Well, I suppose I should explain that strange sounding title to you.  Now that the HDTV cabinet is complete I decided it was time to delve into some less intense work. I don’t know about the rest of you but when I get into a project I’ll eat, sleep, dream, and pretty much do nothing else — in other words; I get pretty intense on things.  That probably explains my running addiction of 4 decades that began with 10k’s and ended with 100 milers!  I wanted to spread my time around more than one project.  Before I get into those, this picture explains the title of this post.  During the lighting upgrades of Diane’s’ studio (one of my projects) I needed to drill a hole into a metal junction box on the drill press.  I suppose (NO, now I know!) the clamp wasn’t positioned quite right because the box broke free and spun into the nearest digit when the bit exited the other side.  After an hour or so of direct pressure, elevation, etc. I wasn’t able to stop the bleeding so off to QuickCare I went.  Four stitches later and we’re home again.  I did manage to work on Friday and completed the installation but will hold off until the stitches are removed to paint the area the old, flourescent fixture was.  Now Diane has wonderful light with very little shadows as these pictures show.  Pretty amazing, the expected life span of these bulbs is 22.8 years based on average 3 hour daily use.

Lights Off

Lights On

Very few shadows

Before that episode there was some experimental carving.  Carving isn’t quite as intense; as the guys in the carving club say: “it’s only wood”.  One of the guys, Randy, who is an accomplished carver; showed me how he put a stocking cap and face on his egg so I followed his lead and came up with this little character — fun!

In the meantime another project to tackle was adding boxes to my inventory on Etsy Store.  There’s a series of boxes I’ve named Slanted Dovetails because of the construction technique.  Combining a piece of Brazilian Satinwood with some Black Limba should be a nice contrast.  One of the boxes (if all goes according to plan) will be called the Pear Box, the other the Yin/Yan Box.  I was able to start on them before my accident so here’s a little pictorial.

Shooting board to square bottom

Tenon Jig to do a faux Stanley 140 trick

14 Degree tails laid out

Rough cut to shape prior to cutting tails

Anxious to see how these will develop.  By using the tenoning jig it’s probably the safest way to cut a shoulder on the box sides.  This is a technique used that will result in clean corners on the inside of a box or drawer.  The Stanley 140 is a skewed, rabbet block plane that was initially used to remove the material.  Not having a pair of them, this is what I use instead.  The box sides are already grooved for the bottom so after tracing the shape of the end pieces the tails can be visualized and laid out.  They are then roughly cut to shape to make cutting the tails easier.  Notice the tweezers?  Satinwood gives many fine splinters which makes me question the name of Satinwood!

During this time I also had an inquiry from the website regarding presentation boxes for a ceramics studio in California.  We’re close to the final design and I was concerned that I wouldn’t heal up soon enough to meet their time frame.  Thankfully, there is no big rush on them so these will probably be similar to this Black Dyed Box done previously.  These are made of quality plywood and feature an integral dust stop and lift off lid.  I also received this inquiry from the website but think it may be fictitious or at least a spam:

Talk to me about your project.: I am Mr.Paul and would like to order(Furniture) and what would be the price for each unit so that i can Quote you with the Quantity i want to order.. Also what type of payment do you accept, Thank you and reply
ASAP

Would you agree?