Summer Woodworking

My last post was over 2 months ago. Sorry about that. I have done a bit of woodworking since then, although not a lot. Among the other things taking up my time were:

• We dropped off Snowflake's nightlight and met the man himself - he's a real cutie.

• I spent a couple of days on the Cape with my sister, her family, their friend and her son. One afternoon I supervised the boys D and JT making stepping stones (concrete, ceramic tiles and glitter). JT was particularly excited about the glitter. I didn't stay long enough to see the hardened stones, but word has it that the boys were fascinated by how the gloppy concrete turned into solid stones.

• We spent the last two weeks of July in the Adirondacks. We've vacationed there all but 2 of the last 12 years, the last 8 in Owl Cabin at Wakanda. Although I took some things to sand with me they never got pulled out. I did take photos and dimensions of an end table (a new addition to our cabin) which will likely end up as a project soon.
• Like too many other houses, our bathroom has a window above the tub. Since the tub is also used for showers the window gets wet. Over the years water has undermined the window framing, and the wall behind the plastic tub surround. The surround on our tub is several panels rather than a single piece. Over time the seams have lost their integrity and water has infiltrated. As embarrassing as it is to say this, the wall board behind the surround has been falling apart for years. After replacing the toilet and floor, we finally couldn't take it anymore. So in mid-August I carefully removed the surround and replaced the outside wall. Note to anyone reading - cardboard is not an acceptable shim in a bathroom wall! The job proved a little bit more involved than anticipated because the window trim was glued to the framing which meant that it all had to be replaced.
  
• Since returning from vacation work has been taking up a lot of time and more energy.
• I have been giving the kayak a good amount of time in the water.

There has been a bit of woodworking as well.

Hiker Boy's Advent Calendar

The stock for all parts has been milled, and I'm ready to start joinery. The drawer stock still needs to be cut to final dimension. The picture above is the corner of one of the doors.

Softball Bat
This is a new addition to the list. Last spring many of the guys in my woodworking class made baseball bats. One evening as I was leaving the instructor commented that I was the one who should be making a bat. He's aware of my participation in the softball league at work (I help run our team, play, umpire and coordinate the umpires for the league). And when he found out that I'd never used a lathe he was even more convinced that I should give it a try. I didn't have anything else to work on for the last class, so I decided to give it a try. Here's the progress so far. I should have it mostly finished next week when class starts again.



Workbench Top

The new top for the bench is almost complete. I used mahogany to edge the plywood. It's attached using biscuits which gave me an excuse to use my biscuit joiner. I attached it so it was a little higher than the surface of the plywood and then planed it down. The only thing left to do is to apply a finish to it. I'm leaning toward using boiled linseed oil.

Footstools
I filled the grain on the footstools with a mixture of pumice and boiled linseed oil. They look great, but need a lot of sanding. I've got the top of one done and it feels great after the sanding.

Ornament

Almost every year for the last 10 I've made a window hanging/Christmas tree ornament using my scrollsaw. The one pictured above is from 2005. Much to Amy's amazement I have already got the first pass of this year's design done. I'll try this one out and then make adjustments before starting in on the production run.