08 Jan, 2020 – Oakland, CA
Despite a solid 6h of shop time, I only got one board done (goal was four). It turned out pretty nicely, but was not what I imagined. In the first 15 minutes or so of work I was reminded of how soft redwood can be. That slab from a few posts back is almost like Styrofoam and I was really struggling to get a nice surface on it without tear out or serious tool marks showing. I fought with it for a long time, but in the end decided to abandon my vision of a smooth hard surface and go with a more textured, organic look.
Things got easier with that approach. I focused on sanding out the sapwood and polishing the harder winter wood along the grain. I think one could do this more quickly and beautifully than I did today. I also think that “tomorrow me” is going to crush it when I make another.
I did spend most of the shoptime on that one, but took care of a few other things too:
- Set up my new No62 Stanley Sweetheart Low-angle Jack Plane (a bargain with my $100 gift card to HomeDepot).
- Finally cut hinge mortises in a cherry/walnut finger-jointed box from the moxon post which looks a little too nice to house my router bits, but that has been its intended purpose all along. Tomorrow I’ll make a little plate that I can drill holes into to house more bits as the collection grows.
- I also picked up v1.0 my new biz cards (v1.1 in the works) and dropped a few pieces off at Mudlab to sell.
Still 63 slack-days left.
P.S. I’m happy to report that I fell into a YouTube hole during this writing and after two videos, decided that I was not going to beat this Jimi Hendrix video. Music aside, you have to see his outfit. Love that guy.