the animal's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Dave
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Dave »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:34 pm
Baby animal has offered a somewhat unexpected opportunity for further physical training. Carrying her around strengthens the forearms like nothing I’ve experienced, with the sole exception being when I did the 500 daily kettlebell swing challenge. We do not use a stroller or any carriers not connected to us so we are holding her one way or another whenever we travel/move and often at other points throughout the day. The practice reminds me a little of Milo of Croton from Ancient Greece, who was notorious for his feats of strength. I am inspired by the following:
...
This is not all dissimilar to the opportunity parents are presented with children. Progressive training on a natural scale. I aim to do the same with baby animal, carrying her until she does not want to be carried. I abhor and am repulsed by the popular interpretation of a “dad bod.”
My man! This & and your comments of the no-diaper aproach are refreshing to hear. DW & I are preparing for our little one and we've been discussing these two topics. We don't know anyone IRL who rejects the idea of strollers or other carriers...let alone diapers! The conversations with friends and family have been, well, interesting to say the least. It's nice to see someonegoing through this in real time.

I haven't commented on it before, but it's been really neat to follow along with your woodworking, very cool stuff. I'm not totally surprised given how impressive they are and various trends, but it's wild how much your instructor is able to sell some of those pieces for.
theanimal wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:34 pm
The lesser planning kind of ends up being a good thing. Wonder has been greatly diminished by the presence of the internet. Now prior to trips, whether in the city or some remote natural feature, people will look at pictures/videos/information in advance, which in my opinion diminishes the experience and any possibility for awe.
I know what you mean. There's a balance to be had with these sorts of adventures, but I've been moving more and more away lots of planning - it just makes the activity become more like a consumer-ized experience, causing the loss of all wonder as you said.

How have you struck that balance (looking enough to avoid major pitfalls and issues, but not so much to strip away the sense of adventure) in large-scale adventures like your coming hike, or various travels you've done recently with a little one?

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Dave wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:41 pm
My man! This & and your comments of the no-diaper aproach are refreshing to hear. DW & I are preparing for our little one and we've been discussing these two topics. We don't know anyone IRL who rejects the idea of strollers or other carriers...let alone diapers! The conversations with friends and family have been, well, interesting to say the least. It's nice to see someonegoing through this in real time.
Thanks! We have some good friends who do more or less the same thing, but outside of that our experiences sound somewhat similar to yours. I figure that if you zoom out, it's the late 20th. And on top of that, think there is a decent subset of parents that like the idea of having kids, but don't actually like having them.
Dave wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:41 pm
I know what you mean. There's a balance to be had with these sorts of adventures, but I've been moving more and more away lots of planning - it just makes the activity become more like a consumer-ized experience, causing the loss of all wonder as you said.

How have you struck that balance (looking enough to avoid major pitfalls and issues, but not so much to strip away the sense of adventure) in large-scale adventures like your coming hike, or various travels you've done recently with a little one?
I've been trying to think up a good answer but I'm not sure I have anything worthwhile. I don't think I could have had the same success with these types of trips early on when I first started doing this stuff. So part of it is having some experience, making A LOT of mistakes and knowing what to look out for. A certain level of competence if you will. Generally, I am very comfortable doing this stuff and am careful not to seek out unnecessary risk. That comfort results from some different expe. Like how Mrs. Animal and I have both been trained as WFRs/WFAs many times and also as EMTs plus things like navigating regularly, both professionally and recreationally, by topo map and GPS in very remote areas. That brings about a certain confidence in being able to generally handle most things that are within our realm of control. For those that are not, we know how to self rescue and identify exit points, and carry a Garmin inReach device as last resort.

Otherwise I guess the gist of it is that we are not married to any plan and willing to adapt or bail as necessary. Much of that ends up being doing some scheming in the tent the night before about the next day's plans or during the middle of the day if something comes up. A younger me may have wanted to push through challenging obstacles that carry high risk-reward just to complete them and show how tough I am or something like that, but I don't feel like I need to do that anymore.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

I made a mallet out of white oak while waiting for next steps in our cabinet project. I laid out the center on both sides then proceeded to chip out the material on each side until I was all the way through. Shaped the handle then hammered a wedge in the top. Voila. Short and fun project.

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Dave
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Dave »

I see, yeah. So broadly, 1) avoiding big risks 2) making sure you're prepared to handle the worst possible outcomes common in said activity and 3) flowing/adapting with circumstances and desires.

Cool mallet!

Western Red Cedar
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:34 pm
All that said, it will still be an endeavor with plenty of challenges. I suspect just in ways different than I am accustomed to.
I'm super stoked for you guys and eager to hear how the trip pans out. It is possible you'll need to use your navigation skills for the first couple of weeks in the cascades depending on what the spring looks like. I often find heavy snow there through July, but it really depends on snowpack and temperature variations each year. The North Cascades are breathtaking - you're in for a treat!

For some reason I had kind of discounted a SB PCT trip because I thought the window between the snowmelt and wildfires made the logistics too unpredictable. It looks like plenty of people make it work, and with a flexible attitude I'm sure you'll have a blast. I'd recommend a mosquito net/hat for baby animal ;)

guitarplayer
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

When wood workshops are well taken care off, they are so beautiful. To my mind, the only type of workshop that is by design superior to the wood workshop is wooden-tools equipped weavery. Weaveries are now mostly obsolete, and I did come across a metal loom (industrial ones would probably be exclusively metal), but the few weaveries I had a chance to hang out in were stunning. Wooden looms and heaps of colours of yarn, passing the weaving shuttle can be a meditative experience!

ffj
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by ffj »

You mentioned Jim Tolpin as one of your instructors. I still have one of his books. I really like his approach and practicality when it comes to woodworking and cabinet-making. You've chosen well. ;)

@guitar
It's the wood floors, and wood on the walls, and exposed wooden beams, and plenty of windows. Plus the cool work bench and tools with a patina that can only get that way from use. Makes a beautiful workspace.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Woodworking Course Weeks 6-8

We spent the past 3 weeks making a chisel cabinet. I found a poplar board with some really nice looking grain, so I decided to use that for my project. The first week we put together the carcase. 6 squaring the boards, creating a rabbet on the ends for the eventual backboards then joining them all together with dovetails. With the rabbet, we had to do some specialty dovetails and each chose one of 4 varieties. I chose the "puff and pass" style as dubbed by the instructors. Dovetails squared away, we made an angled groove in the vertical boards of the carcase to accommodate a shelf with sliding dovetails. That along with our door frame construction took up the next week? For the frame, we created a groove with a shaper machine to fit the door panel, then connected each piece via mortise and tenon with a haunch. This past week we finished up our frames, then proceeded to work on the panels. I liked the idea of book matching and chose a piece of 8/4 poplar to resaw. I decided to do it by hand and was able to rip the ~2 ft board in half successfully in just under 30 min. Who needs a gym membership when you can do that? I glued the boards together, made some design mistakes in creating a rabbet along the sides, accidentally dropped the panel and cracked one of the rabbets, glued it back together and decided to use the other side as the front. Oh well, I think it turned out ok. Yesterday I hung the door and sized the back panels. A couple hours or so of work remains to get it all finished, attach the ball catch, back panels and create a knob.

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"Puff and Pass" dovetails. Notice the pipe like shape in the upper right

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Sliding dovetail shelf

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Carcase with shelf

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Carcase with backing

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Door frame joined by mortise and tenon

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The haunch from the tenon on the door frame. This prevents an open gap at the end of the groove on the stiles

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The 8/4 board I ripped

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And the result

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We are 2/3 of the way through the course now and I have enjoyed it so far. Of 280 hours of class time, there has only been 1.5 hrs that I found very disagreeable/disappointing, or about 0.5% of the time. In other words, very valuable so far. A week ago we had the opportunity to visit another professional woodworker in the area at his home shop. He does everything from getting and milling logs to finished product and built his own kiln. There is also a guy who walks the same loop I do on the trails at lunch but the other direction. We finally stopped and started chatting this week. Turns out we share the same name and he had his own timber business working all over the world for many years. It seems everywhere I go around here I'm running into people who have some connection to working with wood.

The experience feels very much like my time at NOLS 10 yrs ago. Then as now, I was doing an intensive course of which I had more or less no prior experience. I couldn't set up a tent on my own or read a map then and prior to this course I didn't know how to do any joinery that didn't involve nails or screws, much less how to use many of the tools I now use daily. I started at the bottom of the S curve, which is good as I am learning a lot. But I am learning a lot because I am making A LOT of mistakes. Sometimes (especially in this last project) I forget that my intention with taking this course is to learn the methods and get a base level of knowledge to further develop the skills on my own. Not to produce the best of all students in the class or better than any other student for that matter. But occasionally I'll look around the shop and see what others are doing and you know how the rest goes when you're in that mentality. As one of my classmates likes to say, "comparison is the thief of joy." How true that is. I try not to get wrapped up in where I am in relation to others as that doesn't matter. Not all my dovetails are perfect yet or there may be a stray chisel mark or gouge somewhere. But that's ok with me. 8 weeks ago I had never cut dovetails before, nor attempted any fine woodworking projects. It is really nice going home now to Mrs. Animal and baby animal, where I'm reminded what is actually important to me.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Woodworking Course Weeks 9-11

For the final project, we were tasked with making something like a blanket chest. I say like a blanket chest because we were set loose with this project, responsible for everything from design to sourcing material to building out the project. The only essential piece is that whatever we created had to incorporate frame and panel construction. I decided on a simple blanket chest with contrasting colors for my design. I went in to the lumber yard thinking that I might use walnut for my frame but the sky high prices brought me back to reality. I instead decided to use cherry for the frame and some western maple for the panels, that I was able to pick up for $1.5 a board foot!

The process was pretty straight forward, I used machines to mill the boards 3 square, then finished 6 squaring by hand. The maple was not wide enough as individual boards to serve as panels, so I had to do a few glue ups to get a larger board. I did all the joinery as well as the rabbets along the edge of the panels by hand. After everything fit up ok, I glued everything together then worked on some final detailing: cleaning up mistakes, smoothing and sanding and applying a coat of linseed oil on the top and frame. For the bottom, I screwed in a cleat near the bottom of the frame and then sized some leftover poplar I had from the cabinet project. I am waiting on a hinge to secure the top but otherwise am done with the project after one more coat of linseed oil. Very much not perfect and plenty of learning opportunities (ie mistakes) along the way but I think that I am definitely progressing in skill.

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There are 1.5 weeks left in the class now and with nothing else planned and everyone else still working on their chest like projects. I have the time to build as I please. I am first going to make a traditional sawbench (like this) out of some excess wood in the school. I think I should be able to finish that fairly quickly leaving me time for one more project. I would also like to make a knockdown bookshelf, with through mortises for the shelves secured by a tusk. We shall see how things go. I'll update here as things progress.

Otherwise all well on the home front. We return to Alaska immediately following the end of this class. Baby animal is sleeping more now, allowing us more sleep and remains in the upper percentiles for size for her age. Last month we started taking her swimming at the pool and she is in love with the water. We are trying to get her as comfortable in it as possible, and have also been dunking her under for a second or so each time. So far so good.

jacob
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jacob »

Was a plow plane involved to make the groove in the frame for the panels or was it trickery? If so, what was the trickery?

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Yes, nothing fancy. A plow plane to start and then I finished it off with a shoulder plane. I am intrigued by rabbeted block planes, which can supposedly do the same thing while also serving as a regular block plane. The instructors have one but I have not tested it out yet.

jacob
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jacob »

Hmm .. wouldn't the rabbet block plane have to come with a rather narrow blade to substitute for the plow plane? I'm not sure they do. Otherwise, yes, if I could do the tool accumulation all over again, I'd consider substituting my medium shoulder plane + regular block plane for a rabbet block plane.

Note that the used market is weak. This means that they're early super useful ... or not useful at all. Definitely try before buying if you can.

One particular snag though ... I do own a skew rabbet plane with a fence for cutting rebates and making shiplap joints. That this is a terror to adjust. It's much more finicky since the blade is not just up down but also left right. If it sticks out the stick in any way, it gets ugly. When it's set correctly, it's marvelous though. Most recently I made a picture frame with it. It's never even occurred to me to remove the fence and just use it as a regular plane.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

jacob wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:14 am
Note that the used market is weak. This means that they're early super useful ... or not useful at all. Definitely try before buying if you can.
That is definitely true. I have been looking for a few weeks and haven't found a single thing. I was turned on to it by my instructors, who said that would be the first plane they would purchase and is one of the more useful planes because of its versatility. My thought on creating a rabbet or groove with one would be the same if you were to create one with just a shoulder plane. Start with a knife wall on your line then carefully make short passes at one end, working your way back until you have a shoulder running the length of your piece. Then you can go at it with full passes. Since the rabbeted block plane has a wider blade than a shoulder plane, this might require only having some of the blade/block plane in contact with the piece and the rest hanging off the edge. It seems like it'd be more favorable to larger grooves.

So far I have been able to score a like new Veritas jack plane for $225. As of now, I am thinking of rounding out the planes with a smoothing plane, a fore plane and maybe a rabbeted block plane depending on how it goes trying it out.

jacob
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jacob »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:00 am
So far I have been able to score a like new Veritas jack plane for $225. As of now, I am thinking of rounding out the planes with a smoothing plane, a fore plane and maybe a rabbeted block plane depending on how it goes trying it out.
If I had to do it all over, I'd settle for a #5 and a #7, both low angle. A block plane and a medium shoulder plane (alternatively the rabbet block plane). An entire set of mortising chisels, but only a couple of bench chisels. For sawing, a dovetail saw (filed rip). I'm not sure about the other saws. Currently I'm still using panel saws. I need to make a good frame saw to see if that's a "smarter" solution. So far, I've only made terribly bad frame saws.

Caveat: Choices partially based on what I'm building and what I'm building it out of. For squirrely softwood and knots, low-angle is superior to normal angle for only a small tradeoff in performance on hardwoods.

PS: If you really want a #4, I'm willing to sell you mine if you're interested. It's a Lie-Nielsen in bronze. I rarely use it.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

jacob wrote:
Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:17 am
Thanks for the offer, I'll pass for now. Thinking on it, I use the smoothing plane the least out of the 4 we have at our bench in class (block, fore, jack, smoothing) so I think I will stick with just the no. 5 jack and some type of block plane for now. Maybe adding a jointer plane later on. I'm much more interested in being able to use one tool for multiple things rather than having many tools (or any really) that do just one thing. There is a frame saw in class that I haven't tried using yet. My plan for the last week is to test both that and the rabbeted block plane, see how that goes and then otherwise add on to what I already have once I get home.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Woodworking Week 12: End of course
The last week of the course came and went. I tried to make the most of my access to the shop and all the tools and got cranking on the projects previously mentioned. I figured I’d start with the sawbench, as I figured I needed something to work off of if I wanted to continue making things right away after I got home. There is a large non-discard scrap bin that people have contributed to over the course of a few courses and I went there to source my material. I sketched out a rough idea of what I wanted first, then saw what wood was available and readjusted my dimensions to work with what I had. Between the bin and ongoing scavenging of scraps from people’s projects I was able to source enough without having to buy anything. Alaska yellow cedar for the base and top, western hemlock for the legs, poplar for one of the cross beams and douglas fir/western maple for another. It was fun making the big dovetails and I pinned the drawbored mortises into the base, adding another new skill to my arsenal.

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I am very pleased with the course and think it was well worth it’s cost. Outside of a couple hours, the 420 hours of class time was very high quality with plenty of opportunities for challenging tasks, learning and feedback. At this time, I am not planning on taking any more courses and will work on my own to continue practicing and better my newfound skills.

I left the morning immediately following the course, pointing my jammed pack car north and heading back to AK. Over the past few months, there have been 2 mystery problems with my car. The first is that it would start bouncing at high speeds, no matter the road surface. Thanks to @Ego’s suggestion in the FixIt Log, I was able to figure out it was a result of a loose hood and fix that by cleaning the hood latch and adjusting the hood spacers. The second was more puzzling, at higher speeds or loads, I’d get coolant backing up into the overflow reservoir, then boiling over. No leaks in the system otherwise and nothing if I’m just going around town or without much power. I stopped at my friend’s place in Alberta to grab the rest of our stuff and we looked at it, finding out it was the worst possible problem. A leaking head gasket. Very common for these Subarus, so that put my trip on hold while we figured out what to do. Mrs. Animal and baby animal were still in WA and we thought she could look at getting a car there and coming up to meet me. But ultimately, decided to continue on. The problem had been happening for nearly 6 months now with no major issues, just having to add a little bit more coolant. The only thing was that I added maybe 300 lbs more of stuff in Alberta from what we had stored over the winter. Bike, tote and chairs on top. Propane tanks and totes on the back hitch. And every single spot inside jammed packed with stuff. Just like the Beverly Hillbillies, on the move in style. I took it slow, especially so on hills, and made it home ok, without the car overheating or having to add any coolant.

Since I was going so slow, I had relatively lots of people stuck behind me and passing me. The speed limits change fast in Canada when you are entering into towns and as I pulled in to Watson Lake I noticed the car behind me was following me into the gas station. Out came a woman who thanked me for going so slow, because there was a Mountie sitting off the road right after the speed change who she didn't see and thought she would've gotten a ticket otherwise. She insisted on giving me $60 to pay for my gas despite me saying it wasn't necessary. I guess it really does pay to be patient.

I’m planning on fixing the head gasket myself. Then from there we’ll see what happens. Parts are about $250, it is very involved and will be my most demanding repair to date. I could sell it now for probably something around $3k and if I fixed it around $5k. Outside of the head gasket, there are no indications of any problems and I think the car could at the very least offer a few more years of use. So far I don’t entirely know. I’m partial to fixing and keeping it and that will be the plan for now.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

All of those pieces look excellent! Great job. I am excited to see where you take your skill set next.

guitarplayer
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Yes, all looks good. Thanks for posting updates about the work @theanimal. I appreciate you share your thoughts, too, I find this an asynchronous brainstorming. For example:

“ At this time, I am not planning on taking any more courses and will work on my own to continue practicing and better my newfound skills. ”

feeds in to my mental process of deciding how to go about my stuff.

Keep on shipping (Godin) @theanimal!

SavingWithBabies
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by SavingWithBabies »

I've done that head gaskets job before on a Subaru. It was a lot of work but it's definitely doable. The high price for the job reflects the number of wrenching hours so it's a solid win for DIY if you are comfortable taking it on. I do think we bought one or two special tools and you'll definitely want a manual and some torque wrenches (along with the usual socket set, etc). It was my friends car and he did take the heads to a machine shop but I don't recall what all they did (but bare basics is making sure they aren't warped due to overheating). The head gaskets likely have a revision or two as Subaru seemed to have a lot of problems with these head gaskets so I'd double check the dealer website/parts desk for the most recent part number just in case they iterated again and the non-dealers don't have the updated parts yet. For us, it went super slow due to Chicago winter and an unheated garage and he had a loaner from family so we worked on it when we could (and I was going slow by the book as it was his first car repair and I wanted to try to pass on everything I'd learned from my dad). I think we might have got some kind of head gasket parts kit with a water pump and all that but I don't fully recall the details.

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Re: the animal's journal

Post by jacob »

@theanimal - Did you guys by any chance cover finishing/varnishing/staining at the woodworking school ... or was it all au natural with shellac or paste wax at max?

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