My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

Thanks for making Henry for me – an am anxious to receive him and I already know where he will sit; although I’m not sure what he will hold. I showed the pictures of Henry to my daughter and she already thinks that she is going to get this box. I listened to an endless list of all the things she thought would be perfect to go inside. Maybe dreams and potential is what this box will ultimately hold.

Thanks again and I am proud to received your first commissioned piece.

-@bobborson  |  Life of an Architect

Sept 4, 2010  The 247 day of the year.  How do I know this?  Is it because I am the son of an mathematician?  Partly, yes.  But mostly it is because I write this blog every day, and today’s will be the 246th.  I started on Jan 2 of this year, and so I just need to add one to it.  See how I did some math there at the end!

I thought yesterday was a landmark for me.  I started and completed my first commission and I felt pretty good about it.  That feeling pales in comparison to the warm sensation of satisfaction I received a few minutes ago, when I read the comment left by Bob.  I loved the last line  “dreams and potential is what this box will ultimately hold”

I showed this to Henry and he said, “I am great at holding dreams and potential!”  Then he went off to tell the other boxes about what Bob had said, and that he had a daughter who sounded delightful.  I couldn’t make out everything said by the boxes, but there was a lot of chatter and many congrats.

My Day

I didn’t get as much done on my inlay boxes as I had hoped.  But I did spend a couple of hours on them.  The next step was to cut the dado and rabbit cuts in each board.  For this I used Teri and Tracy, and the dado routing jig I built.  This jig has been incredibly helpful in several projects, but since the router table was finished, it hasn’t gotten much use.  Today it was perfect for the job and was thrilled to be dusted off and brought into the game.

“Thanks for letting me help.” the jig said.

“You are welcome Gappy.”  I said, creating the name on the fly.  He is designed to make a dado cut with a router, and he has a gap, which allows him to work.  It just seemed appropriate.

“Gappy?!  Is that my name.” he said, giggling.

“Yes, what do you think?”  I asked.

“I like it, it is funny, with just the right amount of silly.  I am, at my core, a very silly jig.”  He answered with a smile.

Some of the other tools, upon hearing that there had been a new naming, chimed in with calls of, “Hey Gappy!” and some light cheering.

Teri and Tracy congratulated the dado jig on his new name, as I clamped him to them.  They stood there proudly holding Gappy as I clamped the work piece into place.  Actually, I clamped the practice work piece into place.  Because I really want these boxes to survive my foibles, I have an entire piece which I have made every cut on, before I try it on the box pieces.

Precision for the dado cuts is crucial.  If they are off, even slightly, it will mess up the look I am trying to achieve.  The Jet clamp really holds things tightly, but I was still worried that the piece might shift, so there is a piece of wood under Gappy, which the work piece butts up against.  This means that when the router pushes into the wood, it won’t be able to shift away.  I don’t know if this helped or not, but I made all three practice dado cuts without incident.  Better safe than sorry, I infrequently say.

The next two work pieces were cut without incident too!

The router table was then called into service to cut the rabbits.  Again I used the practice piece to set up the table.  The first cut was about 1/32 short of the mark, so I adjusted and tried again.  I don’t have a miter gauge for my router table, but I do have a tiny piece jig, and it has a straight side and runs along the miter track.  It works well at holding the piece steady as I rabbited the ends of the pieces.

The remainder of the day was spent watching football and gluing in the pieces of wenge.  As I said, I didn’t do as much as I wanted today, but I made progress and had a lovely day, so I consider that a win.