No pictures today – although I thought about snapping a few.  It started snow around 8:30 this morning and hasn’t stopped yet.  I would say that there is about 18 inches of snow, probably more like 20.  Just walking from the house to the shop I am knee deep!  I expect Tai will be home from school tomorrow…

Yesterday we went into town and got some Christmas shopping and running around done.  I picked up a couple of nice pieces of Walnut at Windsor Plywood and will probably use it for my Dad’s Christmas present – hmmm, toolbox?  Which brings me to Tai’s toolbox ~ it’s starting to look pretty good.  It has about 5 or 6 coats of wipe on poly and is ready for the hardware.  The kayak stands have 2 and 3 coats of wipe on poly and I’ll cut and attach the webbing in the morning. I’ll probably do a separate entry detailing the build with measurements and other musings as I had trouble finding information on the type of stands I wanted to build.  I must thank John Caldeira  for the encouraging words and inspiration on these stands.

Next is the truck rack that I started building this morning and hope I have enough wood to finish it.  I can always ripe something down, but I’m hoping that I won’t have to.  I had to cut 4 tenons to fit in the holes on the side of the pickup bed.  I have the 2 long rails that will run from the tailgate to over the cab screwed together and now have to cut the cross sections (3) and 2 more pieces that will sit on the top of the bed connecting the 2 posts at the bottom.  I’ll use a C clamp on each side just for safety clamping the rack to the truck, although I don’t think it will move much with the 5 1/2″ tenons in place.

I’ve been hanging around at the Lie Nielsen website for the past week or so and they offer some incredible tools – pricy, but if you want top drawer tools, you’re going to have to pay top drawer prices.  I could justify skirting around the fringes … nothing big  I found a great review of their chisels at RHP Woodworking’s blog.  Their planes are beautiful, but I’m not at the point where I need to buy a plane yet.  I have a Stanley block plane that has worked well for the times I’ve needed it, but it’s not an everyday tool.  I was using the chisels, jig saw and Japanese dozuki that I picked up yesterday on the kayak stands and tenons for the truck rack.  I am really enjoying working with chisels and am looking forward to a parcel from Santa this year.  The dozuki that I picked up has 25 teeth per inch and cuts across the grain very nicely.  I also have a Silky rip saw that I bought while in Japan and I imagine that they will see a lot of use during the construction of the kayak.

To sign off, here’s a link that someone passed my way today …