4.5.2019

I'm starting the blog by wishing a very Happy Birthday to my amazing husband!  I'm so happy to be on this journey with you - and it's wonderful to be celebrating on Angel!

Of course, Jim spent his day working.  He flipped over the section of bench top that he was working on and did some hand planing of the joints to get the dried glue off.

The top side...

He put the biscuit cuts in the side to eventually connect the two halves together.  He'll have to do that on the workbench because we'd never be able to lift it otherwise!

We then moved that half over to the workbench and brought the other section over to the sawhorses...

Jim got the 2" x 12" piece planed and the biscuit cuts made in both side.  Then it was time to glue.  He puts glue in each of the cuts and inserts a biscuit...

He uses his hammer to make sure each biscuit is set firmly in place...

Then more glue...

Then he puts glue on the other side...

And puts them together.  Easier said than done - he has to slowly fit the biscuits together one by one.

All done and clamped.  This one required even more clamps to flatten out any slight bows in the wood caused by the clamps themselves.  

Speaking of clamps, Jim has to order clamps tonight that will be large enough to use when he has to clamp the two halves of the bench top together.  Obviously this is a truth...

That project done and glue drying, Jim moved on to working with the boards he bought yesterday at the lumberyard.  Here he's planing...

 Jim is thrilled with this wood - it's much thicker than anything he could buy since a true 1" is more like 3/4" now.  If he wants, he can plane it so that it is a true 1".  Here's the maple...very pretty!

And the planed pine pieces...

Planing definitely makes man glitter (aka sawdust) but definitely not in the quantities we saw yesterday!

It definitely doesn't look like April out the window!  It's been snowing lightly most of the afternoon - we probably have an inch or so on the ground and it's still snowing as I write this!

High 40/Low 33 - 1" snow

4.4.2019

An interesting day to say the least.  So all yesterday afternoon and evening, we were under a high wind advisory and the winds were definitely howling.  As we sat in the living room last night watching a show after dinner, we lost power.  And power remained off all night.  Thankfully, Jim still had 5 gallon pails of water ready for us as well as charged flashlights.  The house is really good about maintaining temperature, but when we got up in the morning it was pretty chilly.  The first look at our National Grid app showed that power would be restored about 7:00 am.  After that passed with no power, it was changed to 4:00 pm.  We put on extra layers and ate breakfast but by 9:30 we decided to head to a lumberyard south of Albany that he's been wanting to check out.  Just as we were walking out the door, the power came back on.  We went back in to make sure all was okay - you can see that the temperature in the apartment was down to 53.

It was a beautiful day for a road trip though!  And this lumberyard was a great find.

It's huge - this is their sawdust pile!  Just around the corner from this area was a semi truck that there were also shooting sawdust into.  This is the building where they make flooring.

Just a few piles of wood...

Jim wanted to get some maple to see how it would work for kitchen cabinets...

Jim could pick out the boards he wanted...  He also got some pine to use for door jambs around the closets.  Jim was thrilled about finding this place.  He just bought 7 total boards today but it was about a third of the price that he would pay at Lowe's or Curtis Lumber.  Plus, it's all rough sawn so he can plane them the way he wants.

We stopped at Sam's Club and Cracker Barrel for lunch on our way home so it was a fun mini road trip!  Unloading at home...  It was so nice to have water and heat back on once we got home!

In the time he had left once he got unloaded, he worked on making all the biscuit cuts and attaching the 2" x 12" board to one of the glued sections...

High 42/Low 16

4.3.2019

Jim took the clamps off the first two glued boards and we moved them over to the workbench.

Then it was time to start working on the other two...here he's putting the biscuit cuts in the boards.

Jim glues the biscuits in and puts glue over the entire area to get a really tight seal...

All finished, clamped and drying.

In the afternoon, we cut up our small mountain of cardboard and Jim took that and accumulated metal to the recycling center.  Then he headed back to Curtis Lumber to get the last two pieces of wood that he'll need for the bench top.  These are 2" x 12" boards - they will go on either side of the top.

High 53/Low 26 - wind advisory out all afternoon

4.2.2019

Translation - it's National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day!  Around here, that is celebrated every day because Jim has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every.single.day.

I had to run into Saratoga to pick up printing, a couple things from Lowe's for Jim, and groceries.  When I came home, Jim had done the first step towards a microwave cabinet in the kitchen!  If you look closely, you can see some drawings on the wall where the microwave and cabinet will go.  Thanks to Jim's foresight way back before drywall, we have wood blocking in these key areas where Jim needs to attach cabinetry.  He just had to do some proofing of our blocking drawings (gulp - mostly done by me!).  The blocking was in the perfect spot for Jim to attach the bottom support for the microwave.

In the wood shop, he used the planer and jointer to get the first two pieces of the workbench top square and level.  He has decided that he's going to use biscuits to join these pieces of wood to give a better fit and more stability between the pieces of wood.  Here the biscuits are in place on one side...

After marking placement on the opposite side, he started making the cuts...

 A close-up view...

Then he got the pieces glued together and clamped for drying...

He got the other two pieces of wood planed so they will be ready to work on tomorrow.

He did a bit of metal work today - he made this extension bracket for his dust collection system.

The bag was too tall for the previous bracket and Jim had to be careful when using it.  Now when he turns it on, it can extend to full size with no issues.  That's another job coming up - he's going to get some PVC pipe and make duct work in the ceiling so that he can put the collector in the corner and have different ports to use on his various machines.

At the end of the day, Jim spent a little time on the driveway, getting the Bobcat out and just flattening some areas that had developed ruts in them from the winter.

High 49/Low 27

4.1.2019

April...hard to believe!  Hope everyone had a Happy April Fool's Day!  After today was only in the 30s, we've had some days of relatively warm weather and sunshine so our property is looking more and more like it's spring.  But it's interesting how one half of the property is relatively clear while the other half is still very snow covered going down the driveway.

This was a transition day for Jim.  After all the metal work and painting, it was time to do some cleanup and reorganizing to get ready for the next projects.

He put the spars on the workbench although he didn't tighten them down since the paint is still curing.

This afternoon, he headed to Curtis Lumber to pick up the first load of 2"x10"s that he will use to make the workbench top.

 Bringing them inside...  Note that even though the upper driveway has been totally saturated by all the melting snow making its way downhill, once the ground thaws there's not a trace of mud.

Jim is using Southern White Pine for the bench top - he's leaving them to dry out and acclimate a bit. It's going to be pretty - and big enough for Thanksgiving dinner so everyone's welcome!

Now that Jim was able to take apart his temporary workbench, the saw horses will come in handy to start working on this project!

High 39/Low 19