Pantry Build is Still Coming Along Slowly

I'm beginning to think this pantry build will never end. Between work, building a work bench for a friend, a little out of town travel, keeping Casa Chaos from falling down, caring for two hairy critters and one Scot, plus finishing up last year's taxes before the 15th. I just finished six straight days at work and have twelve straight bearing down on me like a train, I'm close to overload.

Times like this and retirement starts looking good, then I get the mental image of me retired in a food, glue, and finish stained T-shirt and shorts, shaking my fist at the neighbor kids and yelling at them to get off my rocks....It ain't a pretty thought and twelve in a row starts looking better.

Anyway, the slides are installed, the drawers are finished but.....and it is a big but, because I built 'em tight to 25mm smaller than the opening and after looking at the mount options I decided I needed to use the face plate mount instead of direct mounting the slides and the face plate mount requires a few extra mm of room, the drawers are close to 6mm too wide.

Almost too much to plane off and too little for the bandsaw but bandsaw it is followed by the Stanley #5 with a heavy camber and the LN #4 1/2 to smooth it all. That's the bad news, the good is it doesn't take long....about 15 minutes a drawer and I'm getting a good work out to boot.

Once the drawers are fitted, I'll make faceplates and fit the rails. I expect the rails will be attached with the Kreg system and screws. That's not my favorite way of doing things but my guess it's the best for this build.

The pulls are still on back order....so who knows when it will be finished.

Sold the Honda VTX1300

My bike inventory is down by one, the little '06 VTX has a new home. It was a good bike, I did my first SS1000 (the entry ride to join the Iron Butt Association) on it as well as many LD rides. The last few years it had lived with the boy child in Texas but he stopped riding. The last time we went to visit I trailered it back to Tucson. It's good it sold, I don't ride enough to justify one bike much less three. I expect to offer the Kawasaki up for a price that can not be refused soon to get down to just the 'Wing.

The IBA is having a party in Dallas the first part of November, I expect I will throw a leg over the 'Wing and head East on TBMCRITS*, make a left to join I-20 outside Van Horn and spend a couple of days telling "there I waz" stories and showing off the Dirty Fat Girl to the only folks that might think she's pretty.

*I-10, The Best Motorcycle Road in The States, 874 miles and 6 curves from Orange to Anthony :-).

The VTX off the road from Ozona, TX to Del Rio, TX:

Finished the Drawers for the Pantry

The Pantry is close to finished, the frame is painted, the drawers are together and just need a finish, and I need to mount the slides. The pulls were backordered so it may be awhile before I can install the face plates on the drawers. Oh well that's life.

The drawers are large, figuring out a way to hold them for finish planing of the edges took a little butt scratching but a couple of holdfasts with battens and a couple of stops did the job with no muss and no fuss.

Another view:

Last one:

I did my kitchen a couple or three years ago, because of the number of drawers I chose to use a dovetail jig. I wish I hadn't. I should have taken the time to hand cut the dovetails, I think the boxes are much stronger and truer than those made by machine and they look much better. That said, ain't no way, no how I'm going to redo all the kitchen drawers by hand.

A couple more thoughts: I no longer "test" fit my dovetails, once the tails and pins are cleaned up I put a little liquid hide glue on the pins and drive the tails home. The hide glue acts as a lubricant and I get fewer "splits" doing it that way. Before I got most of my split boards when separating the boards after a test fit. My guess is the combination of lubrication and no stress from pulling the joints apart has stopped the splits. As always YMMV. 

Back From The Fall Bad Axe Saw Sharpening Class

As much as I hate airline travel, and this trip didn't change my feelings, the saw sharpening class put on by Bad Axe was worth the two days of TSA Steerage hell.

Mark covered the basics right after introductions and coffee then it was straight to hands on. Starting with how to take a back saw apart and clean it. We went through all the stages of building/restoring hand saws, all hands on, with either Mark or one of the guys watching and advising.

La Crosse is a beautiful little town on the River and Mark is a great host, if you are interested in saw maintenance it is worth the weekend for the course.

There were a couple of last minute cancelations so instead of the usual six there were only three in the class.

Finished At Bad Axe

I've finished two days at Bad Axe, Mark does a great job of teaching the basic skills needed to maintain your saws. Right now it has been well worth putting up with TSA of course I still have tomorrow to go. More once home and on a computer with a keyboard.

On The Road

I'm doing TSA stupid human tricks for most of the morning. Tomorrow I'll be sharpening saws @ Bad Axe., returning to Tucson Sunday. I hope it is worth two days of TSA

Cutting Grooves for Drawer Bottoms

Four down sixteen to go. Truth is the four went very quickly. I haven't decided the order of work yet but I'm leaning towards doing a drawer, then doing the next one and so on. It is not as efficient but it will also keep the mind engaged. Grooving twenty sides then cutting twenty sets of tails followed by twenty sets of pins could be mind numbing.

One of the grooves:

I've been using the brown and the white Spyderco ceramic stones for final polishing after establishing the bevel with either the EZE-LAP fine or the Tormek and skipping the strop for the last couple of weeks. My irons have never been sharper.

Here is something for the soul, the view out our back garden of the Catalina's during a Monsoon rain today:

Perlstein, Nixon and Watergate

I've been reading a couple of books lately, re-reading Perlsteins' "Nixonland" and concurrently his "Invisible Bridge". Both books are invaluable for understanding what has happened to us as a nation.

There are many reasons to wish a special place in Hell (if there is one) for Nixon and these books will not change that wish. But for forty years Watergate has made no sense to me, there was no reason for it to have happened. A couple of weeks ago the last lose thread was reveled, the only reason that could cause a rational sitting President to commit such a criminal act, the fear of getting caught in the greater criminal act of treason.  As has been suspected Nixon committed treason by interfering with the 1968 Paris Peace talks, directly leading to the deaths of almost 30,000 US troops. His sabotage of the talks was confirmed a couple of weeks ago. While I could be wrong, Nixon's fear that the Democrats had that confirmation was what led to the break in of the Watergate and the bugging of the offices.

Of course it could be just as simple as Nixon had no moral compass, which was also true, just remember the Southern Strategy.  Without Nixon the racists would have had no place to go other than Wallace and with out the power of one of the major political parties may have faded away.

Bottom line we are living in Nixon's world, 40 years later we are still paying the price and I expect will be for many more years. My only hope is once my cohorts have died out we as a nation can escape Nixonland.  

Drawer Stock

I've spent most of the day truing and dimensioning the drawer stock. I've got 'em stacked by the work bench and ready to start the bottom grooves. Times like this I can almost wish I still had a router table, that's almost....the noise and dust from a router is just too much but I've a couple of hours ahead of me cutting 3/8" grooves before I can start the dovetails.

The good news is everything is coming together and the pantry should be finished in a couple of weeks, less if I wasn't going to be out of town next weekend.

 

Pantry Frame Finished

Pantry Frame is finished, just waiting for a coat or two of pant. I'll start the drawers sometime in the next day or two. At least making the drawers will be enjoyable.  BTW, I tried to talk MsOK into finishing the paint, you would have thought I had two heads from the look she gave me. She did take a look at it last night and I guess she gave her approval, She said I was very "talented with wood," of course I stubbed my toe, tugged my forelock and said "Ah Shucks Mam". For what it was worth, that's from a woman who wanted me to build a "rustic chest like the ones from Mexico." I wonder, did she mean the pantry looked like a Folk Artist build from found wood pallets? Hummmmm....

Once the pantry is finished it's on to the "rustic" buffet unless MsOK has other plans. We will see how the time works out, I have a three day line starting tomorrow and another three day line starting next Monday. When I finish those lines, I'm off to La Crosse for Bad Axe's Fall saw sharpening seminar.

I expect productivity will be about normal....very slow.