Presidents and precident; installations of all kinds

It has been a momentous weekend, we got a new neighbor, the down economy forced one more retiree back into the workforce and we've added several chapters to the bookcase saga.

Chapter 3: A race to the finish line

We are under the gun - the woodshop is ours and ours alone for only the weekend - the first day of school -Wednesday the 21st starts with a general meeting - in the only space large enough to fit the entire student body: The wood shop. Saturday the camera stayed at home so i've prepared some background music as an appropriate stand-in.



On sunday the part of Alli was played by her stand-in the ever lovely Sean Lemecha:



wood shop assembly is one thing- getting the product home is another game entirely. not the picture of safety but it worked...


and finally assembly...
We're about 75% assembled.

The Ties that Bind; strengthening a union with a biscuit joiner

So the saying goes... A married couple should never....


Bits of wisdom handed down from father to son... mother to daughter... Confucius to fortune cookie scribe. Foxworthian types before me have said it better, and until this weekend past I maintained that the surest divorce would result from a couple trying to back up a boat trailer in tandem (good people my in-laws, but i knew fear that day i saw the tail lights of the Envoy backing down the boat ramp). So in our own way we've chosen not to learn from our parents, peers or dessert cookies and stumbled into our own conubial act of no return - building casework together. And this is likely just the first in a 3 to 4 weekend odyssey.

Chapter 1: Woodshop: Where the Men are Men, and the Women are too.

This project began like all our others... a few grand ideas (hers), a couple of cocktails (mine), a few of considered diagrams (ours)... interlude music... finger pointing and ultimately compromise. We needed a bookcase and the guy who built our bathroom cabinets was too expensive. If one squints just right the diagrams can be seen on the wall just beyond:


We set aside both days of the weekend to collect materials and begin the fabrication. Some 8 sheets of birch ply and 400 linear feet of board later we set to work. Saturday was spent mostly running through the cut list - making the sheets of ply into the shelves and miscellaneous parts. We moved into a corner of the Alexandria Center's wood shop for the mass production. I don't have any pictures of this work but this video should suffice.



Chapter 2: Sunday, Bloody Sunday

With the boards cut to length and width, fabrication could begin. And through it all, the drilling...
the biscuit-ing...
the assembling...
Not one F'ing smile. Hardcore.



wood work is a lonely man's game.
to be continued....