Posts from — July 2009

I get home and finish working my fulltime job then head out to the shop to process the alder I picked up for the boxes.

As a reminder, these were overages/not quite good enough molding culls from Paxton Woods that I paid $0.22/lineal foot to buy.

My thought was that I would be able to use the planer to cut off the slight raised parts and then split the remaining into two parts and build these boxes out of 3/16″ wood. It started out fine. I created great piles of alder shavings in the driveway. Yes, I had to move out of the garage as I just didn’t have enough room to run 10′ boards through the planer.

Once i got it down flat I determined that there wasn’t any way that I was going to run a 10′ board through the table saw to split it into two parts, so I cut it into 5′ sections. The first cut through the board (with it on its side) went OK, but when I flipped it over it didn’t go quite as well. Then when I flipped it again it became painfully obvious that this was not going to work.

Even if this board went OK, there was a 0% chance that the next 55′ would go as well. So on to plan B – i created more shavings and processed the alder down to 3/8″ like the other boxes we’ve built.

I’ll have to measure (it started to sprinkle so I cleaned up) to be sure I have enough to finish these boxes. If not I have the piece of 8/4 alder that I can resaw down to 7/16-1/2″ and run through the planer to finish up. I’d rather make cubes from it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Just got back from Paxton’s Woods.

And like any addict, I want to brag about my “buy”

I hit up their “oops” rack for molding as when I was there before they had a bunch of alder molding that I can use for boxes for my puzzles. So there were 6 5/8 x 6 x 10 ft pieces and two 5/8 x 8 x 5 ft pieces of that. I also found hiding in there 6 7 foot and 1 9 foot 3/4 square oak “sticks”. That totaled a bit over $24 ($0.22/lineal foot.)

Then I hit the “scrap” bin. There I picked up 2.5 bd ft of hickory, 4 of alder (in an 8/4×4″ piece), 8.5 of maple, and another 3.5 of oak.

That ran me just under $9 ($0.50/bd ft.) Total.

I got a bunch of wood for $35 or so.

Now I have to figure out where to store it

There was a lot more there as well. Not sure why some of it was there, to be honest. Maybe just too short for them to use as molding.

The guy told me that once or twice a year there’s a guy that comes in and just buys the entire rack. He turns urns for pets so it doesn’t matter what the wood is, he just glues it up and turns away.

I had Friday off for the 4th of July holiday and I had planned on heading back to Paxton Woods to pick up that alder for the boxes. I figured I’d have a long weekend to build boxes for the puzzles. Since I had some running to do and one stop was close to Paxton’s, so took the truck and just figured that we’d stop by.

So we stopped by. And we were the only ones there.

They got Friday off for the holiday as well.

*sigh*

So I’m doing some site updates and I put all the pieces together for the Soma Cubes. We now have our 50 cubes all glued up and finished. I’m working on a sled so when I start processing the wood I pick up I can improve my accuracy.

So, not a wasted weekend – just a disappointing one.