The Big Think

Sorry if you’re getting bored of the shop updates, but I want to keep track of the total time and what I’m doing each day.

7 more hours today (123 total). I sanded the doors (gak!) and I installed the ebony squares in the corner of the door frames. This would have gone faster but my Porter Cable random orbit sander gave up the ghost halfway through. I was forced to go to Home Depot and plop down $75 for a new one. Now, normally I enjoy buying tools and bringing them home, but this one just stunk because I really liked that old sander. I’ll take it apart and see if I can fix it, but I don’t think I can return a lightly-used Dewalt sander.

After this was all done I spent a few hours installing the ebony squares into the left-side book case. Spec-tac-u-lar! I installed a bunch of small ebony square accent pieces today. It only took me about 4 hours. If you remember, when I built the music cabinet I made all of the holes by hand with a drill bit and a chisel (to square up the holes). This madness took me 3 or 4 days of eye-straining effort. This time I got wise and bought a piece of 3/8ths inch bar stock. I cut off a 2 inch piece and ground the end down to a gentle 4 sided slope, then used it to square up the 3/8ths inch hole that I cut with a forstner bit. Eureka! It worked brilliantly. Instead of 8-10 squares done today I got thirty eight done in just a few hours. Wow. I still have 24 to go, but I should be able to knock them out tomorrow. The carcasse looks really nice, but the ebony accents put it over the top. It’s really starting to look like a piece of Arts and Crafts furniture.

Tomorrow: more accents and I start making the window muntins. We’re also going by Woodcraft after church to look at hinges and hardware. I really like these.