Cicip Working

Hi Everyone,
It is absolutely beautiful outside today and Im going to treat myself to an hour or two in the wood shop a little later today.

But for the meantime good news. First: I got a set of pin jaws for the 4 jaw wood chuck for the lathe. This all means that Ill be able to create small diameter turnings a little easier. Here is a photo:


I am really jazzed about this!!


And I got a new shipment of turning blanks this afternoon and one of the blanks is going to be the next Blue House bowl. This year Ill be making the bowl out of a solid block of Indian rosewood.  Here are a couple of photos of the blank:



This bowl will be approximately 11-11 3/4 inches in diameter and about 4 inches high. It will make a great salad bowl or fruit bowl for some lucky guy or gal. I will keep you informed as to its progress over the coming months and let you know when you can purchase a raffle ticket. So join me on the journey and lets make a great bowl for a great cause.

See ya later,
VW

Were working away pretty steadily on the house restoration project . We finished construction of the wall hung tv cabinet this week; were just waiting for approval of the finish color samples. I think were running slightly ahead of the construction schedule which is always nice. The cabinet below has its challenges though it looks simple now that its done. Its a mix of cherry and curly maple with some small moldings in cherry or walnut around the door panels. The door and end panels are resawn solid curly maple so we like to do the first coat of stain (which is pretty much always the same) before we glue them up. Then we typically get the finished color and first coat of finish on the whole door before we apply the moldings. This process prevents a part of the panel that might be unfinished from showing later as the wood moves from season to season ...

Looks simple ... but, theres actually no real much structure to the cabinet so we had to hang it as its going to hang on the wall to be sure that the doors will hang true.

When we went to the site this week, we took a pattern. There is a channel cut through to the wall behind the cabinet to accomodate the cable box, which is deeper than the cabinet .. We explored the wall behind and found there are two studs that have to be cut and headed off ... not surre about the ebox shown below ... Id like to get that in there somewhere ..

This shows the cut through to the wall and the tv mounting bracket. It a Sanus; a nice one. Very shallow and well made

This picture shows the French hook hanging system ... Two cleats on the cabinet; two on the wall.

The electrician gave us this box on Wednesday and hoped we could get it in the cabinet behind to the tv ... hmmmmm

We finished installing the moldings and painted the front door .. The paint seemed too shiny for an old door to us. The shinier the finish, the better the UV protection, but the more you see each and every pimple and defect ... We turned the final coat over to the painters and it will probably be a compromise satin finish ...

Part of our scope of work is to refresh/refinish the fireplace surround (which Jim has already done), and install a new lighted cabinet in place of the wooodbox/shelf thing thats there now ...

Trevor, exploring the lighting

Figured out .. This stuff is nice. The plastic tracks are easy to install and hold the lights securely. Its easy to cut and join once you study it for a minute ..

Rough wired and installed ..needs a top molding and some final paint

We also made a pair of 3" thick, well insulated, pine doors for the utility room. Sam made the hinges, floor bolts and a nice thumb latch ...

Inside latch details

Fixed door bolts

2" thick pine frames covered with 3/4" t&g pine outside, the spaces filled with 2" foam and 1/4" Baltic bircg glued and screwed to the inside

We also installed a small cabinet in the library under the stairs that go to the attic ...

The roof framing is done!

Next, it was time to begin the sheathing.  I sheathed & sheathed, until I ran out of sheathing . . .