Furtive splashes four miles out.  Transient white puffs.  A fin, another.  Could this be the first pod of orcas I’ve ever seen in the Bay?

I’m in the truck following a dump truck when suddenly we enter a canyon.  Darkness.  Turn on the lights, they’re aimed too low can only glimpse the tail end of the dump truck the road twisting furiously can’t see the center line we’re over into the far lane have to look over my shoulder to see the next curve then out into daylight.  Have to adjust those headlights….

Mid-week rike day off, which means its provision day.

And more that is less, more that means less in my wallet.

The desktop is having spasms.  Start up spasms.  Once the first three or four Beep Beep Beep Nothing, or the Cubist Jackson Pollock screen are killed about the sixth attempt just to boot the box does.  Operates normally, which for here is about telegraph speed during a solar flare and so after the mid-week O’boom procurement, it’s into PC People where I just catch Michael, a guy about my age, coming into the Fortress of PCatude.  Doesn’t think it’s the processor, which Dell tells me I may not have as a replacement part, maybe a vid card or the RAM needs scrubbing.  He doesn’t know, and it’s impossible for him to know.  Must be like what the aboriginals felt consulting the tribal shaman.

In sum – Nothing for it but to shut down the box (I’ve left it on these days past assuming it wouldn’t turn on if I turned it off) this night, suffer the expected PCPollock, then truck it into the People.  I rationalize this way: it’s a seven-year-old system with a new motherboard eight months ago.  PC People have twice saved me from buying a new box.  Harvey say’s, “Well, I dooon’tt knoooww, it’s a scam, but if they can get it running for a hundred, that’s better than spending $400 on a new one.

But is it?

There are only two memory slots, there are no memory cards for this Dell larger than 2 gig, which I have.  And the thing IS seven years old….

I leave the resolve of this to the morrow – spurt across the burg to Smart & Final for a few minor supplies and a major wait.  0930 Wednesday seems to be the re-seller re-supply reconnaissance moment.

Wouldn’t matter except that I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Charski who wants my bid on 51 board feet of Western Red Cedar.

On consultation, The Master suggests that $3/BF would be a good deal, provided the wood is straight and clear, meaning no warps, bows, knots, or inclusions.  And according to Charski, who has sent me the inventory in the left column (my calculations on the right) –

all of it IS clear, straight, and righteous.  About 40 of the board feet in widths and thicknesses useful here at Johnson Slacks.

I case The Dump and fill a satchel with about two dozen 1970’s projector bulbs.  Esmerelda holds me no longer in esteem.  She insists upon 50 cents per bulb and two dollars for the bag.  $12.  I haggle to no avail.  I have several projectors from that era, and earlier needing bulbs.  Are any of these suitable?  This cannot be known as I have failed to make bulb base pin profiles which I carry with me on every occasion, so it’s a crapshoot.

Due to the apparent Haggle Free Zone Esmerelda has become, I pass.  Sad.

Grocery Cheaplet the next stop on our In The Fog Out Of The Fog Excursion where the prize, if prize it be, is the heirloom (mottled green!) tomatoes and the opening of a fourth checkout just when I needed passport clearance and bonus Geezer 10% Off Day.

To Sylvan and Charski and the cedar.

It’s true, the wood is clear, straight, and clean.  And Charski rings true with every tap.  The cedar came from her now-disabled step-brother who once was a cabinet maker; she just wants the cash from the sale to go to him.  While I don’t know her at all, she doesn’t strike me as a person who would NOT know what the Western Red Cedar is worth.  I shuck and jive.  Would she consider a trade?  Would she please regard www.johnsonarts.us for to maybe find something I could build for her in exchange for the cedar.  She would.

And gives me a grocery sack half full of golf balls – she and her husband (and her 83 year old mother in the cottage) live in the dogleg of the second hole of the Del Monte Golf Course and of course whenever outside they have to wear safety helmets.   The lost balls to be a gift for The Professor.

After a brief and surprisingly low-cost penetration into Ka-Nob Thrill Market for rolls and gracknoids, it’s back to the estate for lunch, then down the graphene space elevator to The Shop.

Tantalus; first, plane flat the minor deviations on the box corners; second, rout trim – from four of about a dozen slim redwood slats The Prof cadged from Tom Long, who was again about to put the to the burn pile when The Prof reminded him of JohnsonArts.  “Oh yeah, I forgot about him…”  I didn’t make much of an impression.  Nice try, though.

The slats were done two each with an outtie, two each with an innie.  Glam shot to follow.

Next, plane down both the fir which might serve as box base, and a slab of cherry which will do as box top.

Amid the jet engine exhaust noise of the planer screaming across a 12 inch width of cherry comes the ejaculation of the He-She of the cross-garden Cellulite Sisters.

The noise is interfering with the conduct of their business, phone conversations impossible, recording interfered with.

I commiserate.

I hate noise even more than I despise them.  Cannot something be done?  Perhaps.  Perhaps I can re-orient the Slack Deck set-up so that Shuttle Lift-Off roar of the planer is directed more easterly than north.

I needed more to worry about, but then again, I hate noise too.

Nail the cherry top to the four sides of the box, then rough sand so that the top perimeter is just inside the outside of the box walls.  Trim will cover the nails and the joint.  He said.

So much for the easy part.

Now, slash a top from bottom at 15 degrees.

The two cuts on box back and front where made on the table saw, I could have adjusted the mitre gauge to 15 and run the other two, but opted for the hand saw, which is Elmer Approved even though the results were not.

A Real Guy would simply address his manly bandsaw with a copious 10” re-saw capacity and in one simple go, have his top and bottom.

Not Shown Here – although in retrospect, I should have trucked out to The Master’s Estate and imposed upon him, and gotten some of his high quality guidance as well as his high quality tomatoes…

But no.

Rip the front and back of the box faces at 15 degrees, then hand saw, badly to connect the cuts.  It’s wreckage.

I face hours of filing, sanding, more filing, more sanding to get the meet faces of the separation to meet.  I hate me.

Yet amid self-loathing, the hinge dilemma is resolved.  I’ve six feet of continuous soft steel hinge with no screw holes.  I need only hack off 30 cm length – the long side of the box, and then grind down the leaves 3/32” to match the thickness of the cherry box bottom and top.  Then chose how many and where for the screw holes and Voila!  Although I still do not know HOW to pre-drill the screw holes in both lid and base so that the front and sides seams meet perfectly….  Nor ever do I expect to.

HEY!  Here’s The Prof biking it home from the Naval Post-Graduate School.  Here for a breather then onward.  I get rid of the sack of golf balls and hopefully maintain his good will.

Me – back to the purgatory of sanding, checking, squaring, cursing, more sanding and suppressing desires for that $3000 band saw.

CRASHDAY –

As in I wish I was, but wish the Market wasn’t.  Up and out for Rike #4 of 5 this week, a light strut along the craggy shore then home.

I’ve an eleven o’clock consultation with Dennis Copeland, the Monterey City Historian.  Something raised two weeks ago about a ‘donation cabinet.’  I figure he wants a cabinet built for free, which I’m perfectly willing to do, provided that the materials are covered.  But when I get to Colton Hall and Dennis, that’s not it at all.

The Colton Hall donation jar has grown legs and migrated.  Dennis wants a replacement, but something in keeping with the mid-19^th Century vibe of the museum upstairs in The Hall.

Many interesting challenges in making this pedestal, including a drawer and a door.

He even has a rough sketch with dimensions.  It’s a free-standing cabinet 31” tall  x 14” square with a door and a drawer; the thing surmounted with a clear acrylic box for the moulah.

This is precisely the programme for which I’ve been training myself lo these many years past!  There’s no talk yet of money; I suggest can there be some salvage out of the City Yard, which Dennis vows to check.  I also suggest that the acrylic box be formed first – an enterprise outside my ken –  and he agrees.

I’m already building the thing in my head.  I’ve got those 100 year old fir doors not earning their keep down in the Monk’s Cell which, if in suitable dimensions, would be perfect for at least three if not all four of the cabinet sides.

In other good news, Charski gets back to me on perhaps a trade for her Western Red Cedar.

No.  They’re downsizing.  I understand about less is more.  So I offer $100.

On the one hand, the wood is worth four times that amount; on the other foot, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.

Charski agrees.  I’ll give her $100 next Tuesday when we seal the deal.

This is the Tantalus Lid with the top side edge trim nailed on, those bits to the side are the top trim that will cloak the seam between the cherry top and the side trim.

To Slack – The Tantalus.  Form yet another strip of trim, a double round-over which will cap the lid and cloak the seam between the around-the-edge trim and the box top.

Now, for the base bottom trim.  Figure it for alder, still some free stuff on hand thanks to Tom Long/The Prof.  Rip out some 3.5 cm squarish blanks, then turn to the planer.  It’s in the new config under the overhang but with a partition between me and the Cellulite Cisters which I hope will cut down on the jet engine take-off noise.

AIIIEEEE!  The blanks come out carved and gouged!  It’s the sign of dull planer blades – but I just put in new blades last month.  WAAAA!!!!?

Nothing for it but to flip to the second side of the blades and all is lovely.  What did I do to ruin those blades inside of a month?  No answer, the flipped blades turn the alder faces into glass smooth.  Joy.

Rip out the blanks into a sort of L-shape the one end cradling the ply floor of the box, the other covering the bottom of the bottom of the box.  Now only remains to mitre the corners, never an easy undertaking here at Castle Off-Angle.

But I soldier through and one thing I’ve learned is that the dry fit must be clamped as if you were gluing it, you can’t just address the parts and give the thumbs up.  No.

Dry Fit Clamp Up Is GOOD!

Conduct the same exercise for the surround trip for the top of the lid, but without dry fit clamp up as I’m distracted by the end grain issue.

The box joints I’ve chosen expose end grain.  Usually not salubrious.  My Plan: round over the end grain, shoot off fireworks, offer cash anything to distract the eye away from that geechy end grain.  Or round over the end grain.  Router table?  Nope.  Largest radius round over bit I have is ¾”.  No goodski.  Have to hand-round the corners, which while risky, is like the School of Hepplewhite used to do it centuries ago.  Except that they had no sandpaper.

File marks in rounding the end grain will soon be effaced with happy, wrist-challenging sand paper strips.

File, sand, sand, sand, sand.  Not too badski on the lid edge roundover for a small boy from a small town….

Pull the beer grain experiment bread out the dutch oven – I used no Parmesan for this experiment as I wanted the full metal jacket.  Just cut a heel off the loaf right out of the dutch oven.  Excelsior!  Charski’s grains imparted a piquant, malty nuttiness, not unlike the flavor of Triscuit Crackers, not to mention the rough texture.  I send off the report and get this back in turn:

Oooo yum yum yum!  Can’t wait to try that myself.  I’m glad you had a successful launch with spent grain breadmaking!  We just hauled 12 half-racks of baby back ribs, 3 corned beeves turned into pastrami, 2 huge hunks of roasted eye of the round, and half a dozen each beer brats and beef/jalapeno sausages out of the smoker.  Yumminess ensues!

These people got it going on.

ONDAY –

On the Tantalus, that is.

Postponed the scheduled rike, maybe even until Monday due to aches where no ache(s) is wanted.

Thus down the six-story water slide to The Shop and the Tantalus box where a merry hour was spent with file, and various grades of sandpaper rounding the exposed, once offensive, box corner end grain into a more pleasing, non-offensive eye-catching asset.  Felt like a Real Guy …. a real apprentice 300 years ago.

Funny, I wanted a box that looked old, I’ve got it thanks to the pits, cracks and  shorn off edges of the cherry, and my still inchoate skill set(s).

The inside of the box is shaping up nicely, though.  Got a couple of coats of tung on said inside, then turned to the box lid.

I should NOT have nailed on the trim….

The trim for the lid top, side was ready for application and so it was, although I had to resort to nails since I couldn’t work out how to properly clamp the ogee shape.  Then cut and put on the lid top trim that cloaks both the nail holes that lashed the cherry to the lid sides and the seam between the side trim and top.

I promise, you’ll never have to read that sentence again.

Pre-drilled for the hinge mount screws.  As always here at JohnsonYarks, that hinge alignment causes hours of deep, deep fantods.  Just a millimeter out of true and the front face of the box top and bottom will be like an prognacious jaw.  Brrrrr…..

So much for the known unknowns.  The only remaining design unknown are the box feet.  If?  What?  Send vibrations.

And this exciting footnote to yesterslack’s bread experiment that included 25% spent wort: Its alimentary canal stimulatory properties exceed that of porcupine panties combined with a salmonella salad.  Send lard.  And a cork.

TDAY –

T for Tantalus.

Today’s rike, which was 40 minutes long through no fault of my own, puts the week’s tally at 190 minutes.  Can’t see how I can live up to that with the coming week, particularly since I may add another 10 lbs to the weight belt.  We shall see what we shall rike.

After a pre-Holiday Trader Schmoe’s penetration, it’s down the tightrope to The Shop and the Tantalus Box.

The trim on the box lid looks ghastly, not so much the trim itself, although two of the 45 joints were gapped, but the nail holes, even filled with Krenov Unapproved crack filler, stand out like a boat load of Vikings at The Vatican.

First coat of tung oil on the Tantalus Box lid – Cherry, it’s where the expression “That’s Cherry” came from.

Undeterred with this horror, I craft a slip of cherry for the front handle, a sort of overbite that will conceal the lid/bottom mismatch, should such a likelihood ensure.  Then to The Tung Oil, which cherry really, really likes.

Those internal dividers will nestle the photochemical bottles and the shaker. Yes.

Now – affix the alder trim to the bottom.  But first remembering to put the dividers inside the box and the floor on.  Its clamp the trim, which is quite like a frame, hit with glue, slide the box into the ‘frame’ and then deploy the nail gun.  At least this part of the project looks less like landfill and more like what I had in mind.

Finally, the feet.  If feet there be.  A number of concepts were considered before arriving at simple rectangular chunks of alder rounded on the upper, outside edges.  Maybe yes, maybe no.

The box needs something standupish – these maybe?

Maybe is about all we have to cling to…