SCHEDULEDAY –

I have one – at the dentist at 2.

And I had a busy morning:

I’m in some village of Merry Olde with Eric Catchpole (of the BBC Lovejoy Series) where at noon they have a parade and sing America The Beautiful.  Touching.  Eric is busy with some young filly, “Eric, I’ll meet you here at the pub tomorrow at 3, you’ve got better things to do than squire me about.”  I arrange to stay another night at the pension where the innkeeper says that if want good ale, go to Denham.  There’s a bus to, but not back from.  I’ll think of something.  The countryside getting to Denham is lightly rolling, semi-wooded sheep and farm land, some of it in desuetude.  At the bus stop at Denham, the driver confirms there’s no bus back.  Even though I’ve placed my wallet in my front jeans pocket, a pretty thief bumps into me and makes off with it, but not quick enough to escape my clutches.  I let her go, ale to find rather than police stations to visit.  The adjacent village of Hightower is conducting a Briton versus Saxon battle re-enactment.  Those arrows look real.  Where’s the ale?

Where’s the slack?  I’m not even tucked into the first cup of coffee before Congo shows, can I sport Gnuggies for doggie day care whilst the tile men work on her back plaza?

Of course I can.  She protects me from the mail carrier and the pair of Jehovah Witnesses who don’t put on the hard sell, just hand me some tracts.  The next time these well-meaning gentlemen knock, I’ve got to tell them that The gods need me more than I need the gods.

Congo arrives to spirit off Gnuuggies.  I hate it when that happens.  She looked so <i>right</i> lounging on the penthouse promenade scaring off Snaaackkk.

Motor over to Cass Street and Dr. Alexander.  He finds a crack in the downstage right molar, needs filling.  Naturally, it’s so far back he’ll have to erect a miniature, but no less menacing derrick on my face just to hog out enough to gain a purchase for the filling amalgam.

Thursday.  Morituri te salutatus.

Homeslice just as The Professor pulls up 8^th street bearing a case of O’boom.  I can only express gratitude as the Splay Stool has already paid for itself in the learning.  I protest not too much and lade the brew into the fridge.

There’s much to be done to make this prototype ready for customer viewing, and proto-sitting.  Namely, scoop out the butt-bowl.

To do this, I need form the Fritz of Snicklefritz.  Which is/are two masonite slabs with a gentle concave curve cut on which will ride Snickle, the tray that will hold/guide the router.

This is soon affected and the dual ply seat lashed inside the guiding rails of Fritz.  Had the foresight to kerf grooves on the underside of Snickle which will register on the gentle curve of Fritz and help stabilize the sliding tray in its arc across the seat.

So Much For Plan A – In execution, it was an Epic FAIL.  But I know why.  FMA reveals two main causes:

1. Register kerfs too shallow to permit adequate tray stability on Fritz rails, and

2. Router bit depth too aggressive

The result was a Three Stooges In The <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier”>Biedermeier</a> Shop slapdance farce.

Plan B – Use the Table Saw, specifically, put in a dado blade, start just inside the outer edges with the blade just a snidge up, cut one then flip to the other edge.  Then raise the blade a few microns, move the fence out and repeat until the 1.6 cm depth is reached in the center of the seat.

This process pleased Harvey Obsessive Compulsive, and didn’t yield unacceptable results.

Much sanding necessary and as you can imagine, grakking off 3/8 of an inch per fence shift has left obvious demerits in the ply.

Can sanding smooth sufficiently the eye-catching, lycra-tearing butt bearing surface?

Can the Artisan ameliorate the glaring defects inherent in his Plan B makeshift?

Stay tuned for our next turgid episode: WTF?!!

PAYFORITDAY –

Con Sabor.

The morning was all in anticipation of the 2PM Pain Episode.  Okay, okay.  I’m making too much out of it, just like the toothless Republicans convening 5 subcommittees to “get to the bottom” of the Benghazi brouhaha when everyone inside the Beltway knows the flipping and flopping about the ‘talking points’ was business as usual.

Since the dentist visit requires a foray out the castle precincts, might just as swell provision.  I’m at Grocery Cheaplet (the less-well stocked Seaside incarnation) and I don’t know why, really.  But I’m spaced out, probably nervous exhaustion resulting from actually having to BE somewhere at an appointed time where there’s a tiny drill which seeks nerve endings.

Unsatisfied with the GC shopping experience, I cross Fremont to Mi Tierra Mercado Super where the prices on chicken breast are not lower, but they feature a keel.  Dos por favor.  I ask the junior butcher if there’s any flank steak.  His english is as good as my meat counter spanglish.  My request also confuses jefe.  There is in the case some thinly hacked something, which is called ‘arrachera’ and in english chuck roll.  Life is an experiment.  This is no more obvious than our apparent foreign policy toward China.

I’ve enough time to slip into Smart &amp; Final for a mongo-sized can of ripe olives and cheeses of opportunity.

Half an hour early to Dr. Alexander’s I wander the Cass Street area to discover the hitherto unknown to me historically significant Joaquin Adobe hard above the Hartnell arroyo.

It’s time.  I’m ushered into the Chamber of Arrgh, given one, then two injections.  I don’t mind the needles into the gum, as a kid I used to pick at my gums with hay stems until they bled, I liked that pain.  Strange.

The drill-inspired sudden full-body, spine boiling sharp nerve end puncture I can do without.

In the doing, happily, I experienced less discomfort than in reading about yet another state sanctioning pervert marriage.  The Doc packs the amalgam in, tells me to chew a few times, sing Lilly Marlene when my right lower lip feels like drenched gym towel on the locker room floor, then undoes the restraints.

I only have to sport $103 for the privilege.  And that’s WITH Blue Shield.  The Shield part of their logo is the impenetrable cloak covering their ever-changing pricing policies.  And I didn’t make that up, get it from the desk staff, the Doc’s wife.

Homeslice and garageslack, lip sag included.

Instead of pitching back into the Splay Stool, which needs significantly more sanding of the seat, switched to a small, not-really-needed-yet-sort-of project – build a display stand for the Aretino Record.

Not only is it the only one of its kind in the Impermanent Collection, it’s the only one I’ve ever seen.

It deserves display and more importantly, needs a physical support.

Figured for a stand which holds the record both at the center hole and from the bottom.

For a base, cut two circular discs from flooring I stolt from The Professor.  Cant the hole centered into the topmost disc five or six degrees so that the 1” pine closet rod intended for the main upright stanchion will be angled back (which could have been done simply by slicing the closet rod at 5.3203 degrees, but you can’t think of everything…).  It’s both a stylistic and functional tactic which will seat the record more securely into what comes next.

Next – two record-engaging supports, of poplar.  One a half circle onto which will fit into the center hole of the record, the other the concave shaped bottom support.

Both kerfed on the table saw – the blade is just about the same thickness as is the record – around the circular periphery.  The upper half circle finessed around its outer circumference; the lower support is kerfed inside what is intended to be it’s concave shape.

No worries, no quiz.

Just then, there’s a honk from the street.  It’s WILDMAN!  He’s just back from a lux cruise up the Inland Passage to Alaska – his three kids sported for the junket.  He had a great time, the first voyage that this former Naval Officer was on where he didn’t have to manage the ship.  Said the food was so-so, but being with his kids was spot on.

Sent him away telling him not to come back until his wife made me some more kim chee.

DAY –

My attaché, on the tail end of an European vacation, containing my cameras is stolen.  Even after returning home, I lay inert, wailing and crying.  Brrrrrrrr.

Rike too much?

Right knee impossible?

Carmel Valley drive possible.  Curtis tired, more tired than ever I’ve seen him.

We go to the village for lunch, Muttski too.  As we enjoy the 21^st Amendment Ale through the parking lot comes not the whisper of Erato, but 1941 Farmall with hay wagon sporting two dogs; it’s the wine tasting taxi.  The burger was first class.

Carmel Valley wine tasting transport with bonus two dogs in the wagon

As Curtis has had his long-neglected scooter seen to, we drive toward, but not yet at the Seaside garage where it has been tuned up.  I insist upon some garage time and , after that long and dusty journey from Carmel Valley, an O’boom.

Happily, the Professor materializes for we splice the main brace sufficient for the Seaside penetration.

His bike is ready.  Curtis is ready and I wave as the motorman motors away.

For this sojourn I am rewarded as the fog, like Trump’s combover, climbs the southern peninsula to waft away backlit by the setting sun.

How was your day?

NOBBQDAY –

Change of design on the record support.

Support stand for the singular Aretino phonograph record, yes the center hole is 3 inches in diameter

No closet rod, new base built up from four layers of ¼” ply.

Same record holdfasts inside the hole and on the periphery.

Deal with it.

The BBQ at 99 Rancho was called off due to …. I don’t know why.  Maybe Curtis was just to flagged to play the host.  Nobody could be more knackered.

SDAY –

Glued in the Splay Prototype legs, stained red oak.  Nobody could be more lacquered.

Finished the record stand in a single coat of tung.

In other non-news – Crafted a ply plate to better distribute the cash register weight across the haberdashery cabinet in stead of on the glass.  Praise and honors for the non-participants.

HYPERDAY –

As in knee extension.  Fak.

After securing the pre-weekend O’boom rations, limped out to The Dump.  First visit in months.  No change in scarcity of crap, filched a nearly full can of silicon spray which paid the freight.

The real reason for the Marina trek was to visit Grocery Cheaplet, the original –  25% more inventory than the upstart in Seaside, but not worth the extra distance.

Go the standard distance and a bit more, putting effort into actually appreciating standing in the check out line.  Not as if its fun, but picturing scenarios where just being ABLE to <i>be</i> in an American grocery store WITH American money could only be a fanciful hope.  Good training?

But back to hopelessness – Castle Slackton for the NOLO Carb chicken, kim chee and ripe olives luncheon, then down the laundry chute to The Shop.

I have the swag for Curtis’s immanent nameday, but what it needs is a presentation case.  What I need is to explore sliding dovetail joints.

You are of course familiar with dovetail joints – a joint which I have yet to master – and the same sort of insie-outsie shape is used for the sliding dovetail joint.  The difference is that the sliding dovetail joint lends itself to more than drawer assembly.  It can be used for case construction and bookshelves as well as applications I’ve yet to imagine.

Step One: Make some.

How?

Simple.  Use a dovetail router bit.  Done.

Well, that’s the essential tool – the router and a dovetail router bit.  Like this:

The one bit does both the insie and the outsie.  If you know how to make the router table sing.  This my challenge.

Lammed out some salvaged redwood – not your best or even 34^th choice as redwood, for all its color and rot-resistant appeal, is soft, very soft, fractures easily and does not work well cross-grain, which is what sliding dovetails is, but since the wood was salvage (free) I could experiment without too much Harvey Glaring – into 30 cm lengths about 10 cm width, then planed them to reduce the bow.

To the Router Table – the Big Boy – to rout the insie.  The trick here is to first rout out a profile just inside the intended dovetail shape with a straight bit.  Once most of the cut is made with the straight bit, setting the dovetail bit just a snig higher, you run the boards through to create the insie kerf.

Another trick – do not rely on the router fence as a guide.  Particularly since the box pieces are being slid end-across.  There’s too much opportunity for jiggle and jostle whist trying keep the piece against the router fence.  Feh!

Better: enjoy your miter track and use a sliding something to push the workpiece into the router bit.  To ensure (mostly) an uniform cut, we here at Johnson Slacks clamp a wood block to the fence, register the workpiece against this spacer/wood block and so need not try to keep the workpiece against the fence as we thrill to the router bit ripping out massive great wanking chunks of the redwood.  Unintended chunks.  But all in a plumb, finger-unmangled, fence-unjambed way.

I had a sliding something available from when I last formed rail and stile profiles which served ably in this regard.

And so the insies were formed.

And that was the EASY Part.

The second and not-so-easy part is to craft the outsie, the outsie which fits snuggly into the insie profile, yet does not jam, slide but secure.

Here is where my horizontal router table paid for itself.  The typical router table has the router installed vertically, which is what you want most of the time.  But the horizontal router table has the router horizontally, which is what you want for this task.

Why?

This is a horizontally mounted router the position of the bit which can be adjusted vertically

Because to form the dovetail outie shape, one uses the same bit as was used for the insie, but in employing the typical, vertical router, the workpiece must be stood on end, somehow kept against the fence (sometimes your friend, sometimes an utterly uncaring and aloof appurtenance) AND be kept absolutely straight up and down throughout the ripping, shredding, tearing, shearing, noisy process.

This is not easy.

Easier: lay the workpiece flat on the router table surface and turn the router 90 degrees, which is the case with the horizontal router table.

Yes.

An hour was well spent forming a sliding jig which would both carry the workpiece across the router table and ensure freedom from the reliance on the sometimes our friend sometimes our indifferent unhelpmate fence.

Next – sneak up on both the depth of rout and the extent of the insie.  Eyed it up pretty well, but the semi-experienced workman who has far, far too many times taken the unexpected Train to “Oh Shitville” does not want ever, Ever to repeat the journey, knows to have on hand many, Many test pieces with which he uses to sneak up on the bit depth and extent.  Which he does.

Amid this happy introspection come two, welcome interruptions.

One, arrives The Professor and we can at last test out the Prototype Splay Stool.

The prototype Splay Stool ready for Test Sit

I sit, gingerly, tentatively upon it.

It doesn’t creak, crack, shatter or collapse.  So far, so good.  Yet all is not sweetness and light.  The Proto-Client rightfully points out that this stool will, more often than not, NOT be approached gingerly, will <i>not</i> be gently reposed upon and even more evocatively, WILL be rocked onto two legs both hither and yon and how will my prototype stand up to this entirely normal treatment?

My answer:  How about those Steeler’s?

My other answer: The catalog picture shows pretty much what I built.  BUT, I can install interstitials between the legs which attach to the underside of the seat which will significantly enhance the structural stability.  Yes, really yes maybe.

He buys it, takes the Proto-stool off for the inspection of the Home Design Approval Committee and I’m back to the router.

Almost.

There’s two guys in a brown truck pull up and go into the Parish Office.  I overhear something out ‘the tree.’  It’s an arborist and his familiar come to look at the oak across the street.  While the treeman disappears, I chat up his familiar who turns out be a retired corporate bean-minder but is passionate about live steam.  Worked on steam locomotive in Oregon from whence he has come.

I tell him about the Benito County Museum which has (and I sort of made this up, just to get him interested) some steam engines, and did he know about the Felton Roaring Camp RR which undoubtedly (maybe) has engines which need his expertise?

He didn’t, but lighted up out his sallow frump just talking about live steam.  Thenk yew, thenk yew vury much ….

Back to the horizontal router table to form the insies.  They’re all too loose by a few Hail Mary’s Full of Slack, but good enough for Driver’s Ed.  I figure for a sort of wine box sliding lid so kerf the inside of three sides with a ¼” bit, then lop off the near end for clearance for the sliding lid.

Sliding lid roughed out of thin ply and then call it an afternoon well spent.

MODELDAY –

As in this should be the form.

Before even I’m tucked into half a cup of so-called coffee The Professor arrives with a commission.  He’s bought a Murphy Bed and can I build a cabinet for it?

Can I not?

Get rid of him and the knee not the collapse I could have thought it would after yesterslack’s episode, but no rike scheduled.  Instead, a no extra-weight lope to The Row and The Lab.

Claire, the City Historian’s right arm agreed to meet me there and show me the two models.

Both are museum quality.  One, of Wing Chong’s in which the model maker lived for a time in the ‘60’s and it was living there that inspired him – Bill Johnk.

This model by Bill Johnk shows Ed Rickett’s home and business as it would have looked about 1940.

The Wing Chong model is in the ‘bar’ and is not, I am glad to report, to be a permanent fixture.  And it makes me want to find a way to get upstairs in the Wing Chong building, find out what still exists from era of prostie cribs and all-night poker games.

The other model IS intended for permanent display in The Lab.  Because it is The Lab, circa 1942, in miniature.

It’s gorgeous.  The display cabinet alone is jaw-drop.  It is a fine addition and will enhance my description June 15 when next are the City tours.

Slack homeslice to ferk on the Curtis Birthday Box, which is to form a ply bottom, nail on, then finesse the sliding top.  Think cheap wine crate, but with less Chinese savoir faire.

Good enough for a presentation crate and good learning on the sliding dovetail.

Amid all this fun The Professor materializes.  Can I look over his woodshed and perhaps find suitable leg material for the Splay Stools?

Why?

Because both he and his wife like the Splay Stool Prototype enough that they’d like four more in just the same config.  They liked the shattered sort of unpredictable layers of the laminar ply being torn off in making the scooped out seat.  You get lucky sometimes.

We motor over to his Asilomar Eden but he’s nothing with sufficient cross-section for legs.  But what he has is an almost finished home addition.  New garage that looks like a cottage in its own right and a house extension that now seems like its always been there.

Bonus Gnuggie dog scratchings.

After he drops me back to the Curtis Bday box, I stain the thing, then slather on a coat of tung.  Call it a day.

And yet the fun has only just begun when it’s no fun scrapping scrap off the grill grills.  Up 8^th Street pulls Congo to lade into the fridge a ½ case of Lag.

We douse some brain cells, feed Snaacckkk some offal and take in the late afternoon slanting sun looking over the white tossed bay.

And he hands me full payment, no, <i>more than</i> full payment for 4 Splay Stools.

Solid.

SLACKDAY –

Today, the arrival of the LA Slackman’s, but not yet.  Time enough to pack Curtis’s Bday presents in the crate.  Two shirts, each featuring young Doggle perfectly in the Bite The Stick Moment and a sort of a movie making syllabus by Sidney Lumet.

Here’s how it looked when the now-Ancient Curtis opened it.

Thanks to the near telepathic modren communications capabilities, logistics were arranged such that the Slackman’s would meet me at 99 Rancho for the evening BBQ.  This made sense as it’s on the way in from the South.

The party is ravin’, the snacks are jammin’ and Curtis’s college sophomore daughter’s paramour Ryan hasn’t even been duct-taped to the garage door.  Yet.

In the fullness of wine arrive the Slackman’s and the party rips, the grill roars and the margarita’s pour.

Somehow, we all lived.

SLACKDAY II –

Whilst Wei Wei was casing the town for thrift shop bargains, Slackman and I boodled through the repellant holiday traffic in-town out to the Marina District where hopes were high on finding kim chee.  High probability, yet some doubt remains – will the thirty-three Korean shops actually BE open for business at noon on a Sunday?

They were, and it was like taking a vacation just looking over the aisles and aisles of unfamiliar foodstuffs.

Kim chee procured.  Sesame oil (two kinds, one with bonus chili zest) procured.

Given the stupid 405-like traffic into Monterey, we took the scenic route through Fort Ord and into Del Ray Oaks.  It then occurred to me that Tarpy’s Roadhouse might not be an unconvivial waypoint.

It was and the Big Daddy Pale was tasty.  We watched the barman make drinks not out of place in Mos Eisley.  Bourbon Flip?  Bacon Martini?  Cicada Sillibub?  What planet ARE we on?

A communications deficiency interfered with our meeting Curtis, who we thought was going to motor out to Tarpy’s, but he thought we were scootling into 8^th street.

Alas.

The evening was given over to grilling and swilling, swilling and grilling.

He tells a musical joke.  Challenge you to make it better.

“What is the definition of the perfect pitch?”

“Hurling the accordion onto the banjo.”

PROGRESSDAY –

As the holidays are over, summer is commenced …. well, I think this shank of Summer is the better part than after the Solstice and certainly on the come rather than the sad recognition at the wane of July 4^th,  it is time I commenced on the Splay Stools for The Professor.

Hoping for adequate ply at lower prices than Jackel Hardwood, I actually FIND a parking place at Home Depot and do indeed find the sheer, sleek, suave sheet I need.  Good thing I wore my truss getting it into Adventure Project Truck.

Next: collect Wild Man and motor north up the coast to Watsonville and Jackel (A Dead Forest of Furniture Potentialities) Hardwood.  The place is a cathedral to beautiful wood – black acacia, 100 year old elm in table sized slices, walnut Of The Gods.  Wildman immediately gloms a bender board of cherry, beautiful piece, then jews the clark down $6.

I find some 6/4 (which in the lumber game means 1 ½”) thick alder, but WHOA!  here’s 14’ of 6/4 mahogany about 7” wide.  My mouth gapes wide when the clark tells me it’s $5.50 a board foot, and I mean that in a good way.  The plank is about 11 bf, but JohnsonArts gets a 20% discount for reasons that cannot be known.  Even by me.

I’m tossing the money at him.  Wildman gets his cherry and we’re back on the road south.

Wildman is talking about another trip with his kids to the Puget Sound in September.  I like to hear him make plans.  Particularly for his 84^th birthday.

Ditch him and get to lunch, then get cracking on …. an 180 degree reversal for the window squeegee.

My crank-out windows are filthy …. well, more obviously filthy than …well, no, that’s not true, they’re NOT more obviously filthy than the, how shall one say …. not more obviously filthy than the flooring formerly known as carpet …. But they’re really dirty.

As the panes are crank-out, a design which made sense to somebody from der Luftwaffe fur sein Heinkel 111, somebody now high on the Death List, they are nearly impossible to wash from the inside of the Penthouse, 23^rd Zenith of Happiness.

Un zo, I craft a backwards forwards handle from conduit, an angle bracket, and two hose clamps the intention of which is to wash and squeegee the outside of the windows from inside with only a 38.8% chance of plummeting through the fenestration the 25 feet to the concrete below.

Meantime, I’m treading water waiting for The (Client) Professor to swing by.  I’ve made the mistake of asking him, yet again (and I swear, for the final time) is he and his favorite wife satisfied with the Splay Stool Prototype dimensions?

He arrives, but needs to take the prototype back to his manse for a final sit-test with his banquet table.  Fair enough.  Today, all I need is a read on seat width and depth and he gives me the high-sign on butt-plant width and depth.  I only need the seat height by tomorslack when I’ll craft the legs.

Fair dinkum.  I’m given (and I ask three times) the go-ahead on seat width and depth AS IS the prototype.

With adjustable sawhorses, the tailgate serves as an admirable platform for downsizing a full sheet of 3/4″ ply.

He buggers of and I craftily use the truck tailgate as my workbench to saw off four 120 x 27 cm wide seat blanks.  As Per Spec.

It’s about half the ply sheet which makes toting the remainder off the street, through the Alice in Wonderland Garden via SLACKCOT CENTER to the back deck only three times the red limit spinal overload.

Deploy the chop saw to rip the ply to 52 cm lengths.  I’ll need the chop saw next to rough cut the mahogany into leg-length planks anyway.

Glue up 1 of 4 ply planks which will become seats.

Ahead of schedule, I pack it in for the day.

Today’s Learning: There is no better method of cooking bacon than on the grill.  You will thank me for this later.  And Forever.

You will continue to exercise quaint, primitive means, such as baking in the oven, or, Oden Help You, a frying pan on the range; but after you accept my wisdom, after you’ve grilled bacon, you will know, truly know that any and ALL other such means by which the Magic Wonder Meat can be cooked are puny, sad, miserable makeshifts.

Yowsa.

LEGDAY –

Out on it for a modest rike – 3 cats approached and they skitter away, 2 dogs greeted and get smiles back, 9 crows excoriated.

Then legged it down The Shop.  Glued up Splay Stool Seat 2 of 4, then roughed out the 16 legs, planed them to a 3.6 cm square cross-section, then cut to a uniform 47.5 length.  3 hours intimate with the chop saw, table saw and planer.  This scintillation level of glamour isn’t for everyone.

But when you’re cranking out multiples of anything, or even if you are not, getting the raw parts to square, all the same size pay dividends downstream.  Even if you don’t believe me about grilling bacon, believe that.

Why here’s Sam who doesn’t look half as dead as I feared he was.  And he continues to surprise.  Said that when he lived in Charlotte he used to make furniture, and when he worked in Germany he dropped 300 pounds of sheet metal on his feet.  Had all the toenails removed permanently.  Strange.

LEGITOUTDAY –

After the morning provisioning run, where every light was a red light, ran all the lights to The Shop.

The Goal: tenons for the Splay Stool legs – the Splay Stool hereafter known by the name given it by its patron: Crackjack.

Were the tenons to be straight, no sweat.   Assuming that the legs were of a square cross-section, the leg would be slid across the dado blade using the miter gauge.  To prevent binding against the fence, you’d clamp a set-off block to the table saw fence (the offset prevents binding) against which the end of the leg is registered, then one sneaks up on the shoulder and cheek gently raising the blade and moving out the fence .  Four passes flipping 90 degrees makes the tenon.

That’s the 10 degree angled sliding miter gauge under my hand

But no.  As the legs are to be angled 10 degrees out, so too must be the tenons.

The sides of the tenons are cut using the sliding miter table attachment on the table saw.  It’s a tray that lashes to the fence rails on which slides a platform.  This platform has an adjustable miter stop which in this case must be set to 10 degrees – relative to the blade,  twice.  Once for the forward cut, once for the other side.

I’d formed a 10 – 80 – 90 degree triangle from masonite for the prototype and used it to set the angle.  Sneaking up on the shoulder and cheeks was sneaky.  Rip, rip, rip.

That’s two sides of the tenon, the EASY two sides.

Attempted to employ the band saw and the set-up triangle to cut the front and back cheeks.  This, while a noble idea, was doomed as feeding the leg to the blade using the set-up triangle as a guide created a sideways force on the bandsaw blade which ferked up the cut.

Back to the table saw.  Tilt the dado blade 10 degrees, then snuk up on the shoulder to match the extant cuts.  Front cut, then switch the fence to the other side for the back cut.  Trim off the distal dross on the bandsaw.

The tenons are oversize for the ¾” square mortise I’ve planned.  This Is Good, although it means hand-fitting all 16 joints.  Hardly what you’d do for a production job.

More production-like: using the taper jig on the table saw to cut the leg tapers.   Tapers on the two exterior faces of the legs  It’s surprising the effect – shaving a wedge off 0.6 cm in a taper from about ¾’s up the leg can have in making the structure look lighter.

Rough sand.  Admire grain and color quality of mahogany.  Count myself lucky.

MAYDAY –

No emergency, just the last day of May this year.

Today’s excitement: pick up the 8 pound dumbbells for the rike instead of the 5 lb.  Doesn’t sound like much of a difference, does it?

Let me put it to you this way, would you like to make what you’re making now, or would you like to make 62.5% more?

Felt confident enough to do so as today’s course was mostly on the flat – off to the PO, then to the municipal golf course and home along the coastal bike path.

Was well that I had no ambition, was fully knackered from the go.

After a rousing lunch of scum chee, olives and chicken, its down the knotted-together sheets-on-fire to The Slackrage where a pivotal day awaited.  The key design decision was what hue of stain for the CrackJack ply seats?  As an exercise to determine table saw blade increments, stepped out a profile from some scrap ply.  Turns out that a full turn on the blade upski-downski moves the blade about 0.4 cm.  Knocked out a scaled down seat both to determine that and form the basis for two comparative stains, Mahogany and Red Mahogany.

With this mighty accomplishment achieved, felt sufficiently manly to rip out sufficient ply at 4 cm width for the 16 under-seat leg bolsters.

Hooray!  The new <a href=”http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_core.html#1388″>2” cove router bit</a> arrives in the daily post!  Okay, okay, it isn’t called at cove bit, which is what took me a week to find it.  And further okay, okay, I got an ½” shank which I forgot doesn’t fit into the Festool router and so the jig I built for the prototype Splay Stool can’t be used.  The Porter-Cable router in the horizontal router table has a baseplate 1.3 cm too wide.

BUT maybe I can use the big router table ….?

Whilst my gi-gantic brain cogitates some potentialities up drives The Professor, a spanking used tiny dirt bike strapped into the back of his truck.  It’s a Yamaha just about the size suitable for GI Joe and Barbie, and also perfect for his 10 year old son Milo.

This will be one of those days Milo will remember forever.

What I need to remember is that the client doesn’t want ply as the leg bolster, must be mahogany AND the stain will be Red Oak, including the mahogany legs and bolsters.  All very exciting.  Once I unclamp Seat 4 of 4 from the double ply glue-up, can form the mortisii – ¾” forsner bit drilled to 2.2 cm, then hand squared via chisel.

THEN, I’ll be closer to finish than start, and can form the scoop-out of the seat and dry fit the legs.

Probably Larry Ellison has more fun, but not much more.

STRANGEDAY –

Strange, but mostly on the good side.

I’m dreaming I’m trying to get on the LA freeway, any LA freeway the number of which I recognize, but there are none.  23?  Better than nothing, but then I can’t find The Blue Shark.  I think, I should just wake up, but first, I have to find the car.

Find June easily enough, it’s big and blue and right outside.  Outside I rapelle to The Shop and the CrackJack.

Job One: form the mortsii in the undersides of the four seats.  The Midnight Study Hall resulted in a new, yet-untried scheme, instead of a two-step drill then square the corners with a chisel, why not turn it into a three-step plan?

Mark the centers of the mortise, then lightly score the mark with the ¾” forsner bit, draw the square outlines, then take the seat to the mortise machine – for which I do NOT have a ¾” bit/chisel –  and using a ¼” bit do the four corners, and THEN return to the drill press to remove the inside of the mortise.

It doesn’t read well, it didn’t work well.

Part of the urgency to use the mortising machine is Harvey who is barking over my shoulder, “I ddooonnn’tt knoooww, you spent HOW MUCH for that damn machine and hardly ever use it…..”   And part of my reluctance to use it, in addition to not having the size bit/chisel needed for this job, is that I’ve stored the machine on the lowest shelf of Rolling Tool Cart #58 and it weighs in just slightly less than the engine block  of a ’57 Buick.

Heeding Harvey, horsed the device onto the workbench, changed out the bit/chisel, set the mortise depth, adjusted the fence, then set the hold down.  And that was the easy part.

Because there are millimeter differences in length and width seat-to-seat, the fence has to be readjusted just in simply turning the seat round for the other side.  Got three spurts into the thing before prudence dictated a humiliating retreat.

Back to the drill press and lammed out the holes, then devoted an hour to squaring the corners by hand.  Tiresome, but necessary.

Hand fit four legs to Seat #1 and in the process discovered this project’s Main (so far) Gremlin.

As I tapered the legs, I tapered two configurations, we’ll call one set of 8 the left and one set of 8 the right taper since I wanted, and you’d want it too, the tapers always to be on the outside facing surfaces of the legs.  The Gremlin caused me to make 9 lefts and 7 rights.  Somehow.  I don’t know how as I kept two piles.  But Gremlins are stealthy.

Upshot – rework.  I’ll have to form another leg.  Not a big deal, but upsetting.

Job Two – scoop out the top surface of the seats.

Short of building another jig to accommodate the newly arrived 2”  cove, ahem box bit, I’m left with the big router table.  But try as I might, without building yet another sort of sliding holdfast for the router table, 10 minutes of intense head-scratchings offers no simple, straightforward method.

F it.  To the table saw which has the virtue of at least having been used for this for the prototype.

The ragged but slightly concave extraction via table saw ballet

Put in the dado blade set to 3/8”.  Set the fence to start the gouging on the exterior lateral periphery.  Make a cut, flip the seat, make the cut on the far side.  Then half a crank raise the bit and push the fence out 3/8”.  Repeat.

Laborious, but OCD has it’s advantages.

They all come out pretty shaggy, but that’s to be expected.  It’ll all sand down fine and have the sort of Controlled Ruin Effect apparently favored by The Client.

Amid this choking on sawdust I notice people stirring inside the recently vacated grey green house just downhill on 7^th Street from where Wildman used to dwell.  Maybe they are House Stagers in need of some unique furniture.

No.  Owners.  House going to the guy’s son.  He’s wearing that Type-A smile simulation and immediately sizes me up as A Guy Trying To Sell Something.  Or worse.

Even though he brags he just had some furniture made, he doesn’t need anything, doesn’t even ask for a card.

I take this rejection badly, but I shouldn’t.

I need to get more accustomed to it.

It’s normal and instead of a black mood, I should overcome my own inhibitions about selling myself, get over that glass half empty philosophy.

After all, I’ve something worth selling.