Change in the Weather

[dxmachina]

Finally, the temperature has dropped down into the seventies, and the humidity is manageable. It was downright comfortable for sleeping last night. Yesterday it rained most of the morning and afternoon, so no biking. Just as well, because the humidity level was still awful most of the day. Saturday's ride was like pedaling through soup, but without the salty goodness.

Tom and Betsy are spending the week on vacation in a cottage down by the beach, so they stopped by with the kids yesterday to see the house. Tom hadn't seen it since he helped me move, and Betsy's never been. We watched a Jeeves and Wooster tape, and I loaned Betsy one of the boxed sets (she's a big fan of the books, but had never seen any of the episodes). We also spent a good bit of time discussing our respective computer obsessions. (Fantasy baseball for Tom, Buffistas for me, Betsy just smiles and nods at us.) Fun was had. I'll being heading down to the cottage Wednesday night for dinner.

After they took off, I did some work on the shelves. I'd gone to the Depot in the morning to pick up the rest of the maple stock that was needed, which when added to what I already had gave me 40' of 1x3. This got cut into sixteen 29½" lengths. I ripped those in half on the table saw to give the thirty-two rough blanks for the shelf facings. Then I ran the rough blanks through the planar to remove the burn marks from the saw blade, and to whittle them down to their final height of 1 1/16". This took a lot longer than I expected, because I had more than an eighth of an inch of excess material to remove, and each pass through the planar only removes about a sixty-fourth of an inch at a time. Multiply by thirty-two pieces, and it's a binary explosion! It took awaile, but they got done. I quit at that point, because it was still ridiculously humid, and since the planer flings wood shavings everywhere, a substantial percentage of them wound up stuck to me. Not nearly as much fun as usual. (I dearly love using the planer. It's simple, precise, and destructive. You gotta love a tool that uses rotating knives to do it's work.)

The next steps for the blanks are to cut a rabbet on each that the shelf blank will fit into, then round over the back edge of the facing, and finally cut a bead along the bottom edge of the front of the facing.

Comments

Tooooooolz! (said in Jilli-voice)

[e-juliana.livejournal.com]

"You gotta love a tool that uses rotating knives to do it's work."

Yes, yes you do. Me likey power tools.....

[fufaraw]

My dad used to take me to the professional wood shop one of his friends had. I remember vividly playing in piles of soft, fragrant sawdust, and making Goldilocks curls out of long, planed spirals of wood. How do you feel about hand tools? I know the electric ones make all that exhilarating power-noise, but I find something ineffably sexy about a hand plane, particularly one that the blade has been kept sharp and bright, and the wood of the piece has been worn mellow and satin smooth by the pressure of a hand.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

I love using a plane, but I suck at it because I've never done it often enough to become good at it. Plus there are all the adjustments and the sharpening. I get impatient.

I'm even worse with a hand saw.