College of The Redwoods Fine Furniture: Week 8

I'm trying to catch up with a late post here. I feel like I've been trying to play catch up after a pretty dang slow week 8. I was feeling pretty good Monday morning, glad I hadn't gone to the Hardly Strictly festival in San Francisco and worn myself out, and generally looking forward to getting a lot done in the coming days. I spent most of the day working on a jig for boring out my mortises in the legs for my bench. There was a bit of head scratching in trying to configure the thing with the martises having a 7.5 degree tilt and so that I could duplicate the cut 8 times.

The shop here is ran with very safe guidelines and principles, and the machines are maintained to high standards by the skilled hands of David Welter. David does a great job communicating with us the ins and outs of what we're using and is always happy to help figure out how to do a tricky cuts. There is alway the wild card of operator error, and  unfortunately on Monday afternoon while working on my mortises I did a little boring on my left index finger as well. No fault of anyones but myself and the jig I'd put together. I spent a few hours at the ER with the good company of Chris Lesser getting stitched up. More than anything I was pretty dang pissed off that I messed up. I've always felt I stay aware of what I'm doing, but now I'm even doubly aware. Have respect for those machines!

A big bandage for only five stitches.

Five days later, healing up pretty well.

The rest of the week passed pretty slowly. I couldn't do much with my hand for a few days. I sharpened all my tools, practiced some dovetails and walked around looking at everyone else's projects. There are some cool things being put together.

Post beach nap time.