Gift of time

The Pandemic has taken many things from many people some it's been a job or income, for others its been simply convenience of day to day living. Always trying to find a silver lining, I came to the realization (very early) is that this pandemic has given me a gift of time with my family. As both of my kids prepare to fly the coop, I became acutely aware that to put the world on pause and mandate everyone to stay home has been something I will never regret. The lack of a paycheck and the deepening line of credit yes, but time with the fam? Never

Stage three of the rear crib cabinet continues, with the main frame made it is time for the drawer

Which means yet another curved drawer front, another press

Another bout of laminating and clamping....

But the end result I was quite tickled with, I really like how the flowof the curves turned out!

While the end of march brought tonnes of snow, it also brought opportunity to get out and enjoy the fun

And warm enough temps that mid morning coffee on the deck was a treat

Unfortunately my Covid beard had to go. Although my office was shut down.....it really wasn't. I still had to provide emergent care, so the beard comes off for propper mask fit

Exciting news, the CNC work on the table is done and we now have it back in the shop

I am hopeful for many enjoyable games on this puppy!

Necessity is the mother of invention

Time marches on, and so does the growth of my beard....and so do the projects at hand.

The nice things about the bus is that there is lots to do and its not all connected, so when I come to a natural 'waiting period' on one job I can move on to another. In this case while some finishing steps happen for the for mentioned cabinet, I moved back and picked up on the table.

The table frame came back from being powder coated, and it looks lovely.

While we waited for that step to happen I sourced out some retractable retention pins that will hold the rotating table in place when you've decided on which table surface you want to be using.

Although the pins are almost perfect....there is one problem. Size does matter. The table top is about 7/8" thick and the retractable pin is 3/4" If I used it as is I would have to drill a hole in the table edge @3/4" leaving me 1/16" of wood between the table top  surface and the hole for the pin. Obviously this will be to weak. So I have to figure out how to solve the problem. Most obvious(and easiest ) I contacted the manufacturer, but they don't make the pin in a smaller size. Option two would be another pin from another company.

Although this option had promise, it still was going to require modification....and frankly....to be honest....I didn't like the way it looked. I know, I know that's shallow of me and I should look beyond the front cover...these pins are important too but.... not pretty enough.

So on to option #3, that would be taking the pin tom a machinist and having him modify this pin, or make a new pin to the new specifications. The problem I have with option #3is time, money and access. I am sure I could find a machine shop that is open, but they are specialised kinda guys, and working on big projects. To ask them to stop and work on this will cost a fortune in shop time alone. So....being that I have time on my hands and always up to a challenge. I came up with a solution. I thought it was quite ingenious.....I think my brother , Shawn (the salty one) , used the term redneck......but we are all entitled to our opinions.

Welcome to the Sinclair custom metal lathe.....well truth be told it's really more like a custom griding station but lets not split hairs.

The important part is the results, and I think they worked great.

Speaking of redneck lathe....Jeffs project was finally ready for Beta testing. Here is how you make exercise equipment during the pandemic when fitness stores are closed and limited stock.

I'm not sure its entirely practical but man it was fun to dream,design, manufacture and then test!

Now that the chainsaw sawdust has settled and the sweet smell of pine has cleared the room, it was time to return to the cabinet and take it to the next level. Level three...

Irons in the fire

As I work my way through the head games of not being able to run my practice, I do find that I have plenty of interests. Now Michelle may argue that most of them are centered around my work shop, or out mountain biking, or out side and very few include the chores and maintenance of the house. She may have a point, and I will work on that. All that being said......
So I was in the workshop and had to come up with a way of connecting level one frame and level two frame for the rear cabinet for the crib.

So once again it was time to create another lamination press to make custom curved  plywood.

The process is easy enough but it just takes time, fortunately that is something I have a bit of as of late.

Once the plywood itself was made and dried, I used the rear portion of the press as a structural wall for the cabinet.

Not ready yet, but I couldn't resist a quick dry fit to get a feel for what could be...

All the while Jeff kept puttering away on his latest idea, welding and grinding, welding and grinding

We were also extremely fortunate to be blessed with an abundance of fresh snow, so trying not to look like Bambi on ice , I ventured out with Michelle numerous times to enjoy our own back yard.

Not to be out done.....Anna has a plan. Last fall we made our annual trip out to Deloraine for Thanksgiving. Usually we make a weak attempt at going goose hunting to justify going outside and spending time together. This time however mother nature had other plans for us. As we literally drove  Delo, a wall of a  blizzard met us 20 min from Grandma and Grandpas place. By the next morning there was so much snow we had to dig through drifts to get to the cars. Needless to say hunting was out. When we woke up in the morning one of the large branches from the apple tree in their yard had broken. In the clean up we saved a 2 foot piece. And Anna had a plan...

After making a jig and changing the blade for the band saw. We milled  3/4" slabs from the piece of the tree

Although we both agree the pieces are beautiful.....we must report that the wood while being milled is surprisingly far from pleasantly fragrant

The moisture content was still pretty high, so we strapped and pressed the slabs to dry.

Even while all those other things are going on, I still picked away at the project at hand and eventually was able to have a test fit of what we have so far.

Lots to do

I made the decision that the metal inlay is what I am headed for. So I took the table top and an extra piece of 5/8" birch plywood in to the vet. I know right! The VET? what the??? Turns out there is " a guy" who has a home made CNC machine that he runs from home. AND he's local AND his wife is the new vet in town. I love it when a plan comes together. So while that project is out of my hands.....and my hands should not remain idle for too long....people get hurt or money gets spent. Either way its better for all that I get into the shop and be creative.

As part of the design plan for the crib area, I need to make a cabinet behind the forward facing lounge seat. Between it and the kitchen cabinet which holds the sink. Currently we have the sub woofer in that space, so the requirements are:
       1. House the sub woofer
       2. be a creative(and yet simple) place for the storage of the table
       3. Provide storage.
So I first took some measurements....

Then created a cardboard outline of the cabinet shape, placing the required storage items in the space.

Then it was simple to back design and create a template

First level of the cabinet frame complete....

Being that we are all around the house together, bored and creative minds congregate, for fabrication of an idea, or just top go to the local coffee haunt for a walk up coffee hit!

Once the caffeine jitters wore off....just kidding I don't get those....it was on to the next stage...or level...level two!

A road less travelled

Little did we know a trip in March to Lethbridge was to be our last as a team. Jeff's Volleyball team had a AVA (Alberta Volleyball Association) sanctioned event. Your placement at these events helps to determine your ranking for Provincials and in turn Nationals. The first AVA was a bit of a struggle, the boys needed to find out who they were and what they needed to do as individuals and as a collective. AVA #2 in Lethbridge was another test to see if they have started to find their way. And they did, they struggled against adversity and found a way to win. Taking the gold medal home. Sadly it was only a week later that Canada started to shut down, and our volleyball season was over.

Congrats to the Canuck U18 Men for finishing on top!!

The nice thing about social distancing is that working in my shop is not only OK, but encouraged....so work away I did. After separation of the table top from the clamps it was time for a trim and test fit in the frame. Although this is the underside of the table, it gives us a great view of how things will look. During the design process, we thought this would be great as multi use table. I mean is has two sides, so we could use one side for eating and maybe the other side for, oh I dont know.......crib perhaps!

So after a little jigging, I was able to come up with a simple yet effective solution. After I had gotten things the way I liked I was able to sneak the frame away to be powder coated.

While I waited for the return of the table frame I started to muse about reinstalling a small glass panel in a door at the front in the lower dash. The glass is....well from 1949....so it is weathered and yellowed. I was musing one day about putting a custom privacy film on the glass. I was playing with a 3D printed model of the Flxible emblem when I was struck by an idea. What if......

I rummaged through cupboards until I found a picture projector that we bought when the kids were young for arts and crafts and school projects. I then printed out the logo...

And projected it onto paper to see if my idea would look good.

And wouldn't you know it....an idea was born. The table is beautiful, maple and walnut make a beautiful match, but what if we adorned the table with the emblem on one side and Fillmore's name on the other! I threw out the idea to Shawn and Adele and it was met with intrigue and encouragement. Shawn, being an additional step over the top than me, threw out another idea. The plan was to get the PDF files of the art work to a shop that has a CNC machine and router the artwork into the table top. Shawn's addition was to metal inlay the emblem. I loved the idea and started to experiment.

With a piece of scrap wood from the table top , we routed a random shape into the wood. After considering traditional casting techniques for metal we opted for a slightly more obscure option, a road less travelled.

After fashioning a home made ladle we used a hand torch with MAP gas to melt solder....yep solder.

A bit of a gong show but we did get an idea of how this could work.

After some rough sanding I employed the services of our resident acrylic project expert and we applied an acrylic top coat to see what things could look like

Although not fully set in this pic, the results are promising. As the blog lags behind real time, I will just say this......this is journey has been less like a road less traveled and more like a cross bewteen following  a deer trail and bushwacking.....the journey is not over yet!