Full Freight

 The Art Is the Doing of the Art.

I'm not stating nothing new with that the art is the doing of the art.

I just think the thing at the end of what you're doing or making, that thing is what comes out of the process as a whole.  You can't separate the thing from the doing of the thing.

The above.  How I left it from the night before.  I did four things.  Looked at the wood, drank some luscious California whiskey from Ukiah, listened to music and sketched and water colored ideas for the Central Cali Winery Tasting Experience Table.

I'm thinking I'll give them all my sketches and water colors, they will be as much a part of the table as the table itself.

And of note to Nick here, that short lighter board in the middle of the above photo could become another kitchen light!!!!

Where and orientation of the kitchen wood gets decided and moved across the room to make it easier to see what's left.

As is my usual, the first cut is by hand.  I want to preserve the curve of the grain when I join them so cut the curve with the frame saw.  It's on the triangle or it was going fall down for the photo.  And vertical because I could!

Did some work on the 'possible' feet for the cabinet.  I followed all the best practices on this but they came out wonky.  I was supposed to drill dead center in the round steel and tap them for the bolts to go in.  Let's just say, some were dead center, some were not.

 

And because of that, I had to number them and match them to their base.

Vacuum Sled 2

In 1995 I bought a band saw, it arrived with a VHS tape of the owner of the company, Torbin Helshoj, demonstrating the band saw.  On it he was slicing near paper thin re-saws from a 12" high piece of wood.  With a low fence.  The thing was he was slicing off a 12"X12" piece of wood.  That got me thinking about that.  The width and height led to stability and vibration damping from the large cross section and weight

If I were doing tall re-saws I started to glue or tape or screw them to a big chunk of wood to keep in that theory of cross section and weight for success.

Wasn't long after I built a sled so I could attach to that. And decided that I would vacuum to suck the wood on saving glue or tape or screws.  Failed.  Just didn't work.

Fast forward to five years ago when in moving that 1995 bandsaw, it fell off the dolly and smacked itself pretty good on the concrete.  Try as I might, I just couldn't get the blade to track well.  I fought and fought that thing for 14 rounds until I went back to my corner at the end of the round and said, "Paul, buy a new saw."

I did.  And I said, "Paul, let's try that vacuum sled idea again."

Saw came on Friday, the blades didn't arrive until Tuesday.  

The bell sounded for round 15, and at the end I came out a winner.

Vacuum Sled 2 backside with pump.

Cut like a champ.  The vacuum held the wood on there like a Mo'Fu.

Even with a low texture light, smooth as a Tyson uppercut (in his prime).

 

 

 

 

 

You see, what I'm looking for is not the thing but how that thing got made.  How each success and each set back and each revelation and every music note listened during a swipe of a hand plane becomes that thing.

It's the glue that holds everything together.