Puttering

After sleeping in, and watching Tia at her first lesson, I decided to get some woodworking done. The first step was to get the heater running as it was cold. I closed up the garage and got things running, and as the garage warmed up, I started to get set up to fix the shelf on my storage unit. It didn't quite fit, and as I forced it a bit, it got stuck. So much for my accuracy at cutting.

I decided to just cut out the shelf, saving piece for vertical supports. The jig saw made short work of it and I was ready to proceed, except for one problem: no wood.

I packed up Uma in the truck and hit Home Depot for a couple supplies. We got back and I trimmed the shelf to fit. I realized a few mistakes. The one side dado was too thin, the back didn't quite line up, and the case had a bit of taper to it. I suspect I cut a piece somewhere that wasn't straight, and as a result, the 43 1/4" front tapered to 43" wide at the rear. Once I cut it, and notched one side, it went in find. A few screws, and a few more cuts and I had my horizontal shelf, along with two vertical supports.

My design was complete. I didn't have the phone, but I'll take pictures tomorrow.

Then I set about trimming the front. I had pieces that I cut to size, with 45 degree miters on each end. Things were good, and the once side where the bottom stuck out, I cut a thin, 1/16" piece that I glued there. Since the top was fine, I used a sander to taper the thickness of that piece, and soon everything looked good. I glued and nailed it together.

It was still early, so I decided to get a couple more things done. I turned the chocolate and Cinnamon pieces I needed for pens to round and stopped. I'd gotten CA glue as there's a slight crack in one piece, but it wouldn't come out, so I decided to quit there. With the last of the day's light coming in the window as I watched a blizzard roll in, I turned a piece of olive wood to make a pizza cutter handle. I added a knob at the top and bottom, but am not quite sure it's thin enough. I'll measure tomorrow based on the one we have, but for now I decided to call it a day.

A productive day, and I'm looking forward to getting the ski racks on the unit tomorrow night or Friday and staining it this weekend.