The past week on Denman Island

Photos …

Tai and Norie made Sock Monkeys to sell at the Christmas Faire

Sun coming up on East Rd.

Back after the morning run. We’ve had great weather over the last week, although chilly.

Tai sold this guy at the Christmas Faire

East Rd. in the afternoon …

Finally got a shot of the bus at school in good weather

The entrance to Denman Island Community School

The same place as the morning shot on East Rd.

I went into town on Saturday morning and picked up some Birch and Alder for the dresser top. Here it is back at the shop.

Here’s a shot of it in the shop

The boxes and most of the drawers …

An old torch made in 1921 at Albert’s shop. Old style craftsmenship

Splitting wood …

… then I turn around

Some of Rollande and Albert’s ‘friends’ that come around everyday

All the drawers put together and filled. I’m about halfway through breaking edges

A picture that Norie took that I liked.

I’ve been having trouble tonight with putting text under the photos … breath and relax …

I’ve been steadily working on the dresser and have got all the drawers put together and nail holes filled.  I’m about halfway through breaking the edges … Tomorrow I’ll be taking the birch and alder planks over to a friend’s place and run them through his jointer.  I’d love to get a jointer and is probably the last big tool I’ll buy.  I’m pretty happy with the way the shop is coming along and have gotten into a good rhythm during this build.  It’s been cold (-6C) and it’s nice and toasty in the shop working in the evenings.  What a difference from last winter!

On the weekend I did a quick run into town and was back on the 10am ferry.  The quicker I’m out of town, the better.  In the afternoon I went down to the Christmas Faire and picked up a few Christmas goodies.  Tai was at the kid’s table and sold one of his sock monkey for $15 and a few christmas cookies.  I think he had a blast hanging out with his friends while ‘taking care of business’.  Good for him.  Next year he wants to play music outside.  It was nice to watch the kids play christmas music and it added an ‘old tyme’ feel to the fair.  You have to sign up and they give you a time slot to play and one grade 4 kid made $35 playing guitar.

This coming weekend is the Fire Department Christmas Party and should be a good time.  I’ll also plug away on the dresser and hopefully get over the Rollande & Albert’s if the weather cooperates.

Alaska to Seattle movie

Paddle to Seattle … check out the trailer and I’ll be ordering this DVD when it comes out!

Fire trucks and drawers

Here a visual rundown …

Sharpening my chisel

edgebanding picture

Applying heat to melt the glue … next taping

Taped and waiting for the glue to dry

All trimmed down and ready for more sanding

Front of the workbench after trimming the edgebanding

Putting drawers together

Clamping for nice, tight joints

I’m happy with this

2 drawers clamped and drying

Now I have a total of 4 drawers together and more to follow soon

What the pictures don’t show is the Fire Department that I spent saturday at.  We had 5 exams for our “Basic Firefighter Level” that is recognized by the Justice Institute of BC.  We’ve been working on the practical end of it for the past 6 months or so, and now we just had the exams.  To be honest, I only read one or two chapters, but with the reviews and experience, most of it came pretty quickly.  On each test there were a few questions that I had to guess on, but for the most part I knew it.  Next weekend is our Christmas Party, and then start winding down for the year.  We learnt a lot this year and the practices were fun.

The dresser is coming along nicely and I’m working on the drawers.  I have 5 more to put together, but there is a piece that I’m not really happy with the cut, and might recut a new piece.  I found some nice sliders for it http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=2&cat=3,43614,43616&p=50508 that I recommending.  I hope to order them tomorrow and go into town this weekend and pick up birch and alder for the top.  For the rest of the week I’ll driving the school bus, working in the shop and hoping I’ll be in a nice place with the dresser on Friday.  I’ll see if I can update this again before the weekend … I’ll see is the key word

Weekend doings …

A lot has happened since I last posted, so I’ll show the pictures with details to follow …

This one’s for Neil.

It’s coming together …

Testing the fit …

Here’s the result of a couple of weeks work and a lot of sanding by Dad.

The river at Fillongley Park, just past the turn around. It was bone dry in August.

This picture was taken from the bridge, where the beaver dam used to be!

You can see a sign … The river is flowing high … lots of flooding in this neck of the woods this past week.

The river as you walk in from the campground, before the bridge.

Cutting the wood for the drawers

Lots of ripping

At the end of the day, 45 pieces

Tai played mandolin down at the Bistro Saturday night for some save the children benefit. Tai and Norie had a lot of fun

Hamming it up for the camera

Denman West dock this afternoon

This where I get my mandolin/reading time in while waiting for the high school kids to dock

Cutting the edge banding for the drawers

Working on the edge banding

All the side pieces have been edge sanded and banded. Tomorrow I hope to do the final cut on the bottoms and start edge banding the front and backs …

The pictures pretty much tell the tale, but I want to say that I am happy with the way the dresser is coming along.  I cut the pieces for the drawers on Saturday and got the sides edge sanded and banded.  Still lots to do, but it feels good to be working on the drawers now.

Dad was putting on the second coat of spar varnish this afternoon and will have it wrapped up this week.  He put a lot of time into this project and he did a good job.  I’m proud of him.

Yesterday was the first day in about 10 days that it hasn’t rained.  I took the opportunity and did some log splitting in the afternoon and brought home half a cord of nice cedar and balsa fir.  Norie, the kids and I got it stacked just as the rain started and it hasn’t stopped yet.  It looks like we’re in for another wet week, so that means shop time

A few pictures from the shop today/night

Just the pictures tonight … big storm out there

Tai’s mandolin video

Updated … it’s now linked to my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=211125926350&ref=nf

Busy, busy, busy …

I’ll throw some pictures at ya and go from there.

Tai and Kevin Mitchell playing at the Denman Talent Show at the Community Hall.

There were at least a couple hundred people there and Tai had no problem getting up on stage.

Tai played 2 songs by himself and then played rhythm for one of Kevin’s songs

After the talent show we had cake to celebrate Grampa’s birthday and Tai’s performance.

Yep, all mine!

Got a couple of hours up in the shop this evening.

Still quite a bit of sanding to do, but I think I’ll start cutting the wood for the drawers tomorrow …

This past weekend I did an Auto Extrication Course at the Arrington Fire Department and had an amazing time.  Friday night was new car technology and how it affects us as rescuers at an accident.  Really interesting things coming our way soon.  Saturday and Sunday was all hands on tool work … spreaders, cutters, air chisels, hand tools, cribs, stabilization, come-alongs … Sunday afternoon was cold, rainy and a lot of fun doing real simulations.  We had 16 cars to smash and chop up.  What a blast!  Looking forward to this weeks fire department meeting.

This weekend was wet and windy.  We got back on the 6pm ferry from the course Saturday night and had to be at the Community Hall for the Denman Talent Show.  I was surprised that there were probably at least a couple hundred people there considering the weather.  Tai did really well and had  a “awesome” time.  We got some pictures of him playing and Norie took a short video of him playing backup for Kevin.  I guess I’ll have to create an account over at youtube.com and post it there and then link it as it doesn’t seem to be able to post directly from my computer with this platform ???

The weather has been really wet and windy the past week and yesterday they declared a state of emergency in Courtenay due to flooding.  They closed the schools early as well as most of the bridges were flooded out and it took a long time to get the kids home.  No real flooding on Denman but the ditches were flowing and the creek in Fillongley Park was moving a lot of water.

A friend I’ve been trying to track down for quite a while got ahold of me on Facebook.  We went to the same Japanese language class in Toronto that the JET Programme put on for us before we went to Japan.  We were in the same prefecture and lost contact after she came back to Canada.  Turns out she’s married and in Kamloops … not that far away.  Also heard another rumor that another friend from Japan might be coming up to visit from Oregon this Christmas… keeping my fingers crossed.

Things coming together

Tai had the camera in the shop tonight and this is what turned out.  A lot more work in the background to get to this stage, and still a lot more to do.  I got the kicks sanded and prepped, then attached to the bottom of the box creating a foundation for it to sit on.  I used glued and 1 1/4″ pin nails to hold it in place while the glue dried.  Without further adou …

No shortage of sanding …

Tai taking a break from picture taking duties …

Nudging things into place

Boxes clamped together … first view of the dresser coming together. At first I was looking at particular pieces of wood, now I am starting to see the bigger picture coming together. Lots of details that if done right, go un-noticed.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, but I hope to get a bit done on the dresser.  This weekend I am going on an auto extrication course through the fire department down near Coombs.  Should be a lot of fun and my knee is feeling stronger each day.  Still trying to take it easy on it, but it’s feeling better.

Boxes go together…

Here are the pics, commentary to follow …

Norie sewed the webbing to use as a high tech kayak hanging harness system ;)

Lot’s of bandsaw cutting …

I don’t want to say what it is that my Dad is working on because it’s a christmas present, but you can probably figure it out.

Knotty pine

Getting ready to hang the kayak

There she is. We had a big storm with rain and big winds blow through here last night and it didn’t move. It got a little wet, but the rain was coming down sideways. Not too bad.

Now I have the stands in the shop which lift the canoe off the ground and freeing up floor space.

A shot from Sunday afternoon

2 out of the 3 boxes that will house the drawers were put together before calling it a night.

Trimming the edge banding before glue and assembly

Clamping the back to get everything nice and tight. The 1st 2 went together fairly easily, but the last one needed a little nudge.

Next … attaching the kicks, prep and final sanding before finish goes on. I should be able to start on the drawers soon

Last week didn’t exactly go as hoped.  On Wednesday I split a cord of wood, loaded and unloaded 2 truck loads and stacked half a cord at my place that evening.  Throw in driving the bus in the morning and afternoon.  I woke up Thursday with a stiff leg and hurt if I twisted it sideways.  I could still walking on it, but it was gingerly. I woke up Friday and could hardly put any weight on it.  Norie had to help me out of the bus Friday evening.  Trip to the Emergency room at St. Joe’s hospital in Comox Saturday morning.  I guess it’s pretty common with runners and I basically strained my ilotibeal band down at the outside of the left knee.  Yeah, I’m getting old.  Ibuprofien, cold patches and hit the couch for the day.

I woke up Sunday feeling a bit better and could put weight on it again.  Through the day I was feeling like I was on the mend rather than it getting worse.  The shop was warm by 10 and we started on tracing out pieces from a template and cutting on the bandsaw.  Quite a few pieces with some nice curves and patterns.  After lunch we got the hooks screwed in and got the kayak harness rack thingy set up.  Hanging the boat in it at waist level is great for cleaning it and then just raise it when you’re ready.  The straps are still too long, so I need to cut them and put a couple of pieces of plywood to act as a shelf to hold the length.  This allowed me to get the stands into the shop, get the canoe off the ground and free up some floor space.

Before dinner we were able to get 2 out of the 3 boxes together.  These 2 went together fairly easily.

This evening I put together the 3rd box and had a camera handy.  I had to use clamps on the last one to keep everything tidy and tight.  I also attached a couple of screw plates to each of the kicks and will attach them to the boxes tomorrow.  Then it will be the final prep and sanding before finishing.  I was originally thinking of spraying the inside before putting it together, but as I went along it felt more natural for it to be sprayed when it’s finished.  I think it will come out much cleaner this way.  Once that is done, I’ll start cutting wood for the 9 drawers.  Lot’s of edge banding but after putting together the first one, everything will start falling into place easily.

I’ll try to update again before the weekend.

Filling and sanding, with a pinch of mandolin

Pictures

Edgebanded and fill …

Drying … next step sanding …

Here she is …

Larrivee A-33 mandolin

A style with f holes … hand rubbed Cremona stain, then varnished

Nice lines

And it sounds better than it looks!

Case slips nicely right behind the driver seat on the school bus.

Sanding …

Found time to fix a flat ~ It needs some TLC, but it will be ready for the Snow to Surf race this coming April. Yep, I got on a team!

Sanded, stacked and ready for assembly.

Current conditions …

The pictures pretty much explain today’s doings in the shop.  I filled the edgebanding that I put on yesterday this morning and let it dry until I got back from the afternoon run.  When I got back I played the mandolin for about an hour.  I just got it a week ago and I’m loving it so far.  I’ve played guitar for about 5 years now and it is a pretty easy transition.  I’ve been working on a couple of simple bluegrass tunes, but a lot of the time I’ve just been jamming on it.  I don’t really know what I’m doing, but this instrument likes to be played hard and fast, or that’s the way it makes me feel.  It’s a gutsy little beast that’s going to be a great mandolin in a couple of years of daily play.  I don’t really think this mandolin has been played very much at all.  I bought it used, but it was in impeccable condition.  I’ve seen it change over the last week.  Maybe that has to do with me getting more familiar with it and I’m expanding a lot quicker than when I first started playing guitar.  You can really get a nice celtic sound out of it and I’ve been putting a few things together.  A few more things different than guitar … I can play this standing up.  I never play guitar standing up, so this is a big change.  It’s easy to carry.  I’ve been sliding it behind the drivers seat and have been playing down at the dock between runs in the afternoon.  A good solid half hour everyday surrounded by natural beauty.  My guitar gets out a few times a year.  The mandolins seems more personal than a guitar.  I know some people name their guitars, but that’s never been for me.  This instrument definitely has a feminine side to it.  I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.  Explore we shall.

After dinner I got working on the sanding and finished up around 9:30, then fixed the bike.  I put my sawhorse beside the back door and used a few pieces of cedar for my bench top.  I now have a sanding station!  It’s lit, dry and keeps a lot of dust out of the shop.  I’m happy tonight.

It’s nice being back online and working in the shop again.  The summer was a lot of fun, but it’s good to get back to some form of structure.  I know next summer will be busy, but I hope to be online until the kids get out of school.

Time for bed