Wednesday, August 25, 2021

USA! USA!

 

As we quickly slip from first world nation to second, no scratch that, to third world, this building across the street from me, the one with the large American flag hanging down, is being built.  It's been going up for a year now. Although it may appear to be diminutive here, it's actually fairly imposing for West Oakland.  Four stories with another story underground.  Not one window in the place.  Barry, my across the street neighbor says so far, $12,000,000 has been put into it.  For the longest time I couldn't figure it out.  No windows, looked pretty fortified and then last week an entire roof of huge cooling units were craned on.

The flag, once a symbol of something, is now something else and that threw me off.  In 1970, I drove across the country with a fellow Beavercreeker, Carl Key, to Montana to go to school in a VW bug painted with a US flag on it.  We stopped in Ann Arbor and bought a couple fingers of weed in a city park glancing around in the shadows.


Now that same flag is being waved around in Code Talk by groups of people who I just can't relate with. 

So I didn't quite know what to make of a thirty foot red white and blue flapping around.

 

As I was talking with Barry, who seems to be in the know about the building he says, "Cannabis"

12 million to process weed in a firefight proof building. 


USA!  USA!

 

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

And MU Saw That It Was Good

 This is the penultimate post on the winery table.  I'll shoot some things after it's situated where it will live.  That will be some time though.  Seems there was some rend in the Fabric of the Universe and the table won't be able to travel to Central California for quite some time.  Unknown how long it's going to lie in dormant storage.

And so that last post and those last photos will have to wait until the fabric is back together.

The table is done.  I wish I could shoot it as I normally would but the studio just can't allow it right now.  I have zero room for everything I need to photo it properly.

I added some 10oz veg tan leather on the bottom of legs.  Mainly to give the center portion of the pedestal some space so it won't rock (hopefully)



Put some finish on the underside of the top and the pedestal legs.  Nothing to see on the underside of the top, something to see on the pedestals though.









The top.  I've done my due diligence at this point on the top. I killed the bugs in the wood with heat.  I killed some more bugs that survived with freezing cold.  But at least one survived because I saw it walking around a hole.  I studied it under a magnifying glass, ran to the internet to compare to photos there.  No denying it must have been a superbug that survived two rounds of extreme malice toward it.

So I soaked the whole damn shooting match in a product called Bora Care.  Poison.  

It's all dried from the Bora Care, sanded, blown off, vacuumed and cleaned off with mineral spirits here.  Right before applying the finish.


 I thought the edge of the top needed something.  Now once you commit to something like a edge detail, you've done tossed your die on the craps table at that point.  No taking it back.

I wanted to do a Lamb's Tongue.  It's an old transitional element that's been used for a long time in woodworking.  Here's an extreme modified one I did on a table ten years ago.

I committed and went around the four sides of the top but something was not right about it.  That night as I thought about it I thought I would instead of ending on a smaller radius, I'd go bigger.

It's kinda my favorite thing on the table in an oddly small way.

Used the Japanese rasps.



And after the first coat of finish.



The Top.  It unfolds from the center vertical, or maybe it's moving toward the center.  Almost like the vertical landed and created the ripples spreading outward.

It is good.


Bonus pic!

The above as shot.