Rough Wood

Behold, the formerly vast expanses of my desk.

It’s pretty cool to sit here, toiling away, and glance over at my planes, thinking of what I’d much rather be doing. It’s a bit torturous at times, but it’s better than carefully stuffing my beautiful toys into a box. I consider it character.

I’ve bought and made a lot of stuff. I am on the verge of having too much stuff, partially because of my space limitations. While I’m not naive enough to think that there won’t be more stuff in the future, I’m not… you know… on the prowl anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I likes the tools. I want one of each kind of hand plane that I could stand to maintain. I want at least one more size of combo square. I want every chisel that Lie-Nielsen makes. I want a lot more clamps. I want a spill plane in case I’m ever lost in a cave without any batteries for my flashlight—and happen to have one in my backpack, along with some scrap wood.

I’ve spent a lot of time perusing catalogs. I’ve seen lots of funky and interesting one-off tools, and jigs a-plenty. For a while now, it has been a constant barrage of Stuff. So many options, so many colors—I must leave here with something.

But I really don’t need any of it.

Maybe my enthusiasm is on hiatus because I’m so busy. I like to think it’s because my space limitations have helped me to think in terms of compactness and multi-purpose-ness, to plan ahead, and to set my stuff limit much lower than most. As it stands, I have a decent, yet humble, arsenal. Everything else just increases efficiency.

Then again, maybe I just ran out of space and my subconscious is taking the high road.

Snausages was one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

She had a fun name, which was given to her by a neighbor, before my time. She was from the wrong side of the tracks. When she moved in with me she rose to the occasion. I wouldn’t allow her to demand attention of me, then swat at me when I touched her anywhere below her head—water in a spray bottle works wonders with cats. She became one of the most loving animals I’ve ever known. She was adorable of course, and she tolerated my photographic experiments. She was a good subject.

About 18 months ago, she fell from the internal balcony of our townhouse condo, breaking her pelvis in two locations. She was up and ready to walk in 2 weeks. She later went through a number of intense health issues, only to bounce back into perfect friend mode. She was always around when I was sick, and she loved to sleep in my lap for hours on end, preferably in whatever position was most uncomfortable for me.

As many of those health issues slowly wore her down, in the last few weeks she had been on the decline. On Saturday, we had to let her go. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last, but that familiar vacuum is very present today. “The Longest Hour” is that last hour that we had with her before our vet appointment. It was absolutely terrible, but I’m happy for every second of it. She fell asleep on my chest for the last time.

You may wonder why I’m posting this here. Beyond sharing our grief in this now-familiar forum, she was one of the original reasons for my finally taking the plunge into woodworking. After her fall she had trouble getting into the bed with us, so I planned to make a bench that she could use to step up. I made a tiny table for food bowls after she suddenly went blind due to hypertension (a condition from which she recovered); I made a little ottoman/step for her favorite chair because she couldn’t handle the jump by herself; I made a ramp for her litter box as she began having trouble getting over the edge.

This is an example of the many things that affect our lives in unexpected ways—of how a pet can become an unforeseen source of inspiration, or necessity. As well, woodworking improved her life just as it has improved mine. I might go so far as to say that my “hobby” helped to keep her with us for just a little while longer.

So thank you, Snausages, for everything. We love you and we miss you terribly. I will think of you fondly when I am building things, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Ah, spring! With winter behind us again, all those months of Vitamin D deficiency are but a lingering memory. It’s time for actual sunlight, refreshing breezes, being buzzed by daredevil hummingbirds and getting the grill ready for some serious outside time.

It’s also time for me to take care of that pile of *stuff* that had to be put on hold while I hibernated. I saw the light last weekend, and started attacking a planter project that has been at the bottom of that pile. It’s a 3′ x 3′ (roughly) planter box with a bottom, in which we will grow a range of herbs in our tiny back yard. This one has to be finished in time for early spring planting, so it’s chop-chop time for me.

After some shopping around, I found that buying chunks of fencing at the widths that I needed would do the trick for less than buying and breaking down lumber from a hardwood source. With my now-indispensible keychain tape measure in hand, I headed off to Home Depot for some fencing. I grabbed 6′ lengths of 5.5″ x 3/4″ FSC-certified redwood (not surfaced) for $1.87 a piece. Yes, please.

I also grabbed some 8′ lengths of semi-decorative strips at 1.5″ x 1.5″, something that would have been less expensive to rip down from a board bought at a hardwood dealer. I don’t have a table saw, and ripping long strips with a hand saw isn’t my idea of a good time these days, so prefab wins this round.

On one particularly nice day, my saw bench, my ryoba and I planted ourselves on the patio and started breaking this stuff down. The interesting bit is that I reworked my original plan for the planter based on the stock that I bought, and accurately built the joinery (mostly grooves) into the SketchUp model. After spending a bit of time confirming the accuracy of the model, I then used it as reference for each initial cut. I did some rework on the sizing of the grooves as I went.

This thing isn’t really complicated, but it was the first time I’ve left the numbers up to SketchUp after building the joinery to specs.

For this project I’m going full-bore. For absolutely no reason other than practice, I’m cutting mortise & tenon joinery for the frame and grooving the panels in. I think practice is a good reason, as the next project is the tool cabinet. At the very least, it will be the most over-engineered  flower pot in the history of civilization.

Rain or shine, if you will.

On a tangent, I cleaned up my cuts and did some surfacing on the components with the new workbench and it went very smoothly. I can’t describe how much less fatiguing it is to do face planing on a bench that you don’t have to simultaneously hold down with a foot…