What happens when my back gets sore.

  When I have had several busy days in a row, days with extra walking or oddly enough extra sitting the arthritis in my back reacts badly and I am sore until I fully relax for at least two days, sometimes three.  Of late I have not been able to put 2 or 3 days relaxed time together and so each day is crap shoot as to what I can get done before side lined totally.   

  While I am sore life goes on and there still are a ongoing stream of little things that need doing.  For example, yesterday we pulled our dishwasher out and scraped spray foam insulation off the out side, it needed knives, putty knives, plyers, screw drivers and the shop vac to clean up.  A shop tip: a Dollar Store serrated bread knife cuts spray foam really well, costs $1.25 and is easier to hold on to than a loose hacksaw blade.  I also spent time polishing the plastic guard plates for the stained glass studio, drills, buffing wheels, cloths etc. If you are going to get into big jobs polishing things, cars, boats etc get the machine for the job.  What ever little job comes along means tools taken out and probably not put back where they belong, because the task used up all the available back mobility.

  What happens is this:

bench piled high with small tools
used recently.

work table covered with projects
and stuff dropped off on the way by.

  There are plastic containers saved for later use, the sander than prepared the flower box and various clamps, clothes and bits of wood.  This is not how I like my shop but use and drop is the routine I use while saving my back as best as I can.

  Today, I couldn't stand it any longer nor could I do ANYTHING in the shop with the work space in that sort of shape.

what the bench actually looks like, with its own
work light.

 the work table cleaned up with the
new raised bench in place

  Having gotten the space into shape I decided to add to my Mother's flower planter.

  

  The stencil was hanging on the wall. The paint was a $1.00 sample colour and I thought it added a nice touch to an otherwise big brown box.

  While I was at it I  used the same stencil to begin a design on some coasters.

  These will get more detail and contrasting colour once everything is dry.  Probably these coasters will end up as a Christmas hand out.

  Today I sent about two hours in my shop before my back started to complain loudly,  half the time cleaning.  However there is satisfaction in  cleaning a shop too.

  cheers, ianw

Picture Frame and Flower Box

  My eight year old Grand daughter loves to crafts and make pictures for Eva and I.  We have a couple of her paintings in our bed room and recently we were given two more pictures to put up.  All pictures look better mounted and framed and so I retired to my work shop and make our drawings a frame.

  I glued the two pictures to new watercolour paper and to a section of foam core.  The frame is made from thinly sliced 2x4 spruce.  I used my thin strip ripping jig on my table saw to make the the pieces.  Often cheap wood has character that makes it unique and interesting, as in this case.

thin strip jig, Sept 12, 2013
(all my jigs are red or orange )

Next I sanded  the wood, then stained it and glued it to the foam core backed paper. I decided that I would not make the typical frame and am pretty pleased with the result.  

  I am polishing clear guards from glass grinders for my wife's stained class group.  It is a slow job using a soft polishing wheel, white compound and lots of patience. Again it is because I hate throwing things away when they can be repaired.(with some effort).  The easy solution is to buy new guards and throw the pitted ones away, making for more plastic trash.  I'm planning to invest the time to renew the life of the safety guards.

  A few years ago I made a fairly large planter box for my Mother's patio. The size was based on a foam shipping box which made for a water tight, fairly light inner liner to hold the soil and water.  After all these years sitting in outside in the sun and winter snow the box was looking pretty shabby.  Remarkably the foam liner box is still in good shape and usable. 

  Originally the cedar box was varnished with a couple of coats of outdoor varnish and then ignored for years. This summer its age was obvious and that most of the varnish had worn away.

  First the  box was sanded vigorously to remove what remained of the varnish.  Since unprotected cedar turns greyish over time I opted to stain the box 'walnut' before varnishing it this time.  Cedar has a good track record of weather resistance, this planter box was still perfectly solid, just tired looking.   I'll put a little time into this project over the weekend and take it home to my Mom early in the week.  That's what sons do.

 cheers ianw