My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

The progress made today was both satisfying and revealing.  Yesterday I succeeded in cutting six box bottoms and today I needed to cut the other six.  Two of the boxes will be padauk, two will be wenge, and two of them will be morado.

Last week I went to Hill Hardwood Supply Inc, in Iowa City.  They gave me a bunch of scraps which have made several jigs and been wonderful practice wood for hand planing.  I wanted to buy something from them, though I didn’t know what.  They have a section with a bunch of tiny pieces which were just crying out to be part of my latest tiny box building.  I picked up two pieces of wenge, one long piece of morado, which I had never heard of before, two pieces of bubinga, and they gave me a small piece of padauk.

These should make the current batch of boxes sing.  Before any songs could be sung, I needed to figure out a way to sand the bottoms, after I have resawed the pieces.   I realized that the belt sander didn’t have a name, when I said “Hey…”, followed by a short period of silence.  I continued, “Mr. Belt sander, you need a name.  Do you have any names that you are partial too?”

The belt sander, which has generally been pretty reserved, perked up and said, “I do!  I have always thought of myself as a ‘Dusty’.  It is a good name and it seems very fitting.”

“It is fitting!  Dusty it is.”, I said and turned around to the shop, “Everyone, may I have your attention please.  I would like to let everyone know that our friend the belt sander is now named Dusty.  Please say ‘Hi’ to Dusty.”

Everyone said Hi, Hello, or something similar.  I could tell that Dusty was happy to be included with the other tools which have names.

“Dusty, we need to figure out a way to use your considerable sanding skills to work with smaller pieces.”

Dusty thought for a while, as did I.  After a few minutes of walking around the shop, me not Dusty, I was stumped.  Then Dusty said, “I think the problem is that if you hold me, I can get carried away and sand off too much.”

“Yes, that is a concern.”  I said with a nod.

“What if you built me a bed where I could lay on my back, and you could then gently sand the pieces against my belly?”

“That is a great idea!”

“Thanks…and I do love a good belly rub.” he said with a smile.

“Everyone loves a good belly rub!”  I responded with a chuckle.

Then the router table spoke up, “You know, if you clamped the jig to my top, and used my safety on/off button, you could lock down Dusty’s on switch, and control his power more easily.”

“That is a brilliant idea!”

There was some clapping from other tools, as everyone gets excited when we solve a problem.  While the tools talked among themselves, I got some wood from my practice wood pile.  There were two pieces of oak and a piece of maple that needed only a little bit of sizing and sanding.

Dusty smoothed out the faces of the maple and then I used the No. 5 to clean up the edges, as they volunteered to help.  Hand planes are always eager to help and they really do clean up an edge well.  The pieces of oak just needed to be cut to size, and Jeff was more than up to the task.

I then sketched the basic opening I needed for Dusty to lay comfortable on his back.  I enjoyed using Jeff to carve out the shape in the oak pieces.  A little touching up with my micro planes and I was ready to screw them into the base.  I used (3) 1 3/4 inch wood screws to connect each piece.  This stage of the jig building wouldn’t normally be note worthy, but I took great care to drill pilot holes in the base, using my drilling jig, and all six screws went in without incident.

When I clamped the jig to the router table, plugged in the cord to the safety on/off switch, and fired Dusty up, I was again filled with a sense of victory.  My confidence continues to improve each day.  Each time I try something new and succeed I feel like I have one more ‘skill’ in my woodworking arsenal.

I can only think of one more hurdle in completing my current batch of boxes.  I will need to design a jig to allow me to cut across the corners of each box.  Since there isn’t a table saw among the tools in the shop, I will need to rely on the router table.

That is all for today’s rambling.  Now back to the drawing board, not because I need to start over, but because a new jig needs to be designed.  I love this woodworking stuff.