If I'm not around...

I went to the woodworking class that I take and used the time to finish up some projects that I've had in the works for some friends and for the canoe building class that I teach.

Two very good friends of mine like to paddle kayaks, so for their birthdays I'm making them some Greenland style "stick" paddles. They're married, so I decided that I'd do something special - the paddles are made from the same piece of cedar so that they look alike.

I also needed to do some work on the forms for the class that I teach. One problem that we've routinely have is that the students don't clamp the MDF master pattern on top of their plywood when they use the router to trace the patterns. The surface of the MDF is slippery and when they slide, the patterns get messed up - badly. To prevent this from happening, I've put some drill bushings in the patterns - two in each pattern. Drill bushings are pretty expensive ($7 each!) so I was, um, frugal, and used T-Nuts ($0.58 each!) that I drilled out after they were installed so that I'll be able to put a bolt through them to keep the patterns from sliding. We'll see how it goes.

I was also surprised with the following left by one of my very generous students:


A Splintered History of Wood by Spike Carlsen. It looks like a very interesting read from what little I've had the time to skim. The cover notes that it was, "an NPR best book of the year". So, if I'm notably absent, I'm probably reading this!