A Morning of Repairs

  Eva and I sneaked away for a couple of days to our cottage on Georgian Bay. It is nice to 

summer scenes are nicer that what we have now.
 but... it will look this good again shortly.

get away from home to relax for a while.  

    
  We watched Pay-Per-View movies ate great baked goods, did jig saw puzzles and a small maintenance job.  When you own a property there is always a small maintenance job.  The diverters on the bath tube facets needed to be changed.  An easy job you say, well it is when you have a decent product with which to work.  Initially we went to the local hardware store with the helpful people and bought a new diverter, after careful installation as demonstrated by You Tube it leaked.  I am not an experienced plumber  so I assumed I had done something wrong and re-installed the diverter and it still leaked.  Eva took it back to the hardware store with the helpful people and brought two new diverters made by a well known and respected plumbing supply company instead of a generic company and... after following the same instructions the diverters worked perfectly. I guess the lesson is buy things from well known and respected suppliers, their  quality control standards are higher. 

  This morning I went down stairs to my work shop and had to begin by clearing up the mess.  There were a couple of things that needed paint, or varnish and several things that needed repair. 

  I had a tray to re-glue, a fish to varnish, a table top to varnish, a facial tissue box to re-glue etc. etc. etc.

  

  With a piece of glass to cover this piece it would make a very distinctive serving tray.  I will continue to put on coats of varnish.  There is no question, water based varnish is easy to apply and it is easy to clean your brushes too.  Easy enough that extra coats aren't a problem.

  Last spring I made some nice boxes to cover our facial tissue and one of the boxes came unglued.  Rather the inner tube used to hold the cardboard box in place came unglued. 

 No fooling around this time, two part epoxy and proper clamp time. 

  One of the odder projects from this morning, a morning that included cutting and bleaching deer antler, (the band saw cuts the antler easily, and javex bleaches it fine) another job was using that two part epoxy to glue a foot onto a folding tablet stand: was reshaping a little tin box that I use as a pencil case.

  The tin recently got rather badly bent.  I don't know how, I guess I sat something heavy on the bag it was in.  This box is nothing special expect for its history.  Thirty five years ago my late friend Steve and I smoked those small cigars and he gave me the tin. Steve is gone, though I think about him often and wouldn't part with the pencil case for worlds.  It was a small scale twist and hammer job and the result is adequate. 

  I also did some painting:

Our yard will have 'one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish' this summer.  A finishing note: Varathane  water based varnish softens and lifts milk paint. 

  Captain will be as good as new so he can float in our garden's water feature again this year.  The frogs like sunning themselves on his deck.  Kieran and I made Captain years ago, I renew the wee boat each spring 'cause I have sentimental attachments to somethings.

  There is more house cleaning to do later this afternoon, but right now I am going to put on a bunch of warm clothes and go for a bike ride.

cheers, ianw

Two Projects for My Mom, a few years apart.

  Since I am old I lived and wood worked before Ikea eliminated the need to make your own book shelves. So.. when I was a high school student in the 1970's I went with my Mother to Beaver Lumber (long extinct) bought some particle board pre-cut shelves and a couple of 2x6 boards and made a book shelf for our rec room. This book shelf still lives in my Mother's basement and looks as good as it ever did, I think.

  I knew that the shelves had NO strength and so each shelf is supported in at least three places, after all these  years the shelves are as straight and true as they were the day I put this together in the drive way of my house. You can't see but across the back is a half sheet of 1/4 construction plywood providing stability against racking.

  To make this a piece of furniture sort of, suitable for a basement recreation room anyway I even glued trim to the edge of the shelves.

    This is why I like wood. Jeez, this is over forty years old.  And appears to have aged better than its maker.

   I was visiting my Mother today bumming dinner and I brought her a gift from my shop.

  The last time Mom visited she saw the tissue box I make for us said she liked it.  You should only tell a wood worker you like something if you have a place to put one in your home. This is a cool little box with mitred corners.  I knocked it off with my sliding mitre saw, care in measurement means good corners.  The wood is from a very old chest of drawers that I took apart at the beginning of March. 

  The wood is cool, it is filled with worm holes. 

  

  Some people would think the holes were creepy.  I think they give the very ordinary box some real character.

 I am not going to do project pictures, because good project videos have already been done by excellent wood workers who are also good video producers. 

    Watch Izzy Swan make a box using tape to clamp the corners, that is exactly what I did.  

Izzy Swan is one of my wood working heroes.  I love his mechanical projects. 

  I hope my American and British friends had a good long weekend and everyone has lots of projects planned for their summer.

cheers, ianw

A Box Of Course

  Isn't just about all woodworking box making? or lathe work.  We arrived home from holiday and resolved to do our spring cleaning.  One thing that we discovered in guest bedrooms and our cars were facial tissue boxes 3/4 filled with tissues that had been attacked and savaged by one or more grand children. Why, I don't know?  

  Since I am cheap and love to make things that have a purpose:

  What makes this box interesting as well as useful is 

a: it is made from the wood that was a drawer in the dresser I took apart just before leaving for holiday.  

The thin lumber that was used to make the drawer once sanded and stained had real character.  The lesson learned is to check out old furniture sitting on the side of the road on garbage day.  &

b: 

   I wanted the box of tissues to stay inside the box when it was moved from place to place so I glued a strap made from bicycle inner tube. I used contact cement to glue the inner tube to the box wall.  I have found, over time, that few adhesives are as versatile as contact cement.  Yes it smells and it does take time to set but I just clamp the pieces and leave them over night. 

  This was an easy project that made use of reclaimed materials.  I think I may make a couple more of these and give them to our church to sell at the Christmas bazaar.  

  I have been spending time painting our new windows, and then touching up the paint on the wall around the windows. We then decided to rehang the old roller blinds and each window now needed a valence type of cover, hiding the roller blind.  We bought new windows, from a serious window company. There are three windows, all the same, except the frames are different sizes, but 1/4 inch.  It is also worth noting they are only sort of square. Jeez louise.

  The current project is a bit of a back breaker. (hunched over carving) I am making a chair rail that has shallow relief carving the full length that about about 25 feet of carving.  I will post some pictures in the next blog.  If you look up chair rail photos there is often wainscoting too, I like the look without wainscoting although a design decision will be made one the rail is up.

cheers ianw

The Weirdest Work Shop Project Yet!

  Lets face facts, if you have a workshop you will eventually end up making some oddball things.  There will be school projects for your kids, or a crazy lawn ornament, or some kind of arts/crafts what not for your mother-in-law. 

  Today's project, on my new bench, using my new vises, in my recently semi-organized shop wins the prize for the weirdest thing I've ever made.  Today's project did not use much material, in fact it was all plywood from my off cut bin, and I didn't even try to use 'fancy pants' joints. This project, will be a short term thing in our house, once the kitten grows up a bit more we  hope we'll not need this object any longer.

  Speaking of down and dirty joints. I put this project together with nails and screws and I used my electric brad nailer to drive the 1/2 inch brads. I brought my brad nailer years ago to help with small trim jobs in soft wood.  It drives brads up to 5/8 inch just fine and I've avoided jobs that needed longer brads, so it's been a good fit for me. I suggest you check out electric if you are doing small D.I.Y things and don't want to get into the cost of air tools and the on going maintenance associated with them. I would certainly get a 23 gauge pin nailer if I were doing lots of projects like this one on a regular basis.

  This particular project has been inspired by a need created by our lively new kitten.  Jr. Kat is almost a living cartoon cat. He climbs on top of everything and anyone.  He has all sorts of toys that he bats around the house at all hours of the day and night and he tears paper to small bits, including our wall paper in three conspicuous places. ( It looks like wainscotting is going to have to be put in the hallway because of him)

 

You Tube Video

  If you watch the Simon's Cat video you will see his cat do what our kitten does.  Jr. Kat pulls the bathroom tissue roll down, or chews the edges to bits.

  What did I have to make?  A cat resistant toilet paper roll holder!!!

 If you didn't know what this was you might think it was some sort of wooden toy for a kid to play with in a sand box, a plough or a digger maybe.

 Sadly real life is not so exotic.

  This toilet paper holder will attach with zip ties to a rattan shelf unit by the throne and keep its contents safe from attack and within easy reach.

  

 The roll holder looks slightly over engineered but to be certified cat resistant requires meeting certain internationally agreed standards. Not only that those new mega toilet rolls are pretty big around when they are new. 

  

  This is Jr. Kat, having just packed himself into my wife's suitcase. He is a cute as a bug's ear and as much aggravation as having a bug in your ear.

cheers, Ian W