d be no harm to have some extra on hand in case I make a total dog’s breakfast of the cot’s steambending, so it was back to Quinns today…

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So much fun stuff in this place 😀 And apparently they’d seen the photos from the last day and liked them, so Hi John and Paul if you’re reading.

Paul did his usual grand job of making everything very easy on me, and I wandered away with almost too much wood for the car this time. Oak, ash, poplar and walnut, almost eight cubic feet of the stuff in total (which is a lot more than it sounds when it’s in the form of 16′ long 1″ thick boards).

Transport was a bit of fun 😀 I am slowly learning the limits of what the car can hold…

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And storage is also posing challenges. I think I’m going to have to break a lot of this stuff down today for the rough cuts (handily, I know what it’s all for so I have cutlists).

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Got talking to John while I was there, and apparently they’re putting in for FSC recognition at the moment (basically, think fair trade but for timber) and we were talking away for a bit about the trade which was educational. And John also mentioned that they’d had some sapele come back in which the customer had had a problem with, but which they were now treating as offcuts and selling at €10 per cubic foot.

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It’s all 2″ thick stock or more though so I didn’t take his hand off at the wrist. If I had a bandsaw, that would all have landed in my car boot though. As it was, I took the only bit of 1″ stock that was left, and it has some really nice grain in it.

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I can see why people like this stuff. I’ve not had a chance to play with some before, so this should be interesting…