Response To Light

While things here have quiet here for a bit, there has been a lot of activity going on in the background. The Woodworking show is next week and I’ve been saving to get some ‘toys’. Since I’m routinely getting new tools, I thought I would start keeping track of how well they work in the shop and if they were worth the money. Additionally, there are about a few projects around the house that I will be starting. A couple should be minor — putting up a tv mount for the plasma — and some major — putting laminate in the family room downstairs and redoing the bar. The kitchen remains the most used area of the house. I would like to find ways to use the other areas more.

Photography

I haven’t given up on it but most of the stuff I’ve done lately is bad. When we went to Jasper during the summer, I don’t think I got one shot. But I still look for possible shooting locations. On the way to the dump outside of Airdrie I noticed a path of gorgeous trees and I could instantly see lots of possiblities. Yesterday it was foggy and I thought it would be a good time to head out there and grab a few shots. When I arrived, it didn’t quite have the atmospheric mood I was looking for but I thought it would still make a nice black & white.

In looking at my bed bench and how well it’s coming along, I think it’s interesting to remember my ‘first’ woodworking project which was my workbench. This was completed with my first major tool purchase a miter saw.

This took me a weekend to complete and I was incredibly proud of myself having never built anything (except computers). Thinking back, still hadn’t figured how to cut a line so that all of the pieces would be even. I think I was still using the laser guided line for all of my cuts. This is something I can’t imagine using now. None of the legs ended up being equal but with some shims I was able to level the table out. I would like to think that I can accurately cut to 1/32″ and if I use a stop (which I didn’t know about at the time), I could be dead on.

Compare this project with what I’m working on now which has a sense of fit and finish and in my mind actually looks like furniture. I have only been woodworking for a little over a year without a lot of teaching. The thing that surprises me is how often thoughts will strike me and I realize “Oh. That’s the correct way to do that.”

In the end, I don’t know if I have the patience to be a really fine woodworker. You really can’t take shortcuts at any point during a project and I still find myself getting lazy or not measuring the way I should. That said, I am getting the confidence to say, “I can build that.”

I have a huge list of projects that I want to do. X-gaming just came out with the arcade joystick with a trackball! This means I can now play games like Centipede, Golden Tee, Tiger Woods, ect. The bad thing is that the new joystick is 7 inches wider than what I have now. I have been wanting to make a bookshelf for the dining room as well as a bunch of artistic boxes. And this doesn’t include stuff that needs to happen in the house (downstairs flooring, bathroom fan, heating in the garage, adding a subpanel, ect.) So there is no end in sight for projects. That said, sometimes something will happen to make a project a go.

Totem has Shop grade Birch ply for $35. That’s incredibly cheap. I love woodworking but I hate how much wood cost so when I can get a deal on something, I try to take advantage of it. One of the items on my list of projects is to make ottoman/bench for the bedroom. Right now if you want to hang out in the room, you either lie in bed or sit on the computer chair. I wanted to make something that would allow people to sit down in the bedroom and also put our dirty clothes. When the birch ply went on sale, I thought this is a good time to start this project.

Initially I started creating my own plan but it was taking too long. So I started doing searches and found exactly the style I was looking for at Plansnow.com.

The only problem was that the scale was wrong. I wanted it to match the width of the bed and it needed to be deeper to hold more clothes. Besides that it was perfect.

Here are two pictures of what mine looks like so far unfinished.

Bed Bench 1

Bed Bench 2

As the project gets closer to finishing, I will more detail about how I put it together, the mistakes I made (and there were a bunch), and how I have recovered.

I think the hardest part is about to come - finishing. It is so easy to screw up a project when you go to stain or paint it. This is doubly so as I want to spray this item.

I am very excited about this project. It feels like the first real piece of furniture I have built. I think it’s going to look great in the bedroom as well as being functional.

Wish me luck!

Tim