Maybe The Best Ever...

So, I totally pulled a wheelie on my sons bike the other day. My three kids were SO impressed! I felt pretty awesome. Like, this awesome...

Maybe Some Good Fun...

These kiddos from Iceland are really ringing my bell right now, ya know?

Maybe She Loves Me...

... Maybe not.

I've started to question whether The Nurse really loves me.

Why?

Because she's never bought me one of these...

 

http://www.stalward-ltd.com/category/shop

Maybe Some Light Reading...

Here's what I finished most recently. Books have been exploding all over the girls room. On the dressers. On the floor. In the closet. In the toy box. There was even an "over flow" tote in their closet. My gosh. The Nurse has been saying for a couple of years that they need a bookcase. Well, I finally got it done.


Here it is early on in the process. Basic box with some face frame and the bead-board has been glued into the back:

And here we go with the shelves added. They are birchply with hardwood facing (poplar):

And jump to the end, here it is with the second coat of poly. (Finishing was three coats of primer, two coats of Bell Pepper red milk paint, and then two coats of Linen white milk paint. Finished of with the two coats of whipe-on polyurethane):

Best part of all was the hugs and kisses I got from the girls when I delivered it to their room!

Maybe It's About Friggin' Time...

So, yah. Um, I built these benches like a year ago and just realized that I never posted them here on the ol' blogosphere. Boy am I silly.

I wish I had taken pictures of the huge slabs of 6/4 pine that these babies were built from. But, alas, I am a fool and failed in my documentation. Not only did I not get picture of the slabs, but I failed to document the entire building process. Showing how I did the butterfly joints would have been cool. Dang.

Only when I got to the finish work did it strike me to bust out the camera.

Sorry.

So, we begin in the middle...

Here is one of them mocked-up after completing most of the construction:


Next step was to try and get the stain right. These benches were commissioned to flank a really cool old farm table with a lot of character and natural aging. I spent a full week and tried at least 20 different mixes of stains, gels, lacquers, and shellacs until I finally felt like I had a good match. After three coats of the final stain mix, here are the benches being glued up:



The obvious question one might ask is "Why are you gluing up your benches in your family room?" Well, that's easy enough... Britt and the kids were living at Bear Lake for most of the summer and I wanted to watch a movie while I worked on them and glued them up. And since there is not a TV in the garage...

Here we go with the base coat. The red I chose is FAR too bright, even for a base coat. Lesson learned. Go with deep dark reds in the future.









Once the second coat of red dried it was time for three coats of black. After the final coat dried I started with three coats of wipe on polyurethane on the tops where most of the wear and tare would be happening. I sanded with 320 grit in-between coats. When the final coat had dried I rubbed the bottom painted section down with steel wool and hit the corners lightly with some sandpaper to let some of the red through. Then, to finish them off I topped them with three coats of stained wax.







This might be a good place to talk about the butterfly joints. These joints are just about the coolest combination of form and function out there. If you look closely at the above photo you will see a very large crack running down the middle of the bench. This crack formed while the original pieces of lumber were drying in my garage. When I first saw the crack my initial response was to grown and moan. The crack runs almost half way down! I thought for sure I was out $100-$150 in lumber and that I would have to buy a new piece. Then it hit me... I had been dying to try these joints that I had seen several times on the internet. These cool bow-tie looking pieces are made of 3/4 inch walnut I had lying around the shop. The majority of the material was removed free hand with a router and then they were finished off by hand with chisels. They are super strong and super cool and that crack will never go anywhere. I like them so much I almost wish the other piece had cracked!! ha ha.




And finally, here are the creatures in their natural environment. Home sweet home.






A lot of work and a lot of fun. I'm pretty proud of these beauties.

I will miss them.

Maybe Lots of Pictures On This One...

Ever since I was a young Cub Scoutling I had marvelous fantasies to make the ultimate Pine Wood Derby car. It was a little tricky to do in the house I grew-up in as our tool options were somewhat limited. I built some "interesting" cars growing up using a hack saw and some duct tape. Cars with special skills and victorious looking paint jobs that would make Napoleon Dynamite proud.

Several years later with some woodworking experience and a garage full of tools, imagine my thrill when I learned that we would be having a daddy daughter derby in our ward that both my daughters would be involved in! And since Bubba loves ALL things cars, we decided we couldn't make the girls cars and leave him out. That meant I got to build not one, not two, but three cars!

So thrilled was I and so grand were my childhood dreams that it was a little hard for me to relinquish some of the control of the build to the childrens. Still, we had a lot of fun getting these cars to the end result. I procrastinated a little, so the paint jobs are more rushed than I would have hoped.

Less words. More pictures...

We went on the www and they all picked out the style of car they wanted. I decided to mock the cars up first, so I could make mistakes on those before starting the real cars. I made two blocks the exact dimensions of the actual pine wood derby cars.

Here are the mock-ups...






Once I figured out how to approach them, I got to work. Here are the real deals, mostly finished and read for paint...








First coat of primer...



Second coat of primer...







Third coat of primer...




First base coat of color...






Taped-up for flames and stuff...




Second coat of color...


Taped pulled to reveal the pink on pink flames...




Taped pulled to reveal the red on black flames...



Green to blue fade...



And here they are, ready for the races...








Bubba's hot rod didn't participate in the competition, but was pretty fast in all the non-official races he ran it in.

Jasaroo's green to blue fade racer ran the middle of the pack, lot's of 2nd and 3rd places, but sure turned a lot of heads.

Powpow's pink on pink flames was a fast car and ended up taking 2nd in the whole tournament.

Derby for life!