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Monday, August 4th, 2003
Motivation is in short supply over here... I eventually got myself down to the basement this evening, looked at the wood and decided I did not want to chop any mortises. It was not such a bad thing though -- I realized I could mark all the joints at one go, which ended up taking about a half hour with all the futzing around I was doing. Tomorrow night I will start chopping. ... Also I got some guitar practice in tonight; I worked out what I think will be a pretty convincing picking pattern for "While my Guitar Gently Weeps."
posted evening of August 4th, 2003: Respond
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Friday, August first, 2003
We're off to Kutztown tomorrow for a big picnic at Bill Grumbine's place -- get Ellen and Sylvia introduced to the whole WoodCentral and CJWA crowd.
posted afternoon of August first, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, July 31st, 2003
It is LanguageHat's first birthday, and I wish him a good one; seeing that prompted me to check how old I am now. I see my first post was made on April 25th, a couple of days more than 3 months ago; and that the current post number is 96. So I am averaging right about a post per day which seems like a good rate of output. (Of course many of those posts are little throw-away ones like this; the number of serious, meaningful posts is probably more like 40. Still a respectable figure.)
posted evening of July 31st, 2003: Respond
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I did some more work on the window seat tonight, finishing off the rear half of the frame. The mortise and tenon joints came out very nice, and without too much effort. I see from my referral log that a lot of people are coming here looking for window seat plans; while I don't have any plans to offer I can tell you it's pretty straightforward design, all you need is a simple frame with two flat pieces of wood on it -- see my first post for the design process and some rough drawings. And if you have questions about it, send me an e-mail -- I'd be glad to help if I can.
posted evening of July 31st, 2003: Respond
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I was happy to see in the Voice this morning, that a movie of "American Splendor" is coming out, opening in 2 weeks. Looking forward to it!
posted morning of July 31st, 2003: Respond
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2003
I have gotten further into Nuns and Soldiers and am enjoying it. The plot is pretty easy to follow thus far, as long as you keep track of where the flashbacks begin and end, and interesting. I like the prominence of Tim Reede in the section I'm reading now as I find it easy to identify with his character, moreso than most of the others. One annoying thing is Murdoch's tendency to break into the middle of a dialog with a long expository couple of paragraphs -- this is ok in moderation but she makes use of it way too often. Her descriptions are vivid and even moving; but when she is narrating a scene I often get a pretty clear picture of where she is going with it way before she gets there.
posted evening of July 29th, 2003: Respond
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It's back! Scott McCloud has restarted his daily Morning Improv session. Check out his first completed improv, The Junk Bar -- it is an amazing piece of work, sort of American Splendor meets A Clockwork Orange. [Well whatever -- the A Clockwork Orange comparison doesn't really work.]
posted afternoon of July 29th, 2003: Respond
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Monday, July 28th, 2003
More work on the window seat tonight, cutting out pieces for the rear half of the frame. I got a little worried when I was cutting the verticals, whether my planned seat height of 16" was adequate. Someone from WoodCentral thought it should be higher; and Bill from CJWA advised me to make the seat level with the window sill -- at 16" it is several inches below the window sill. I went back upstairs and looked at the space again, and decided to stay with the planned height. Two free-standing chairs that are in the bay window now are 16" high, and it is very comfortable to sit on them. It also simplifies things a great deal not to have to worry about the window sill. Before dinner, Sylvia was helping me in the wood shop. When I started sawing wood, I offered her to sit on a stool by the bench and watch, but she was not into it. "Can I have a little saw?" caught me a bit off guard -- I generally give her a small, non-dangerous copy of whatever tool I am using; but up till now that has not included tools with sharp edges. Looked around for a bit and then I realized, a mill file is exactly right: it has serrations, makes a rasping noise when you draw it across wood, and is not going to draw blood if you hold it wrong. So I gave it to Sylvia, and she had a good time sawing wood with it until we went up for supper.
posted evening of July 28th, 2003: Respond
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Sunday, July 27th, 2003
Finally began work (in at least a nominal sense) on my window seat. I measured and cut two story sticks tonight, one for the front of the frame (about 95", square ends) and one for the back (about 48", mitered ends), and marked the alignment between them. I think in the end, using story sticks is actually aiming for a higher degree of precision than is needed in this project; and certainly higher than I am going to attain. There are all kinds of things to deal with along the lines of, the floor is not level, the walls are not square; so it would probably make more sense to just work direct from the tape measure. OTOH story sticks is a really useful technique, one that I am not yet totally familiar with; and I build few enough projects that it is good to practice techniques that I want to develop, even if they do not fit exactly to the current project A "story stick" is just a scrap piece of wood cut to a particular dimension of your project; you use this stick to mark the dimension on the relevant pieces rather than measuring it out on each of them. This helps ensure that pieces which are meant to be sized alike really are, and generally guards against error. In addition, you can mark key points on the story stick, such as mortise locations, to be transfered to the work pieces. The reason the sizes I give above are approximate, is that I marked and cut the sticks from the actual size of the bay window where the seat will be located, rather than with a tape measure.
posted evening of July 27th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, July 26th, 2003
Here is an inventory of home improvement projects I want to work on: - Window seat: which I have, ridiculously, still not begun working on; but today I bought some lumber for it and cleaned up my shop, so I have no excuses left...
- Paths in the front yard: I have the slate, I have the tools to cut it; I am hoping to do these paths in the third week of August, when I will be on vacation.
- Path next to the house: Really the same project as the above, I just don't think I have enough slate right now to do it. I want to see how the first path goes before I schedule the others.
- Backyard patio: Again, waiting to see how difficult this slate laying stuff really is.
- Stone at base of side porch: This is going to be pretty complex and I have not really planned yet how it should look.
- New steps for side porch
- Breakfast nook
- Bookcases for Ellen's office: Ellen is breathing down my neck on this so they may come before the breakfast nook.
- Bookcases for living room: I've had an idea for this since we moved here...
- Dining room table: Again, I've had a very clear picture of this kicking around my head for about nine months now.
posted evening of July 26th, 2003: Respond
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