Puttering in the Study

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It - Adam Savage

Grayson recommended this book to me because he thought I might be interested in Adam Savage of MythBusters' recommendations on boosting and accommodating your creativity.

The book is a magnificent recitation of Savage's career as a "maker," including a stint making models for Industrial Light and Magic for the movie industry, which was probably my dream job through high school as well.  His advice on how to be a better maker, especially towards the end of the book, began giving intensely productive tips on how to manage your workshop, including the benefits of cleaning up after yourself at the end of each day so that you can start from a blank slate at the next session. There are other chapters analyzing subjects such as workshop organization and illustrating all the different types of a tool, all of which have an application they are best suited for.  He provides examples of this for objects as straightforward as glue and scissors, which really makes you stop and think about the characteristics of the tools you use, and whether there might really be a need to have different variants of a commonly used tool.

All in all, a great book, especially for kids or young people trying to figure out how to be better at maximizing their creativity and being productive with it.

Afternoon in the Workshop

Good afternoon in the workshop at the lake today working on several projects.  

Lawn furniture

After cleaning up the workshop I started what will be a long term job repainting the Nunnallys’ canary yellow lawn furniture black (see chair that’s up next in the background).  I started with the smallest piece today, a little table, and it went surprisingly well.

The new toys drawer is for my new measuring tools - it’s becoming clear that my biggest problem in woodworking is not measuring accurately, and even worse, not making sure my cuts are square.  So I’m working at being more precise on the upcoming projects with a new Starrett combination square, and a rosewood try square and marking gauge by Crown  The slope desk (shown below) is so phenomenally not square it’s embarrassing - the pencil strips are not parallel to the edges, and the top and bottom are not parallel to each other.  Not even close.   The new Starrett square is a real eye opener.  I already have three combination squares, but none work remotely as well as it does - the markings are clear enough to read, and you can opt for measurements into the 1/32 and 1/64 scales.

Also got a new top for the broken glass one that’s in a frame welded to the top of an old Singer sewing machine table in the workshop.  It’s a little under 2’ x 4’ so a 2’ x 4’ sheet of oak plywood will work fine (I did one of those in law school) with a strip mitered around the edge and painted black.  But for the moment, it’s filled with rough Hub shelves to serve as a base for the new planer, which I put to work on some Hub boards for two more slope desks for the Hub. I have had a joiner for almost ten years, but had never set it up, and after I did and started cleaning up some boards I realized that all this Hub lumber really needs a planer as well.

I cut the face and spine for two more desk slopes/book stands, as well as a more complex set of cuts for the pencil trays.  They still won’t accommodate my iPad in its case, but I think I can chisel them out tomorrow.  I redesigned the spine to be smaller and simpler, and both because of that and because I planed the pieces down, they should be slightly lighter than the original - although they’re going to be about an inch taller so they accommodate not just paper but the Circa notebooks I use at work (there’s one in the background). They work as a book stand right side up and a slope desk upside down, and I have been using the prototype in the office every day since I built it.

I would normally have put the biscuits in and glued them up, but Parker feels strongly that the edges on the prototype are too sharp, so I’m waiting on a couple of router bits to come in and we’ll see whether the 1/8” or 1/16” roundover bit works better.

All this reminds me that I need to rebuild the top of the office piece (shown in the background) but until I get the metal to make the post, it wouldn’t accomplish much.  So I’m not working on that yet - but am building the skills I’ll need for it eventually.

But a beautiful day, and got several projects moved along a bit.

Hub furniture project update

After several weeks at the office, Phil the prototype
went back to the workshop for an extensive update.  The new version at left has a number of improvements over what Phil looked like Friday (see right), although he still only got three of the five changes as a result of use at the office checked off- the rest deal with the upper "easel" portion of the piece.

New base

First, the base was completely rebuilt, this time using Hub lumber.  It is larger and has an enclosed back, and the base is trimmed with a half inch piece of molding (I need to add a few more strips to cover some screws). It is significantly more stable with the extra depth and weight, and no longer minds rolling on and off carpets. 

Picking the right pieces from the old shoe store shelves was a bit of a challenge, since the shelves max out at 11 1/2" wide, and I really needed the depth to be 12".  Long story.  But I finally set the right dimensions, started cutting pieces for this and subsequent units, and got the first set cut, rabbetted as needed (a new skill I learned over the weekend), clamped and screwed together.  (Don't worry about the paint still on the shelves - where it needs to be removed I'll do that before final staining - I did do initial sanding before the parts were assembled, but staining and finishing is still a ways off).

The existing (temporary) wood post and easel was removed from the old base, as were the wheels and gun safe, and transferred to their new permanent base after their location was recorded on templates to make drilling the necessary countersunk holes quicker on the next couple of units.

I didn't get the briefcase shelf "deck" built - just the plywood base that the final decking will be screwed to, but I did cut a couple of the boards that will eventually make up the deck. I can't really build the deck until I get the final aluminum posts fabricated and know what those dimensions will be.  And I'm still playing around with some different idea about what it should look like.

Easel

The temporary easel got a few modifications to try out before it's replaced in a few weeks with a Hub lumber version, which I can already tell will have slightly larger dimensions, principally to accommodate the larger iPad I got over the holidays.  First, it got two additional cord holes, so that devices on the sides can sit upright while charging, and leave the center clear.

Then the center got the traditional Hub "card holder" - and while I had the table saw and chop saw set up I cut the pieces for about five more.

The card holder detail comes from the shoe store's old shoe repair bench, which is made up of three of the original 1897 storage bins (see below with Mose Weisman).    The paper cards with a listing of the contents of the drawer are held in place by three strips of wood chiseled out on the back.  

This is a detail I used on the first three pieces of furniture I made from Hub lumber - two book racks and a small set of bookshelves.  I resized the holder for a business card, and am in fact using the same template I made for the racks and bookshelf (shown in use below).  Here it has pride of place on the easel, with the charging outlets to either side, and has the office wifi and wireless printer info.  I will likely resize it for 3x5 cards on the final version. 

As the attached drawing from the '337 patent shows, the unit has always been intended to have some  sort of central information display with the charging locations to the side - this just provides it with a Hub-appropriate one.