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.