Doors and epic weather

Doors, doors, doors...three doors now glued up. The Buxbaum door is ready to be sanded and finished, the redwood panels were beautiful straight grained old growth redwood, a full eleven inches wide. I believe a lot of this Wharf wood was milled from beams that were sixteen inches by sixteen inches. An inch was cut off all the way around so lots of the boards ended up fourteen inches wide. This is why the Hawkin's Bar doors had seven inch wide stiles. The bottom rails of the Buxbaum door was just under thirteen inches wide.

Buxbaum Door

Some evidence of the Wharf wood is still exposed on the stiles of Daisy's doors. These French doors were built so that the old glass from the doors being replaced could be reused. Hopefull I will be able to get the glass out without breaking it. I am hoping the steamer will relieve the adhesion between wood and glass. Today I glued up both doors, I love how the doors come together with the use of mortise and tenons. Adding the element of miters makes it a bit trickier but with the use of a mitered block with forty five degree angles cut on either side makes it easy to cut and pare the miters.

Daisy's Door Joinery

It has been two weeks since my back was totally tweaked and now it is feeling much better. I have been doing yoga in the mornings and then try to get out to the scotch broom with a machete just to get my muscles warmed up, then I get to work in the shop. It is not one hundred percent but it is getting there.

Enjoying a warm January evening.

The weather these days has been heavenly, high temps in the low seventies with no wind. Low temps in the low forties. The sun is working its way toward the tops of the Cypress trees and soon the barn won't be in the shadows from 11:00 to 3:00. We have pruned all the fruit trees and olive trees during this epic spell of perfect weather.

In the shadow of the Cypress trees.

One more week of work for a client, than it is back to our kitchen, it has been on the back burner since August. My goal is to get the carcasses installed and the counter tops ready for zinc within the first two weeks of February. Then I have a drawer project waiting for me so hopefully I can make ours at the same time.

Bad back and Doors

Four days stuck in bed, incapable and powerless. My lower spine felt like a vertebrae had shifted out of position and it must have been pressing on a nerve. During that time if I moved, my back would seize up and I would uncontrollably writhe about until the pain ceased. I couldn't leave the bed even if I wanted to. The urge to pee is what got me out of bed the first two times which were spread out by a whole day. I could only get as far as the edge of the bed and had to relieve myself in a bucket with saw dust. By the third day I could straighten myself out on my feet and move around on crutches, I even fed the cats. Later that day I laid in a position that made my back spasm for longer than ever. I was afraid to move after that. By day four I made it to the bathroom and even took a shower. Today, day five I put the crutches away and the piss bucket and even watched Oliver's first ever basketball game at home.

Low winter light.

I walked home from the school and then down to the house to see how the newly finished floor in the music room turned out. Becky has been hard at work cleaning up the floor and sanding it, being careful not to sand away the saw marks on the wood and not get down to bare wood. Alex was here for a couple days and spent a morning applying the first coat of shellac. It looks beautiful, even where there was some sort of tar like scum on the wood that wouldn't come off.

Buxbaum Panels

I am hoping to get back to the shop soon, I have started three doors now and would like to wrap those up. While I was down, the panels for the Buxbaum door arrived, I have two pairs to choose from.

Daisy's Doors

Daisy's door material is planed and ripped to rough width but I want to remove one of the pieces of glass that I will be reusing so that I can measure the thickness and exact dimension before cutting the wood any further.

Winter, curly redwood door and shop clutter.

Winter time... short days, long nights and a cold shop. There were a couple days when we got back from our LA trip that I refused to work in the shop. When it drops below 40° F in the shop it is just too cold. My shop has no heat source and this time of year the sun is behind a long row of cypress trees from about 11:00 to 3:00. 

Amazing architecture down at USC, where winter temps were in the 70's.

I built a window jamb with some reclaimed fir and a repurposed redwood sill that my client found at a salvage yard. It will house a fixed insulated unit of glass and the surrounding wall will get shingled.

Window Jamb

I started on one of the doors I have to build. This one is made with curly redwood that was milled from a wharf on Humboldt Bay. The mortise and tenon joinery is done and I am setting that project aside for now until I get the redwood panels.

Curly Redwood Door

I still have the French doors to make, but I also have an anxious wife that wants to see some progress on our kitchen that I started last July and put on the back burner in August. It is taking up a corner of the shop so I would love to get it built and installed.

French Doors to replace.

Another house project that is taking up shop space is four closet doors. I can't remember when I built those but the frames are leaning by my dust collector and the panels are stacked on the floor between the thickness sander and shaper. Not much left to do on those except dado for the panels and make the molding that matches the houses existing doors. I had a shaper cutter ground to match but haven't used it yet. Sometimes it is the smallest thing that will prevent us from moving on and finishing what was started.