Saturday, June 28, 2014

Pantry Cabinet 2

For a year and a half, I have had 79 cabinet pieces sitting on my living room floor--waiting to be assembled into the pantry cabinet for the JayBee. (See Pantry Cabinet 1.) When I tried a few times to work on assembling the cabinet, I kept discovering that there were more cuts I needed to make--but my saws were all stored away. So, everything just kept sitting there.

When it was too rainy earlier this month to uncover the JayBee and work on the roof, I decided to assemble the cabinet instead. It's all progress, right?

Leave it to me to design a very complicated cabinet! The cabinet is tall and narrow. The two narrow doors have shelves on the inside--narrow shelves on the inside of the left door, deeper shelves on the inside of the other door. The back of the cabinet has adjustable shelves--shallow shelves on the right side, deeper shelves on the left. Assembly has been painstakingly slow.

First, I worked on making mortise and tenon joints, and channels for the door panels.


Door assembly...




Finally, two doors with panels.


Next up: assembly of shelves to hang on the backs of the doors...




The narrow, shallow set done:


The deeper, wider set done:


The doors will get attached to the back sides of the shelves--once I determine that they will fit right in the outer cabinet.





Also see:
Pretending It's Spring (Pantry Cabinet 1)
Pantry Cabinet 3
Pantry Cabinet 4
Pantry Cabinet 5
Pantry Cabinet 6
Pantry Cabinet 7
Pantry Cabinet 8
Pantry Cabinet 9


Other miscellaneous photos from the last few weeks...

A few creatures were hiding in the various tarps that were covering saws and things.


One day, I found this fish smack in the middle of my driveway-- probably dropped by a bald eagle. The next morning, it was completely gone. I assume it was retrieved by someone who was not going to let a good meal go to waste.




Friday, June 27, 2014

Gearing Up

Now that I am home from my tour on the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route, it is time to resume working on the JayBee again. How is it possible that I have not really worked on it for almost two years? And even what I did in 2012 was pretty minimal.

I have been very lucky that the tarps have held up well and the JayBee has stayed dry inside. It is hard to pick up momentum on this project...and sometimes momentum is everything.

First, I had to open up the side tarps...


...then set up some makeshift ramps, so I could move the big saws outside...


...with some sun shades...


Now the inside has a little bit of maneuvering room.



We had so much rain, I couldn't face trying to work on the JayBee's roof rafters just yet. So, I began by sanding and refinishing the deck pieces. This project may seem unrelated to the JayBee, but it is actually very related. These deck sections will become the JayBee's deck--when they are eventually placed along the JayBee's south side.



The cats are glad I am home. We have resumed family walks--even in the rain.


And the river is in summer mode.



I hear loons and bald eagles calling on a regular basis. I also hear sturgeon jumping, even if I have yet to see one jump. (Check out this video of jumping sturgeon--shot in Augusta.)