Warm and Puttering

After I ran errands, I came back and wanted to work on wood a bit. I saw a couple blogs the last few weeks from my business partner, Andy Warren, where he turned a pen and built a playhouse. I felt a little motivated and jealous, so I walked out to the garage.

I started to change the blade on the band saw to a thin blade, but it was a little cold. So I decided to fire up the heater. I haven't had it on much this winter, but it's not that cold, and I though that having it running would make a couple hours go smoothly. So I fired it up and it immediately started heating things up. The new garage door is better insulated, and I think once we get the second door, it will get really warm in the garage.

With a new blade on, I set up the dust collector and started cutting the rest of the karate belt holder. I'd gotten one side cut a couple weeks ago, but it's been sitting there. I got the second side cut, and I'm not sure that the thinner blade helped. Possibly I need to adjust things more as the blade was moving around a bit.

With that cut, I get my template for the top and bottom on a piece of wood, trimmed it with the flush blade on the router, and as I was on the last little bit it slipped, and gouged out a piece.

So I cut two more pieces, got them more secured, and trimmed them up. After some sanding by hand and with the orbital, it started to look pretty good. With those two set, I cut the sides evenly and then screwed things together.

I had a flat piece that I was putting at the top, with the plan being that it would be flush up front. However as I started to sand it to fit in there and looked at it a few times, it seemed that putting it flush with the back might be better. Geting a little shadow, perhaps leaving space for a light. After trying a few things, I decided that setting it near the back, but leaving 1/4" for a picture hanger was a good idea. I thought about using brads to sink it in there, but since I'd screwed the top and bottom, and I needed to wood putty those anyway, I decided to just screw in the sides and then putty everything else up.

So now it looks pretty good, sanded almost all over, but I didn't have any putty to finish it. Actually I found a jar, but it wasn't been sealed, so it was dried out. I'll get some tomorrow, put it in there, and then sand the whole thing again before painting it.

Once I got done, I thought I had some time, so I fired up the lathe and turned down the two pieces I had on there. The diamond wood I nicked a little, so that will be a personal pen, but the other piece of sandlewood looks fine. I got some new kits this week, and some are larger, so I need to cut a few more blanks and get those set up.