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So a bad day in the shop is supposed to be better than a good day at work, right? I guess. No blood was drawn so if you're hoping for an ER story, wrong place, but the night is young.
My wife wanted a tall bookcase for her office at home. No problem. I go on Craigslist and look for IKEA Billy bookcases. Not seeing any close by or in my price range, I tell her I'll make her one--a few weeks ago.
So last night I'm planing down some poplar boards to make doors and drawers for my kitchen remodel. I bought these Christmas of 2012 so you can see I've been really procrastinating on this kitchen. Anyway, after I finish getting everything to 3/4"--I think 20 boards in all--I've pretty much had my fill of the kitchen project for the night. Well, as I pulled boards from the rack, I came across some nice cherry boards I bought for some purpose years ago. OK, these will become a new bookcase--tomorrow. And I'm not going to fret over joinery, etc. I'm just going to plane these down, cut them to size, and screw them together. I'm not even going to plug the screw holes.
So tomorrow comes (today) and I'm in the attic for something. Well, there was a two-piece closet unit I bought at Lowes 3 years ago for extra storage. It had a nice cherry laminate veneer, but the people who engineered it needed a good kick in the pants. Rather than a full, nailed on sheet for the back, they skimped and provided to what amounted to small cardboard triangles that you nailed into the corners to keep it stiff. As my wife loaded it up with stuff, the cardboard buckled and like a hula dancer swaying her hips, the middle of the unit--where the two pieces met--shifted. Luckily the top was secured to the wall with a bracket and it shifted to the left and not right because it came to rest on the window casing moving almost 3" to the side. Well that was the end of that and it has lived in the attic for the past year.
So fast forward to today. It would be a waste to use those cherry boards on a bookcase when your wife was OK with something from IKEA. And think about that useless unit in the attic. Well, we'll just have to repurpose it, won't we?
The unit was pretty deep so I ripped everything down closer to bookcase dimensions rather than near-closet dimensions. I left it a little deep because the insides were already drilled for shelf pins and I wasn't going to try to match up the existing holes with new ones. I was also able to reuse some of the knockdown fasteners and I added pocket screws in inconspicuous areas. This all took me less than an hour and I was just working it out in my head. I just needed to get some ply or hardboard to reinforce the back and I was home free.
So my wife gives me a 1/2hr to get to HD and back before the kids wake up from their nap. I do a quick measurement, I need 2 2'x3' boards for the backs. Get to HD and I buy 2 precut 2'x4' boards rather than my usual MO--buy a 4x8 sheet and have them cut it into quarters. It would have added another precious 5-10 minutes but saved me 50%, but oh well. At least the wife won't be POed that I dawdled.
So back to the shop, I just need to crosscut these boards to 3' and I'm almost done. I do a quick measurement on the width and I get 24 3/4". WTF?!!! Where did that extra 3/4" come from? OK, get over it. Cross-cut to 24 3/4" and use the board sideways. Scrounge for other scrap to fill in the gaps. Mistake 1.
Set fence to 24 3/4". Oh wait, these sheets are too thin and will slip under the fence. Grab my auxiliary fence I use for rabbeting and cut the boards down. As soon as I cut the 2nd board, I realize I didn't readjust the fence to account for the thickness of the auxiliary fence. Now all the boards and their offcuts are undersized and completely useless. Mistake 2.
After some choice words, I bite the bullet and grab a sheet of 1/8" phenolic material I salvaged from work. I was saving it for a special project like a router table top or something like that, but after 6+ years in the shop with no purpose, it finally found one.
So now the bookcase is up in the new office. Just need to find some shelving and we're good to go.
And since I mentioned work at the outset, I came in from the shop to get an automated alarm call from work. The refrigeration unit on my robotic system was in alarm and the temp was rising. Usually these calls come at 2am and I ignore them because the temps don't rise enough until I get into work around 9am to be a problem. However, at 5pm it would be a problem for tomorrow. Good thing it was sleeting and raining all day and that this unit sits on the roof of our 4 story building.
The roof is a white rubber membrane. With the 1" of slush up there, it's more like an ice rink. Anyway, I got it going again and got home about an hour later with some slightly soggy socks.
Sometimes on days like these I wish I followed basketball. It would probably be less of a PITA.
My wife wanted a tall bookcase for her office at home. No problem. I go on Craigslist and look for IKEA Billy bookcases. Not seeing any close by or in my price range, I tell her I'll make her one--a few weeks ago.
So last night I'm planing down some poplar boards to make doors and drawers for my kitchen remodel. I bought these Christmas of 2012 so you can see I've been really procrastinating on this kitchen. Anyway, after I finish getting everything to 3/4"--I think 20 boards in all--I've pretty much had my fill of the kitchen project for the night. Well, as I pulled boards from the rack, I came across some nice cherry boards I bought for some purpose years ago. OK, these will become a new bookcase--tomorrow. And I'm not going to fret over joinery, etc. I'm just going to plane these down, cut them to size, and screw them together. I'm not even going to plug the screw holes.
So tomorrow comes (today) and I'm in the attic for something. Well, there was a two-piece closet unit I bought at Lowes 3 years ago for extra storage. It had a nice cherry laminate veneer, but the people who engineered it needed a good kick in the pants. Rather than a full, nailed on sheet for the back, they skimped and provided to what amounted to small cardboard triangles that you nailed into the corners to keep it stiff. As my wife loaded it up with stuff, the cardboard buckled and like a hula dancer swaying her hips, the middle of the unit--where the two pieces met--shifted. Luckily the top was secured to the wall with a bracket and it shifted to the left and not right because it came to rest on the window casing moving almost 3" to the side. Well that was the end of that and it has lived in the attic for the past year.
So fast forward to today. It would be a waste to use those cherry boards on a bookcase when your wife was OK with something from IKEA. And think about that useless unit in the attic. Well, we'll just have to repurpose it, won't we?
The unit was pretty deep so I ripped everything down closer to bookcase dimensions rather than near-closet dimensions. I left it a little deep because the insides were already drilled for shelf pins and I wasn't going to try to match up the existing holes with new ones. I was also able to reuse some of the knockdown fasteners and I added pocket screws in inconspicuous areas. This all took me less than an hour and I was just working it out in my head. I just needed to get some ply or hardboard to reinforce the back and I was home free.
So my wife gives me a 1/2hr to get to HD and back before the kids wake up from their nap. I do a quick measurement, I need 2 2'x3' boards for the backs. Get to HD and I buy 2 precut 2'x4' boards rather than my usual MO--buy a 4x8 sheet and have them cut it into quarters. It would have added another precious 5-10 minutes but saved me 50%, but oh well. At least the wife won't be POed that I dawdled.
So back to the shop, I just need to crosscut these boards to 3' and I'm almost done. I do a quick measurement on the width and I get 24 3/4". WTF?!!! Where did that extra 3/4" come from? OK, get over it. Cross-cut to 24 3/4" and use the board sideways. Scrounge for other scrap to fill in the gaps. Mistake 1.
Set fence to 24 3/4". Oh wait, these sheets are too thin and will slip under the fence. Grab my auxiliary fence I use for rabbeting and cut the boards down. As soon as I cut the 2nd board, I realize I didn't readjust the fence to account for the thickness of the auxiliary fence. Now all the boards and their offcuts are undersized and completely useless. Mistake 2.
After some choice words, I bite the bullet and grab a sheet of 1/8" phenolic material I salvaged from work. I was saving it for a special project like a router table top or something like that, but after 6+ years in the shop with no purpose, it finally found one.
So now the bookcase is up in the new office. Just need to find some shelving and we're good to go.
And since I mentioned work at the outset, I came in from the shop to get an automated alarm call from work. The refrigeration unit on my robotic system was in alarm and the temp was rising. Usually these calls come at 2am and I ignore them because the temps don't rise enough until I get into work around 9am to be a problem. However, at 5pm it would be a problem for tomorrow. Good thing it was sleeting and raining all day and that this unit sits on the roof of our 4 story building.
The roof is a white rubber membrane. With the 1" of slush up there, it's more like an ice rink. Anyway, I got it going again and got home about an hour later with some slightly soggy socks.Sometimes on days like these I wish I followed basketball. It would probably be less of a PITA.
Loring in Katy, TX USA
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