March 3, 2013

 My day ended up being way more productive than I originally planned, although that didn't start until after lunch. My morning involved a lot of TV watching random computer things. After lunch I went to the library book sale with my mom and sister. I ended up only getting four books. There were so many people in such a small space and a lot of them had boxes which made moving around that much harder. There was also a lady in a wheelchair and another woman with a stroller. I really don't need anymore books considering the number I haven't gotten around to reading yet, but I can't resist a library book sale.

Right as I walked in the door after the book sale the phone started ringing. My dad and brother were building some rope makers and needed to make a groove in the base boards and wanted to know if I could use my router to make the grooves. It would be easier than digging out the table saw and setting up the dado blade. He also needed to borrow the bench he let me borrow awhile ago. My only plans for the afternoon involved video games so I said I was in. He came and picked me up so I didn't have to worry about getting the bench and router into my car and we headed over to his house.

I helped hold the long board as he cut it down to length for six rope machines and then we set about cutting the grooves. The grooves needed to be just shy of an inch and I was using a quarter-inch bit. The first one took forever because we clamped a guide piece to the board and had to adjust that every time, trying to make sure it stayed straight. If we had kept going like that we would probably still be working on it. For the next five I came up with the solution of clamping the guide piece to a stack of wood on either side of the board. The stacks were just higher than the board so that the board could slide freely underneath. This way we could clamp the board down, make the first pass with the router, unclamp and move the board a bit, clamp and make the next pass. For the most part it worked out pretty well, at least much better than the first one we did. After that we quickly cut out all the other pieces needed for the rope machines and then cleaned everything up. It actually turned into about a five hour endeavor but the time went by really quickly, it was nice to hang out with my dad and brother for a bit, and it was fun working with wood again. I have been thinking about finally getting around to making my desk over Spring Break. We'll see if I'm still into that idea when the time comes but I hope I am.

When I got home I had dinner, did my laundry, and watched TV. But now I am going to go to bed. I'm exhausted and I could have easily gone to bed an hour ago.