Why I did not write.

I've been away from the desk project and from posting for couple of weeks. We had a little excitement on the medical front this last week. My wife had a cancer test. And as it turned out she is fine. The doctor told her to come back in five years and they will check again. That means that she has by his estimate at least a 5 year shelf life. Where as I can't necessarily make that claim. She will out live me of that I am sure. Women live longer than men, any stand up comic will tell you, because after putting up with women men do not want to live any more. Bada-boom!

At any rate when we got through the test she is fine and off we go. The test took a year to schedule. That's right she booked it a full year ago. That is what they call the Alberta Heathcare Advantage. If there would have been a problem, by the time she got tested they could have found it in an autopsy. But one way or another they would have found it. The government's approach is that the autopsy is better because there are no repeat offenders and it frees up the hospital beds for those who are willing to pay. Conservative logic at its best. As you will have guessed I am no fan of our current right wing government. But what can we do when the majority elects a premier because he's a lush and that "makes him one of the guys!".
Enough politics.

I took a break from the desk just to get through the wife's test and because I was having a few problems that I had to resolve. They are done and now it is time to get back at it. The problems had to do with he trim for the pedestal base. I milled up the the stock I needed then when I went to mitre it one of the pieces chipped and there I was short of materiel. Then when I went to cut the "feet" my jig saw which was never a good one (I have had trouble with that thing since day one) failed me again. I may be the problem but I swear the tool hates me too. At any rate now I was short two pieces. I have purchased the stock again and I just have to re mill it. I also decided that I don't need to make the cut outs in the base trim as I found a system of adjustable feet that I can install under the pedestal if I need to later. The problem with the desk not sitting level will not be a problem because for now it will be set up on carpet which is self leveling more or less.

So now that I don't have to do anything fancy I am ready to start again except that this week was housekeeping. Cleaning the house took a half a day, we lost a day to the regular weekend errands and so it goes. Then there was another couple of hours going from one hardware store to another looking for stain and varathane, (Home Depot dropped the ball again being sold out of the stain I wanted, and only the color I wanted, so I went with their evil twin RONA). I don't even wonder any more why the progress is so slow I know that it is always two steps forward and one step back.

Finally when I went to write this post I could not get connected to the net. Telus was dropping the ball. I had to disconnect the whole system, modem, router, firewall and reconnect then it worked. It was not Telus's problem even though "they were experiencing a high volume of calls" . I guess when my router which regularly works fine decides to pack it in, it up and calls all it's buddies so everyone can have a router failure at the same time. I think that since the system started working on its own half way through Telus debugging the problem it must have been my equipment...NOT. It certainly would not have been their network. If you don't believe me just ask them.

Making less progress than I had intended...

Randy

Long Awaited Pictures

Well finally as promised some pictures of the desk. It is starting to resemble something...but what? I finished the basic pedestals this week so I thought I would set it up to get an idea of the size. Yes sir it come in on the huge side. Oh well.

The pedestals are made of the mahogany frames and the birch panels. They look a lot lighter than the frame but they will take stain much more than the mahogany. The bottom and tops are plywood trimmed in mahogany at the top. The backs of the pedestals are open to allow heat to escape. When the old computer is slaving away over taxes it gets a little hot under the collar.

These are the drawers and shelves. I have to attach the slides and install them. There are 3 small shelves for the computer scanner and CD's a large drawer with attached shelf for the printer (paper storage underneath. And two large drawers for pens pencils and junk. I think they will become a fabulous junk repository . We already have a junk drawer but now we have room for expansion. Junk is like air it expands to fill the space available. Make more space and more junk will appear.

There is not much left of the mahogany parts just the glued up doors shown here, the keyboard shelf and some trim pieces.
Not much to show for a van load of wood just over a month ago.

And in a few weeks there will be less than that

And here is one tired helper. She even brought her helper hat with her. But it is not for wearing it is for chewing on.

Still busy making sawdust...

Randy

Thanks and No thanks

Still working on the desk, almost to the point where I have something worth taking a picture of. I have the panels for the pedestal sides done up and I made the drawers up today. I will post some pictures when I have the pedestals made up.

I took the desk top in to a wood working shop, Black Forest Woods. They took my rough top and trimmed it to size on their big industrial table saw. What took them 15 minutes would have been an all day chore for me with poorer results. They did a wonderful job. Thanks Black Forest. Check them out. They specialize in custom built doors, exotic hardwoods and wood working tools. http://www.blackforestwood.com

As it turned out the real all day chore was shopping around to find the drawer glides. There are two big name hardware chains in town, Rona and Home Depot. Both big impersonal box stores who amazingly sell exactly the same stuff for... wait for it... the same price, and as it turns out were sold out of the same things. I ended up going to three stores fighting traffic all the way only to come home still short of all the parts I needed. And because of the labor market here only one of the several staff members was knowledgeable. What we heard most was "Sorry I don't know I just started." You would think that they would have experienced staff in on the weekend when they are the busiest. But I guess they figure they have a captive audience. No thanks to Rona and Home depot you dropped the ball yesterday.

I got the rest of the parts cut out of the famous 5X5 sheets of plywood. I owe thanks on that to my friend Glenn who loaned me his out feed stands. I put one beside the table saw and the other on the out feed end. It was like having another pair of hands. Thanks Glenn.

And finally I got my father in law's radial arm saw up and working. There are a few things on this project that are just best done with a radial arm saw. He gave it to me three years ago and I had not got around to setting it up. But as I will be needing it it was time. And conveniently my nephew Robert was in town from Winnipeg visiting his cousin Scott. Since the saw originally belonged to their grandfather I asked them over to help set it up. It didn't hurt that they are both big guys, six foot or better, rugby and soccer players, so a little old saw was no challenge to them. We had it up in about a half an hour and adjusted just in time for some celebratory beers. (They are of legal age .) Well Robert had a couple and I had a couple and Scott had to drive so he lost out but I sent a couple home with him for later. Thanks Scott and Robert I appreciate the help and the visit.

And since I had a couple this afternoon I thought it might be a good idea to stay away from the power tools tonight thank you!

Ready to watch The New Yankee Workshop through the eyelids...
Randy

The Desk Project Part - Next in Sequence

Remember a post or two back when I said that 5 x5 is an unwieldy size for wood. Well I say it again. It was a royal pain to cut up a 1/4 inch sheet at that size. Once I had it in strips it was ok but man what a chore. I've got the 1/2 inch sheet to fight with next weekend. Maybe I will get Windsor or Black Forest Wood to do the major cuts down to something I can manage. I' ll see what it costs.

We milled up all the solid mahogany for the pedestals. I missed cutting a tenon on one of the styles so I will have to set up again to do it. Missing one is better than cutting an extra one believe me. It wasn't even that tough once it was set up I just milled all the pieces. The next time I have to do that is for the drawers and shelves. Once the parts are milled assembly is easy.

I dry fitted one of the side panels this afternoon. It looks good. The Birch panels in the mahogany frames don't even look too bad I think with stain they will be alright. Speaking of stains I managed to pinch my thumb in the fence on the table saw. A relatively minor injury considering the damage one could do with a table saw. But I ended up getting blood on the panels. I think if it had bled enough it would have darkened the birch to a deep mahogany. Nah not going to go there. Could be all those CSI shows my wife watches are having an effect on me. I don't mind her watching that but I wonder what she does with all the notes she takes? I'm worth more dead than alive should I be worried?

The Black Forest Woods Company, where I had planned to get the top cut to size was moving equipment this weekend so I did not get that done. A job for next week I guess. I might even get them to size up the other glued up sections and if it doesn't take too long power sand the front doors we will see how it goes.

Well that's it for now. I wonder where she keeps all those notes.

Sleeping with one eye open...

Randy

The Desk Adventure Continues

Just a quick update on the desk project. I have rough cut all the solid Mahogany pieces and we glued up the top today. This desk is going to be huge. 34 by 62 inches does not seem like much until you see the panels nearly 3 foot by 5 foot plus that is big. Oh well to late to whine now.

The top took a lot of fussing and planing and measuring but it is almost ready to go. I think the piece will be too big to trim to size on on my table saw but there is a place in town where I think I can get it machined to size for not too dear a price. They have a large industrial table saw so it should work out better with their help. After that I should be able to handle everything else on my own.

The top has been glued up in two pieces. When they dry tonight I will biscuit join the two halves together to make the whole. I had to go out yesterday and get a couple more bar clamps long enough for the whole top. I thought that I could do the whole thing in one go but no chance. Norm said to do it in two pieces and its the only way. Remember I thought Oak would have been too heavy. Well that mahogany tips the scales pretty well too if the top pieces are any indication. This will be a solid piece of furniture if you measure by weight.

We dragged the last of the full dimension lumber in. Four sheets of 5' by 5' plywood. That is just about the most awkward size of wood I have ever encountered. It is just a little too big to get a grip on and it doesn't fit well going down stairs and turning it is of no help whatever. I'll bet it was an engineer determined that that was an optimal size they just love to mess with things.

Just sitting here watch'n the glue dry...

Randy