woodworking, sorta « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

woodworking, sorta

Another day closer to being ready for the semester

Another one of my classes was locked down today. I’m sure I’ve said that recently. Probably about that class, but it is official official now. The syllabus has been uploaded. I’m not touching anything else with it, build-wise. Of course I have to work on lectures, but there’s time for that. For now, it is organized and mostly coherent.

The last thing to do was to fix the syllabus. Change the dates. Change the time and date details. Add some standard university boilerplate. Wonder why this was a nine-page document. My afternoon goal was to cut that down. Eventually, I made it five pages. Here’s how you do that.

You press the delete button a lot.

When you add things you have to delete things. Paragraphs and sentences can be made redundant. Then you can move sections around to take advantage of page breaks. Then you can reduce sentences to their Hemingwayesque destiny. Finally, you can just delete a whole two-page section with information that exists elsewhere, anyway. Voilà! Five pages!

If you’re not leaving the bulk of your work on the cutting room floor, you’re not doing your best work.

I also locked up my online presentations class with a new thumbnail image: owls staring at a computer. Tomorrow, I’ll go through my org comm class once more to make sure that it’s ready. Monday, I’ll put the finishing touches on the first week’s slide decks. Tuesday, I’ll hit the ground stumbling.

If you wanted to see the new sunglasses shelf in its natural location, and I’m sure no one did, here it is. One piece of scrap plywood for the back, two bits of leftover pine for the sides, one of the rip cut to match the other. Two other pieces of extra wood crosscut into shelves. Glue on the sides, brad nails on the shelves. Wood screws for the cleat, which was was also leftover. Six shelves, lots of sunglasses.

It does what I wanted it to do.

I hate it already.

I do not know why my lovely bride has two helmets in the garage. She can only wear one at a time. (She has at least three active helmets right now.)

The sunset looked promising from the backyard.

Over at the north corner there was a nice mixture of colors amidst the tangle of plants. The roses and the hydrangea are having a fine time of it. I think we might have developed a second hydrangea in there, somehow. Just there on the right the famous honeysuckle is sneaking into the shot.

Looking to the west, the sunset got serious quickly.

That’s a good argument to knock off work at key times. You can only catch that by chance unless you make the actual effort. Make the actual effort. You don’t want to miss views like that.

cycling / memories / photo / Rowan / Tuesday / woodworking, sorta — No Comments
25
Aug 26

Back to it

Today was a day of waking up at a reasonable time. I had forgotten there was a 7:30 a.m. I am not the morning person. I’m fine when I wake up, but just let me sleep in. It’s my natural condition. So imagine, if you will, the 10 or so years I did morning news. I had one job where I was in the studio at 4:30 a.m. That might the next job’s 6 a.m. arrival seem positively easy. The upside was that you had an afternoon to get errands done. The downside was you can’t, in your 20s, convince people you need to be in bed by 8 p.m.

Reader, I never was.

I was not last night, either. I only had to wake up at 7:30. This was rude enough.

Fortunately, my classes are all in the afternoon and evening.

Anyway, we had a meeting at 9:30 a.m., our first faculty meeting of the semester. This involved sitting in a classroom, reading an agenda, talking about the various items. Trying to stay on track and on schedule, and so on. (This group has a terrific sense of staying on time, and that’s a nice thing to be a part of.) It ran for six hours, this meeting. Six hours is not easing back into things. I suppose all of the work I’ve done these last four weeks have been the easing back into things. And, also, the sudden increase of email that has coincided with the work. Perhaps that has been the easing back in. (Just four more days of easing back in until the full stride begins. But I don’t want to wow you with all of that just now.)

The good news is that we’ll be on the clock for the work next week. Once we get started, then we can get started. The feeling before classes begin is an odd one. It is a stew of excitement and anxiety and you-still-have-time and you-have-no-time and there-are-days-to enjoy-yourself-so-relax and who-can-relax and, also, I-need-more-days-with-which-to-relax. This paragraph breaks no new ground — as opposed to every other ‘graph on this site. It has always felt like that. I suspect the days before a new semester begin feel like that for a lot of people. I imagine it always will, at least so long as we have semesters and people teaching in them.

And now, notes from real life.

We went out for a morning bike ride yesterday. A simple 20-miler, one of the traditional routes. I decided, wisely, that instead of trying to stay out front for as long as possible, I would ride sensible, hanging onto my lovely bride’s wheel, and then maybe I’ll still be there at the end. Going out front would have probably been a better option. She’s riding so well lately and I am not and that’s how you find yourself going 20-plus miles an hour and squinting into the distance, trying to determine if you can still see someone in the distance.

Nothing on that ride was terribly bad. She’s just super great at the moment.

Some farmers, in some places, talk about a second season. We have that here, and here’s evidence of that. I rode this same route a few weeks back and the corner was taller than me. Now, it is not.

This, if I remember my corn growing rates, is pushing the boundaries of the science, which is pretty cool. Double-cropping is a growing thing, and I need to read more about it. I can’t recall if it is efficient or inefficient. (Most likely that depends on the crop.)

For today’s bike ride I recreated a route I did three years ago, this week. It was a ride-every-road-within-shouting-distance-until-you-get-to-20-miles route. I did it at just below a tempo pace. I finished it two minutes and two seconds faster than I did in 2023. I wish it had been faster.

After my ride I finished this project. It’s the same picture I shared yesterday, because the face of it looks the same. This evening I had to attach the cleat to the back. From there, hang the cleat on the wall.

This took four screws, but they had to be precise because the cleat isn’t quite large enough. The cleat isn’t quite large enough because it is a leftover cleat that I made last summer. I got a corner cabinet and mounted it in a dead space in the garage and there sit the bike shoes and the helmet. All of this was an effort to get the bike stuff all the tool stuff. Only, lately, the sunglasses and have migrated back to the tool stuff. So, I had some extra lumber and wanted to try my new brad nailer and everything worked out well. Until I had to get those screws in. There were about three millimeters for error because, again, I cut twice and measured once on this project. It is garage furniture.

And now it is sitting on a wall cleat and holding sunglasses and it doesn’t even wobble when the garage door goes up and down.

There are no cats in this tunnel. Phoebe ran into the room for attention and settled down in her favorite spot for speculative belly rubs. I gave her a nice pet and then shot this, just because I like the way the light was playing off the tunnel.

That’s a new tunnel that my mother sent the cats. We now have two tunnels, so our jealous sibling cats can get along with one another. I’d randomly move them around the house, but these little guys are such creatures of habit I’m not sure how they’d react to upsetting their routine with such an offensive gesture.

Outside, I looked up just in time. This plane is going to London. By the time you read this, of course, the people are already there. Probably over the jet lag. I wonder what they’re doing today.

Sometimes you should look up even when there’s no rumble or roar of an aircraft overhead. Sometimes you just get lucky. Just about every time, really, if you think about it.

Think about it.

errands / Friday / photo / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off
21
Aug 26

A day in rebellion

Because I did not do it yesterday, because I was working, I spent the morning running the weed eater. The backyard needed it. Also, I plucked some giant mutant dandelions. The web will tell you that dandelions can grow two feet tall, and if I knew that before just now I would have taken photos of the three and four-feet tall stalks that were threatening the rose bushes. My plan had been to hit just the edges of the lawn, the high spots at the fence, and the parts that were growing beyond their design intention. But, you know how it is with weeds. One thing leads to another and before long I had built up a decent sweat and a giant lawn bag full of mint and whatnot.

Want some mint? Come get some mint. Be sure you want it first. It’s an opportunistic plant, willing to grow in any free space, and it is all but impossible to eradicated.

Give the mint three pieces of credit, though. It pulls up easy. And it will choke out just about any other weed. It smells pleasant. And now the car smells like mint. I took the recycling and the green things to the county drop off site after my lovely bride did a bit of weed-pulling too. So there I was, two big containers of glass, aluminum, and a bit of plastic to drop. Two bags of weeds. Great armfuls of boxes. I even put them in the car well this time, such that I was a whirl of efficiency at the county site. The one other guy doing his part to save the earth was amazed at my industry. Two trips to the cardboard bin, two long walks to the mixed recycling. The only wasted motion was when when I accidentally closed the trunk too early.

Back home I left the garage open, and broke out some of the tools with which one works wood. I had, by then, just decided I wasn’t going to get in front of a computer today. (Except I am now, but that’s different, somehow.) The weather was just right, in the shade, anyway. And I decided to make a little thing for the garage. One of the few shortcomings in our house is that the garage is awfully crowded. And the wall upon which I store the tools with which one works wood is also where the bikes and various cycling accessories live. There are two problems with this. Last year I got tired of all the helmets and shoes and whatnot sitting on top of my table saw, so I got myself a corner cabinet, made myself some French cleats and now we have two shelves for helmets and shoes. But, still, the sunglasses have worked their way back down to the saw area. I’m the biggest perpetrator. So lately I envisioned a little sunglasses holder that will also go onto the elongated French cleat.

Today, because the weather was nice, in the shade, and I was in a computer rebellion, I decided to take the afternoon and make that happen.

The problems are these. One, I’m not an especially good woodworker. You improve with practice, though. But this brings me to my second problem. Space is limited, and so I don’t practice all that much. I had to go downstairs to fetch the ladder so that I could climb up it to see what scraps of old lumber I’d use. I had to move the miter saw to get to the table saw. I had to pull the table saw into the drive way. I had to run an extension cord. I had to peer through the garage shelves (which desperately need attention, which is my fault, and something I’m looking forward to addressing on a not steamy day) for things like a framing square, pencils, the table saw fence, the orbital sander, and so on.

Once I had all of the right things I proceed to doing the work, breaking down a random bit of plywood I picked up from somewhere, and then ripping a lovely bit of pine for the sides of my shelves. And then gluing one of those sides to the plywood. Then I dug out my brand new brad nailer. I picked this up sometime back and now was the time. The battery was charged, some long brads came in the box (I picked up some others, too, and they’re on that shelf … somewhere.) I drove in my first-ever brad nails today. I felt macho doing it.

With my ear protection on and everything. The brad nailer works well. It is also louder than you’d expect.

Then I ripped some more pine, so that I could crosscut it for the shelves themselves. Here I managed to not hurt myself, but relearned a lot of things about what not to do with your table saw.

(I’ll never hurt myself on the table saw. I fear it enough to respect it. I will hurt myself on pretty much any other thing. Though, today, happily, I didn’t hurt anything.)

I decided to make the shelves larger than I’d envisioned. I figured maybe it will evolve into a storage space for something else one day. Besides, it just didn’t seem like a small project day. I don’t know how to explain that, otherwise, but you should always listen to your gut around power tools.

Plus, I figured, you can never have enough space for the little things you carry.

Anyway, all of the pieces got cut. And I made a little dry fit test. It’s going to look something like this.

I glued up the second side. I’ll drive some brad nails into it this weekend, just for fun. And I’ll develop a process to space out those shelves, too. They’ll be attached all in one go at some point soon. Then we’ll just have to install the cleat on the back.

I sanded all of this down, but decided I’m not going to finish it. It’s garage furniture, after all. The Yankee might want to. She likes staining things. So I’ll leave that up to her.

Anyway, by this point, on a project where I decided to do more thinking than measuring, I realized I was approaching being done for the day. This is an important thing to consider because there’s still the cleaning up and the putting away. I timed this. It took 32 minutes to throw away the little bits, to put the sander and the sand paper and the square and the ladder away, to find a place the shelves can safely sit while the glue fixes, to put the table saw back in its corner, and the miter saw back on the table saw, to roll up the extension cords and, finally, to clean up my sawdust.

Truly, it is the most first world problem that ever existed, but set up and tear down is an investment all its own in my scenario. I need a shop so that I might do more of this, and get better at it. Which is to say, really, I shouldn’t buy any more second hand tools. There’s no room in my non-space. A new space can’t be the basement — too much sawdust and noise. It can’t be the garage — that’s where the cars live. I don’t have an outbuilding for this, nor is ours the sort of neighborhood where that would fit in. And I can’t afford an off-site location. So I’ll dabble, me and my average to poor carpentry skills, when the weather and scheduling and big chunks of available time permit.

The good news is that I have plenty of projects in mind.

This evening I’ve spent chatting with The Yankee, making weekend plans, having dinner, catching up on the day’s news, doing the dishes, doing this … pleased I spent a day doing something that was just for fun. Aside from the weeds, anyway. Backyard looks good, though!

Someday, soon, the sunglasses will, too.

cycling / Monday / photo / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off
2
Jun 25

To the joys of June

Happy Monday, where the temperatures are mild, the sun is bright and the whole week is stretched out before us. The first week of June is always a magical one. Historically, seasonally, optimistically, all of it. And why should this one, this first week of June, be anything less?

It’s always like this, though. Every first week has it’s celebrants, and every week holds its importance for some person or people. In truth, if you held a complete memory of your life’s moments there would be something in every week to give the old hip-hip-hooray to.

But it’s warm, it’s June, the days are long, the birds are birding, the bees are buzzing, everything is green and it’s easy to slip into a frame of mind that allows you to enjoy the moment.

If you can turn off the outside world for a few minutes — which is simultaneously a danger and a challenge — which we should all do, for a little bit, every now and then.

I do that on weekends now, which makes it weird to talk about on a Monday. But then, already on a Monday I, a news junkie, sometimes find myself thinking, I can turn off the news machine early, right?

Anyway.

Last week, I sawed some lumber into french cleats. Saturday, I picked up the appropriate sized wood screws to attach the cleats to the shelves. And since it rained during the evening, I went ahead and finished the project.

This is what I did first. I attached the brace lumber to the bottom of the shelves, using a clever series of clamps to keep things level. And then I did the same for the cleats. These had to actually be level and even with one another, because these are corner cabinets. They were level, according to the bubble on my phone. They were even according to the tape measure. But they were not even to the eye. (The back of the left-side cleat was a little high.)

Then I took the wall cleats and started working through the multi-layered strategy necessary to mount these suckers to the walls. There are two of them. And they are in a corner. Also, the studs in our garage are either 14 inches or 3 hectares apart. Plus, now I have this uneven cleat thing on the back of the shelves.

Also, it was during this moment that I was obliged to be in a text message conversation that I didn’t need to be in. So a job that required four hands had one. But at least dinner was decided.

This is how I solved those problems: I clamped the wall cleats to the shelves, under their cleats. Then I drilled the two wall cleats together as a simple butt joint. Now, at least, the cleats were in the proper relationship. Then, I mounted them to the walls. This took a little creativity, given to the studs, but I made it work. Then I hung the shelves, which are a light bit of MDF. The good news is all of this is going to hold a light load, anyway. The best news, is that the bike shoes, helmets and assorted accessories now have their own out of the way space.

Because the studs are so odd, I just ran the cleats out beyond the shelves. This was a happy accident, really, but it worked perfectly for the current needs. And there’s extra cleat space should I ever need to expand or upgrade those shelves.

So that’s a project completed, and from that one builds momentum.

The view Saturday evening.

This was at the local custard shop, which traces its roots back to a 1950s creamery. Times change, but our appreciation of treats stays the same.

Also on Saturday I got my new wheel from the local bike shop. By the time I was ready to go out and give it a try the storms blew in. Wet roads didn’t seem to be the way to try a brand new wheel holding a may-as-well-be-new tire. So I waited until yesterday evening, when the roads were dry and the breeze was dying down.

Here’s the newly mounted wheel. Look at that shiny new cassette!

When I took in the old wheel last week the bike shop was surprised when I showed him the busted hub, he found a small crack in the wheel, and we discussed the cassette. I’m pushing 20,000 miles on the thing, and I bought this bike used. As far as I know, these are all still the factory stock.

“This wheel,” he said, “owes you nothing.”

He told me a cassette should last about 3,000 miles, making it sound like a fragile piece of equipment. It seemed like a good way to make me feel good about buying a new wheel.

Anyway, I had a little 28-mile shakeout ride yesterday. You know how when you are riding along in your car, or sitting in your home, and you hear a noise you don’t recognize? Suddenly you’re on heightened alert to identify every noise, bump, rattle, shudder and sigh?

It felt like that.

It wasn’t a fast ride because of that, but also because I haven’t been on my bike in a week and my legs felt like it. And because I was told to ride in the middle of the cassette until I get the chain replaced next week. All of which meant I was going slow enough to see this, react, pull my phone from my back pocket and get an almost-shot.

Exactly one sheep was looking up as I went by. That tracks.

Before I went out this evening I checked the air pressure, and just as I thought, I rode yesterday at a lower PSI than that to which I am accustomed, explaining a lot of the physical sensations.

It didn’t explain the slowness! I pumped more air into the thing and didn’t move around much faster today.

But, tomorrow, World Bicycle Day, I’ll get a new chain slapped onto the thing. Then I’ll go at a very average speed, indeed!

cycling / photo / Tuesday / woodworking, sorta — Comments Off
27
May 25

I love the smell of sawed pine in the late morning

Today we will lead off with an update on the bike. You’ll recall from yesterday that I busted my rear wheel hub on Saturday. There I was, happy to be out of the wind, pedaling along when POP! wobble wobble wobble. The hub was what popped. Three spokes were displaced, which took the wheel out of round and caused the wobble wobble. And thus ended Saturday’s ride.

The bike shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays which brings us to today.

So, this morning I took the rear wheel to the bike shop.

Mike was just getting off the phone when I walked in. Someone had two flats and, thus, couldn’t ride today. I held up my wheel and he said, “What is this? The day of flats?”

No, no I said, I broke a —

“You busted a spoke!”

Nope, I said, pointing to the hub.

Like I’d go win with a tube.

He told me I should just get a new wheel. By the time we bought a hub and he installed everything and so on and so forth.

I told him my plans for the bike, and he said, that it should be a wheel.

Then he saw a crack in the wheel. So it was a matter of time. And a matter of timing. And maybe good luck.

And my good luck continued. He said he was ordering round things today.

He would not tell me how long this would take. I told him I had only part of my Saturday ride and none sense and I was afraid of going into withdrawal and he made a joke about fitness, and that was that.

So it’ll probably be a fortnight. Bike shops operate on their own schedule, and their suppliers are often in their own universe.

Usually this happens when I’m riding well. I could have several strong rides in a row, and then we have to travel somewhere, or work becomes the order of the day, I catch a cold, whatever. But this time, I’ve lately been riding poorly. If it means anything in the great cosmic scheme of bike riding, who knows. Probably not much, which may mean it matters a great deal.

Ehh, it’s supposed to rain the next few days, anyway. And I have a half-dozen indoor projects I’m looking forward to working on. So there’s plenty to do.

And so I went home, and continued slow-walking a project toward completion. On Friday I screwed two shelves together. It’s an MDF corner piece I bought second-hand. Two shelves, probably from the original owner’s kitchen or bathroom. It’s going in our garage, in a corner of the punch out. And it’ll hold bike helmets and shoes.

I decided to make French cleats to mount the shelves on two sides in that otherwise unused cabinet. Today, I made the cleats.

This involved pulling out the saw, running some extension cords and digging out the ol’ safety glasses. Then I had to choose the appropriate lumber, rip it to develop braces, and then crank the blade to 45 degrees.

I’ve never made French cleats before. They’re super simple. But, still, they’re new. Also, my table saw is an old rickety and cheap thing. But it did the job. I made one long cleat and then cut the pine down to size.

The odd thing about the garage is that the studs are about 2.4 miles apart from one another, and so I’ll make super long wall mounts. It turns out that I had just enough of the same wood for the project.

Now I just need wood screws that are the correct size. And since I am slow-walking this project, I’ll go pick those up later this week.

But, now, since I have done this radical thing of writing this in the middle of the day (it feels weird, and also good) and I have all of those other indoor projects, maybe I’ll go get started on one of those now.