Smooth Edges

You wonder.

EXCITEMENTDAY – Or what passes here.

Not only do I need to break up with my current squeeze, but I cannot even decide which of the three tasty daughters of John Barrymore I want to close the deal with. John (who, I might note, likes me well enough not to charge me but also hints that he doesn’t really care which of his spawn I line up with) gives me a haircut with my fedora on as I’m in a hurry to catch the Secret Agent train leaving for a paradrop into the Third Reich. And I need to change my shirt. Talking stress here.

That kind of excitement.

This morning’s rike in the lovely gray gloom was also exciting as I hoist the 8-pound dumbbells in a course reminiscent of Before the Knee Melted – toward town, to the coast, then take in the hills between Lighthouse and Linden where, for 40 or 50 yards, the grade is 30% or better. I did six.

Following a carb-heavy luncheon – Snnaacck too – slipped down the skimmerhandle to The Shop.

Rendering the scooped out scoopfulness on the table saw causes this.

Project Crackjack.

Job One: render the savage scarfed seat scoop into an ass-caressing, eye-pleasing smoothness.

This was/is the most physically taxing aspect of the project, but not the most boring. The most boring was squaring the corners of the mortisii. Smoothing the seat is mostly all hand-sanding; but it’s more interesting because the nature of the semi-random patterns of exposed laminate emerge.

That shattered rasty seat profile becomes lycra-ready with the application of sufficient elbow grease.

It’s too much sanding all in one go, so as a break, I break out some more mahogany to form the under-seat bolsters which will stabilize the legs. Just slats screwed-glued to the underside of the seat and then pocket-holed screwed to the legs. This is re-work. Why? The Client ixnay’ed my use of ply for the bolsters. It’s his call. I’m always trying to get by on the cheap.

Simple enough task: just slice out four billets at about a square cross-section (approx 3.8 cm), plane to square, then on the bandsaw slice midway about 1.8 cm.

The fitting awaits leg glue-up. Which we hope will be soon, such as tomorslack as once the four Crackjacks are assembled the red oak stain will need an overnight to volatize before laying on the first coat of urethane.

Engine pump and drain control panel

Amid all this introversion Monterey – Pacific Grove Joint Fire Engine 6414 roars up the street and parks just off the castle precincts. Something in the St. Angela’s Parish Office. I ask the drive does he need any help, he’s good.

The cloud cover over the bay low enough to promote introspection, yet up enough to allow a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Shining. Beckoning. Like might what could have been the Rockies to the pioneers. Couldn’t make it today, meebe not tomorrow, but we’ll make ‘er, we’ll make’er.

DDAY –

As in getting for Crackjack assembly.

Capt. Over-Optimistic intended to perform all the final (nearly) sanding and then assemble the four stools this day. Erp.

The finish sanding of the scooped out seats took far longer and was far more exacting that I’d expected when a man rouses himself from those beguiling, confusing tantalizing intentions of the morning, languid sooth . As you can imagine, shredding out laminate wood causes a varying degree of shatter, splinter, and spaul. And as the seat surface would be the most eye-attracting element of this project, I wanted to efface all (mostly) traces of constructive deconstruction.

But in the end, I settled for Good Enough as my fingers and shoulders were aching. What this action required was a dynamically controlled drum sander, which if I’ve thought of it has to exist, but I’ve never seen one. By dynamically I mean that the height between the sander feed bed and the rotating sanding drum can be changed as the workpiece is fed. Like the way the brush rotors in a car wash, but more aggressive. This would automate the scoop profile and relieve the workmook of hours of onerous abrading.

Not Shown Here.

Next, final sand the legs and the underseat bolsters.

Crackjack parts – legs, seats and underseat bolsters.

Since there will be minute differences leg-to-leg and stool-to-stool, one-size bolster will not fit all. And a tight fit between bolster and leg is essential.

Und zo, I could and did form the pocket holes to one end of all 16 bolsters, and drill all the countersinks for the bolster-to-underseat. The other end of the bolster awaits fitting when the legs are glued and inserted. Tomorslack.

If I make it that far. This week on the stock market has been like an acid trip, and with the Fed reporting on jobs tomorrow, it promises to be another Bear Day.

ASS-EMBLYDAY

The dawn shrieked in with gull grudge match on the housetop out the garderobe window. Was and wasn’t a good shot for me as I could have taken both, locked as they were beak-to-leg, but bad as I would have been rather more visible, had there been any prying eyes of the villagers about, than is prudent.

Mr. Prudent carefully negotiates the grotto tunnel in his gondola out to The Shop where the Crackjack parts await assembly.

Dry fit of the stool legs with the bolsters cut, fitted, pre-drilled and ready.

It’s a simple process of filing down the tenons until a tight fit is rendered, pounding the mofo’s in when it isn’t, then cutting to length the underseat bolsters which screw to the underside of the seat and to the legs, to fit.

All was smooth until Stool #4. I referred to the Project Gremlin in the last missive – I was indeed mystified, and still am, at how I crafted not 8 each of a left and right tapered leg, but somehow 10 and six. Brrrrrrrr.

Used the legs tapering on the wrong side in two places, it’s not terribly noticeable. Say NOTHING and there’s a dollar in it for you ….

Amid this a man stands out in the street, looks in, gesticulates. Turns out he’s the owner of PG Market, an institution, a 1951 Quonset Hut set down in the center of the village. Prices appropriate.

Yet he solves one of the turgid riddles of my meat mind: it is skirt steak? It is.

READYDAY –

For a Rike and more.

About 3 miles, not the farthest nor the most elevation gain, but a solid performance: 130 minutes this week. Aim for four rikes next.

After doubling back up the hill to TJ’s for the Mid-weekend O’boom rations, back down the hill and to the Crackjacks.

I’m ready for them to be ready, whether they are ready or not.

Ready for the red oak stain.

Because I like food just the way it comes, had these stools been for personal consumption, I would have just spritzed on the clear urethane. But The Professor wanted a deeper tone.

Crackjacks stained in red oak out on the Slack Deck to deepen their tan.

The red oak does improve the charisma and brings out the tonal differences in the mahogany legs and the rasty ply laminate.

Urgent Man wanted the stain to dry enough so’s to get the first coat of urethane on today, so he set them in the sun whilst he takes in sustenance. But that’s rushing things. I don’t want the volatile stain trying to off-gas underneath water-based urethane and so the first coat of top glim must wait.

Must wait whilst I have some fun, some creative fun.

The shattered cypress remnant perched atop a pot lid just wasn’t singing to me – another mount is demanded by the gods.

What could this be …. So like the gods, inspire an urge and then sit back and laugh when the poor mortal casts about for cause, or reason, or direction.

I’m used to it.

Figure for some kind of legs to support the existing ply base – maybe spacey – then follow that muse. Notched some mahogany left from the stool bolsters into which will slip the edge of the ply base, then cut out a curved profile for the leg outsides. Cut in at an angle the insides. Figured for a ply ring which would cap these legs.

That cap ring – forming the outside circumference is the easy part, I’ve built an adjustable jig for the band saw which is good up to about 50 cm in diameter. It’s cutting the inside out to form the ring that’s the challenge.

The only way I know is use the scroll saw. Punch in a hold inside the desired inner circumference, then gently by hand walk around the inside of the marked line.

The faux fire pit enclosing the cypress fragment.

It was easier than writing that sentence, but depending upon your reading speed, maybe not as fast. It’s then over to the oscillating spindle sander to bring the rough inside cut to the marked line.

Now what? Somehow the legs have to physically attach to the ply base in an aesthetically pleasing way, which for me is usually having nothing whatsoever appear; but in this case, opted for round headed brads. Same for lamming on the upper ring to the tops of the three legs.

Turns out looking like a fire ring in small, but is jake since the cypress first impressed me as looking like flame in wood.

You get lucky sometimes.

Of the eve a grill sears, a Snaack gracks, a man observes the gray, grim cover from the sky gods so unusual. Somewhere it rains under those gray covers, or worse. Here? No. Only the suspect of wind, the reminder of rain.

Such is Eden.

SPRITZDAY –

Fog almost like mist nearly making it to the ground. Happy gloom, joyful mook.

More joyful, down the campanile bell rope to The Shop to put urethane to the Crackjacks. It was madness, madness I tell you, to ever had considered using a brush. Of Course I’ll use the spray gun.

Up-ended the four stools and put three coats to the legs, mostly. Probably that’s enough.

Meantime, also sprayed the Cypress Flame pit project, though little did it need any artificiality.

The urethane dried quickly enough that I could get three coats on the seats. They’ll need more. Enough more so that The Professor’s pink lycra yoga pants don’t snag.

Snag. A appropriate Americanism. Probably of Scandinavian origin, much known from 19^th Century riverboat pilot parlance and in this case, representative of a hitch in my earlier opinion of the 2013 homage to and so-named Lincoln. I’ve had the disc for two weeks, took three months to get it here. And my first impression was not favorable.

It started so impossibly PC as I nearly set it off. And I had no worship for its director or its main actor.

Yet, and here’s the snag, I caught on to it and couldn’t get free of it.

The set direction, the sense of place and time, the feeling of the film is in accord with all that I have read.

It ought to be. You don’t take on a seminal moment in American History, take on an American Deity, without doing your homework.

And in spite of my not wanting to admit that anything but pap, drivel and emotional lickspittle can ooze out of Hollywood, this film….this film not only offers, but delivers.

Except for Tommy Lee Jones as Pennsylvanian’s arch proto-Abolitionist Facista Thaddeus Stevens – what’s up with that wig? Nobody’s happy … enough.

EPISODE –

My frame hasn’t the robustness desired. This made clear this AM. In attempting to anticipate the morning rike, the right knee quibbles.

A sense and perhaps I imagine it, a sound no one wants to hear.

Should have foregone the intended Near Program With 8 Pound Dumbbells, but had the forbearance NOT to do the entire show. Swelling and limping follow.

The bribe.

The Professor motors up to the moat, says his contractor is available could we attend him? Why? His contractor might be a conduit for JohnsonArts.

I pack a bribe – one of the small, glass framed, tabletop display cases – and off toward Mr. Long’s shop, Asilomar way.

What Ho! He’s at the Borer Manse where I deliver the case and, we hope, plant a seed.

WAYDAY –

Chip’s father gets into the green truck, admires the radio, thinks its just right for the 280Z. Fine, so far as it goes. Then he back the truck out of the Singing Hills Garage dashing the passenger side mirror against the garage side wall (always a tight fit, maybe not his fault…) but then horses the accelerator such that we’re (and suddenly I’m in the truck with him) rocketing out the drive and across the Carr’s lawn and up into their trees. Screaming at him to Jam On The Brakes proves futile, in effect, he affects incoherence and then in effect opens the driver’s side door and ejects. I leap into the driver’s seat but standing on the brake does nothing to retard the retrograde velocity, now down on 219 and just as fast. Finally, the truck hurtles into a morass. Stop. But stuck. What now?

In sooth, what now?

Life-hinging stocks happily not following the market trend, at least downward.

Favoring the knee, limp out of the precincts toward provender.

Olives, coffee beans, eraser refills. The usual.

Next, the less usual in Marina for kim chee refills and get a dollar off for bringing in a jar.

Grocery Cheaplet – that 1989 price point provender of plenty – does not disappoint. I might have disappointed it, but it not me.

Not me but them disappoint getting back to the safety – relatively writing – of Castle Lackton and there finessing The Professor’s stools. Tested out the seat with the next-to-finest cloth here and found snags which found sandpaper and more urethane.

The Client finds me wrestling with chicken-on-a-stand. The upended grill roasting method with a half-can of beer under the open body cavity.

I have no metal canister which will fit ‘neath the chosen chicken upender. He aptly suggests cutting a Guinness can. Good Man.

To him I deliver his commission – the Stools. The chicken roasts, the wind tousles our hair, the ale is quaffed, the bay admired.

PREDAY –

You’re always a little nervy before a performance.

I thought I had the entire day to lounge, relax, and hang myself when CPST dropped 7.5%, but no. The Stool Client and his Design Oversight Committee decided that the 10-degree angle of the Crackjack where the legs meet the floor was ixnay – they wanted it flat. And so he drops off the Stools Of Which I Thought I Had Seen The Last for emendation.

It was a simple matter of marking the 10-degree angle then approaching the 10” disc sander with 10 minutes of earnest intent.

Fortunately, I’d seen to this task, in spite of wanting to slack, before The Professor materialized at 1 and said, “We have a mission.”

The mission is to drive out Asilomar way where HomeTec – the business of Mr. Tom Long – has its physical plant. It’s in a welter of storage spaces where once was the end of the Southern Pacific RR and these storage spaces are now given over to businesses such as a ceramics outlet, a lighting emporium, white slave market and meth labs.

That king sized bed platform toward the right front of this view is the massive CNC router table.

Tom’s not there, in fact we wave at him driving the other way as we approach. His shop is admirably well organized and tidy, fills the space with little waste and is dominated by the biggest CNC multi-turret router I’ve ever seen. Humvee sized. No Bradley Fighting Vehicle sized. Mr. Long’s two henchmen, his journeyman carpenter Jim and his utility infielder Theo are hard at it forming 9 doors and their panels. To their credit, they barely notice us engaged as they are in doorframe glue-up and panel edge routing.

It smells like opportunity.

I encourage The Prof to thank Tom and ask, since he’ll be seeing him before I will, can I not return the favor and invite Mr. Long to visit my little Makeground.

From small seeds ….

And so I stepped down off the stool I was about to kick out from under me and took off the noose.

Just when I though finally I could ease into Friday’s Happy Hours I got happier. There’s a ring at the portcullis. It’s the Elder Browns! Both of them!

In town for dinner at The Crown and Anchor, then an indie film, but time enough for a quick one at Castle Slackton. Word is that Curtis has the forthcoming week off. I don’t believe it because even though I threw a chicken wing and half nelson on him (with legs) he still wouldn’t hand over his phone.

SHOWDAY –

I’m headlining the 9 and 1030 shows at Pacific Biological Laboratories. It’s good to feel a little tense just before a performance, better still to walk there, gives you time to focus.

The City wanted the tour duration reduced from 1.5 – which it was in January – to 1 hour, which was jake with me since my current spiel only runs about that anyway.

My shtick is a five-part show:

Intro – Rouse the crowd, get them focused.

Context – What was Cannery Row like during the 25 years Ed Rickett’s lived and worked there.