we go again
Events of note (to me) on 21 August:
- the solar eclipse
- new season of MNF
- my first day of Krenov School
In terms of new beginnings, mine was cosmically tiny.
Even in my own life-scale, I'd still say 22 August is more important: it's my little sister's birthday. And I wouldn't be me without her.
But this blog is about woodworking, so I'll stick to my first week of school.
The Krenov School was College of the Redwoods when I took Tools & Techniques in the summer of 2016 up through when I finished my two-week small wall cabinet workshop this summer. Ignoring the name and college switch, I thought, This isn't really my first week.
My bench on the first day, already covered with stuff.
But I got nervous all the same, and lost my ability to use power tools (in T&T is was the joiner; wall cabinet: bandsaw; this time: handheld router) effectively. (Albeit, I don't forget the safety training, which I've had once at work and three times over here now.)
Unlike every other time, when I was on vacation, I was suddenly burdened by the thought that this nine-month, full-time program was somehow more real. Being more of a commitment, I had to get more out of it.
So rather than feeling a sudden wave of relaxation leaving work, I buckled down harder, gritted my teeth because this was no longer play. This is exactly the opposite of what I'd hoped for, but not entirely surprising, given the nature of wanting.
For this, repetition was good (to a point). I remade a smoothing plane and realized that I'd completely glossed over the wedge fitting step, rendering my wooden planes pretty useless for the past two years.
Smoothing plane and poplar. New (left) and old (right) wedges. Note the heavier shavings that the new wedge lets me take. The old one would pivot and the iron would pop out at the least resistance.
On commitments: I've hollow ground out the iron on my beloved Wood River low angle block plane.
I feel ambivalent about this change. I have no idea what I'm going to do about sharpening once I'm not at school, without access to hand grinders.
But I also have no idea what I'm going to do when I'm not at school and not employed at Facebook, without access to a shop.
The elusive hand grinder seems less of an issue when faced with the prospect of no shop entirely.
Smoothing plane iron, fresh off the wheel.
I have my first glue up out of the way, with more jitters, unsteady hands. But it reminded me of all the similar joints I've glued up, the hands beside mine, helping me. The first one was for quilted maple that was too wide to send through the joiner. I'd never built anything before. I didn't even think that the joint might not come together, let alone the grain not match. I only had the capacity to be baffled by the limitation on the width of the machine: a physical dimension and restriction I'd never considered.
Edge joint exercise glued up.
At the end, I finally snuck in a little work on the cabinet from earlier in the summer. Just the removable shelves, nothing too ostentatious. Though, happily in cherry, which is a familiar friend by now.
As advertised, Sunday is my only day off. I enjoyed a lingering coffee shop outing and a few books. I'm savoring it and anticipating tomorrow.
