Worktop Progress

-


Cutting The Open Corner Tenons


I started work on the right-hand base/cupboard frame for the cottage kitchen worktop today. As you can see from the pic above, I've had to knock up a jury-rigged top extension so that the WorkMate can accommodate the top's framework. I've got a load of spare old melamine kitchen unit stuff knocking round, so I used a couple of the doors held together with battens screwed to the underside. I just clamped the thing to the WorkMate to stop it sliding about. Like the temporary wood vice I spoke about, I just improvise around whatever bit of kit I don't yet possess. I was quite pleased with today's progress and my previous comments about the wonder of a decent tenon saw still stand: I managed to cut the corner tenons pretty much straight off the bat; one needed a bit of chisel work, the other one went straight in. I've got bigger problems with the appalling state of the kiln-dryed timber: trying to find a straight piece [even 2x2!] is a challenge, but I'm managing to pull things square as I glue and screw the thing together, using home-made jigs and clamps where necessary. 

You get an idea where the corner tenons fit in from the picture below: what you're looking at is the underside of the top effectively, and the upright timbers you can see form the front side of the cupboard supporting the right hand side of the kitchen top. I wanted to make the thing as solid as possible due to the weight of the beech-block top: even though it will be supported on two sides by hefty wall-mounted battens, I want the thing to stay put once it's in. I haven't estimated the final weight of timber that will be in the finished article, but I would hazard a guess that my little Citroën will weigh less.


Corner Tenons In Situ



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more