Awkwardness
Back’s finally better enough to tackle the now ridiculous buildup of wood shavings in the shed…
Three bags full of the stuff in total, stuffed behind the bench, under the bench, all over the floor, in between the boards, everywhere. Of course, just because you get rid of the rubbish doesn’t mean that things stop being awkward…
Job one was to cut that plywood down to size so I could at least get into the shed again 😀 It’s to be the base for the drawer – I realised that the cedar of lebanon I had for that was not cedar of lebanon but western red cedar. Whoops. Oh well, better to find out now…
Then on to the front panel, which went quite quickly (so much faster doing this stuff with a template).
Then spent a while checking the mattress support platform for fit (it needs a millimetre shaved off one side, which is fine), getting the side rails cut to length and marked out for tenons; I had to stop to go collect turkeys and do last minute xmas dinner related shopping, so no mortices got cut today; might get one or two tomorrow but I doubt it, xmas eve is going to be busy with cooking, travelling to get food to where the clan is gathering (we think; my sister decided not to wait for the cot and niece #1 was born yesterday morning, everyone’s doing well, but this project now needs finishing fast 😀 and xmas plans just got made fluid), and then there are presents to wrap…
Meanwhile, I was looking at the idea of drawboring the frame mortice&tenon joints again, and knocked up a test peg.
And of course when I went to drill the drawbore holes, the battery on my drill let me down so it was back to the cordless drill.
I’m surprised at how well that drill works actually. Then pointed the peg and drove it home.
Cut it flush, and trimmed by chisel.
It’s a lot stronger than I thought it’d be; I was afraid of joint failure. And I love the contrasting appearance of the wood. I haven’t tested it to destruction (the tenon and mortice walls are much smaller than in the frame so I’m not sure what I’d learn). I did test the shellac finish on it to see if the contrast in the wood held up under successive coats…
I quite like that. And I think the frame could use the extra strength, I expect some tension on the slats. And I think I need to use a wedged through tenon on the top of the rear centre support as well. That could be interesting.
Meanwhile, the shed’s relatively tidy, all the components are in there, nothing more is needed but the time to get it done…
