As his birthday approached a hazy view began to materialize through the fog that is my mind.  The idea slowly gathered that maybe I should make him a toolbox.  This week I did just that, and I thought I’d talk a bit about the experience in case you might want to do something similar.

Toolbox In-Clamp

This is the finished product.

A Toolbox for my Grandson

I thought a while about what material to use.  In the end, I opted for half-inch plywood.  I chose this for two reasons; first, I had enough of it lying around; and second, I was concerned that using three-quarter-inch stock would make the box too heavy.  I’d encourage you not to follow my example in this regard.  If I make another, I’ll use three-quarter-inch pine, which is light in weight, for the sides and half-inch plywood only for the bottom.

The bottom of the toolbox looks like this:

Toolbox Bottom Set into Dadoes

The bottom is set into dadoes cut one-quarter-inch deep and one-quarter-inch in from the edge of the stock.  This makes a sturdy joint that should hold the bottom securely when tools are dropped in.  Unfortunately the sides are plywood, so as you can see on the corner on the lower left of this image, the plies are somewhat susceptible to chipping off.  That weakens the structure considerably.  I’ve glued and nailed these–using a pneumatic brad nailer–to give them extra strength.  It might be useful to add some small quarter-round to the inside corners of the box to provide extra support, though I have not done that in this example.

The Inside of the Toolbox

Use of three-quarter-inch stock for the sides would have been a better choice because it would have been much less likely to break off at the outside wall of the dado.

I drew the rough curves for the ends freehand.  After cutting out the first one on the band saw using an eighth-inch blade, I found that I liked one side of the curve better than the other.  Fortunately it was the deeper of the two so I still had room to fix the less appealing edge.  I laid the fairest curve on the blank I planned to use to create the second end and traced around it with a pencil.  That gave me a cut line for one side of the piece.  Then I flipped the piece I had cut earlier and traced around that fair side again to complete the outline on my blank.  Once that was done, I took the blank to the band saw and cut to the line by hand.  Then I traced around the resulting piece and got the worst half of the first end closer to correct.  With that finished, I clamped the two pieces together and used a belt sander to make them exactly the same.

One End of the Toolbox

I then marked a point as close to the center of the top of the curve as I could easily figure, clamped the two ends together at the drill press and drilled the hole for the handle.  This particular handle came from some garden tool in a past life.  It was not a simple three-querter-inch dowel.  Instead, it was nine-tenths of an inch in diameter.  After I sanded it down a bit to make it smoother for handling, it was a heavy seven-tenths of an inch in diameter.  I used a nine-sixteenths-inch Forstner bit to drill out the hole.  Since that was still a little shy of the needed size, I mounted a sanding drum in the drill press and sanded carefully until the handle just fit into the hole.

This handle is very hard wood.  I think it’s probably Hickory.  I cut it an inch longer than the length of the box bottom thinking I’d have a half-inch extra length on each side through which I might put a steel nail shank to keep the handle from slipping out.  As it turned out, I had no room for such a fastener because I had forgotten to account for the thickness of the plywood ends.

I make errors like this a lot in my shop, so if you’ve come here assuming you’d find the perfect woodworker, I do apologize.  You may feel free to pass me by in the future because I doubt I’ll be improving significantly in the near term.  On the other hand, maybe I am not alone in my quirkiness and you too make the occasional error in planning.  If that’s the case, perhaps my candor about such foibles may serve to assist you in gracefully recovering from your own.

In the end I ended up with a handle perfectly sized for the toolbox, but one better glued in place to ensure that it remains attached.

To make the handle ends more stylish and to remove the sharp edges, I rounded over the ends on the belt sander.  All joints including the handle are glued, and the dado joints are also secured with brads.

I filled this with various and sundry spare tools from my own collection.  I also included a couple of sheets of sand paper, a jar with nails and screws in it, and another jar with a few carriage bolts with nuts and washers.  He should have a lot of fun playing with all this and figuring out different things he can “fix” and build.

The book with which I am currently in a relationship is about barn and garage construction.  When I got to the chapter on roof construction, I began reading about the value of the Carpenter’s Square in marking plumb cuts on rafters.  Part of the discussion included an explanation of some of the annotations found on common squares.  Seeing that, I decided to take the book out to my shop last night and have a closer look at the hieroglyphs on my old square.

It turned out that the markings on my square were not at all the same as those mentioned in the book.  Fortunately Dad was with me in the shop.  He’ll be 94 the first of June, but apparently his mind is still much quicker than my old brain.  He remembered that we have an astonishing tome in two volumes on the subject of the Carpenter’s Square.

Practical Uses of the Steel Square in Two Volumes!

Practical Uses of the Steel Square a complete modern treatise by Fred T. Hodgson is very likely the most comprehensive documentation of uses for the Carpenter’s Square ever written–certainly it’s the most comprehensive of which I am aware.  I find it astonishing that one volume large enough to require binding rather than stapling could be written on this topic, let alone two.

As for the claim of modernity, you’ll have to be the judge of that yourself.

Copyright for the Second Edition

This is the Copyright for the second edition of the books, which was produced in 1913.  These books are older than Dad, and that’s going some!

Amazingly however, they are still of real practical value.  I soon discovered the interpretation of the hieroglyphs on my own square.  It turns out that mine is not marked for laying out rafters, but rather it contains an interesting board-foot calculator.  Once the secrets of its use were unlocked I was able easily to determine the number of board feet in any given plank.  I personally still prefer the use of a calculator for this, but that may well be because my square is very old and as a consequence the etchings thereon are exceedingly difficult to read.

Here is the first page of the front matter in Volume One.

First Page of the Front Matter

And here is some of the Preface.

Preface Page One

You can get Volume One here: A Practical Treatise on the Steel Square and Its Application to Everyday Use (aka Practical Uses of the Steel Square) Volume I

And Volume Two here: PRACTICAL USES OF THE STEEL SQUARE V. II

There are newer books to be sure, but these are the originals.  According to the author no one else had written anything like this before and hundreds of thousands of copies were sold.  If you want to know more than your friends about the steel square just grab yourself a copy of these volumes, some strong coffee, and a comfortable chair.

More soon…

Schiffendecker Farm Preserve

The Schiffendecker Farm Preserve is a walking-trail through protected lands along my morning route.

I had never ventured onto the trail, so on Wednesday I decided to give it a try.  I was looking for color amidst the drab grey and brown of this sunless early spring morning.  Near the entrance is a tree that provides a great example of what happens when you attach barbed wire fences by wrapping the wire around a tree trunk.  It isn’t healthy for the tree.

Don't do this if you want to keep your trees.

One tree that I always find interesting is the Shagbark Hickory.  Perhaps you can see where it got its name.

The aptly-named Shagbark Hickory

I did find some color in moss that grew on many organic surfaces.

Moss

I am a sucker for reflections, so when I saw this little streambed with a bit of standing water, I had to shoot it.

Forest Reflection

Amy Hedges of A. Hedges Photography conducts a weekly project on her Facebook® page, and this week the project is “Upside Down“.  I thought about submitting this reflection since it shows the forest upside down.  Maybe I will yet.

Nature always amazes me.  I often wonder about the story behind odd tree-growth patterns such as this.

What made this happen?

Just to give you some idea of exactly how flat and unflattering the light was early on Wednesday morning, I snapped this shot from the road.

Curves Ahead

More soon…

First off, after talking so much yesterday about the valley and the hills along my walking route, I thought it would be a good idea to provide a few pictures so that you had some frame of reference.

This is the view going down into the valley.  At the bottom is the creek where yesterday I told you I saw the deer carcass.

This is the view from a bit further down the slope.  You can see the bridge under which the creek flows and you can see the hill going up the other side.

This is the view as I make my return trip.  You can tell from the increased color saturation and vibrancy here that the sun has risen farther above the horizon by this point.  This picture shows the bridge again, but this time we are looking at it from the opposite direction from the last photo.  Pictured below is the hill I face on my way home once I get back to to the valley.

OK, enough with the hills already.  This morning I saw a few interesting things I thought I’d share with you.

Some Lamb’s Ear.

This plant doesn’t fully die over winter and so it is always one of the very first to color the landscape green.  It’s very soft to the touch; hence its name.

Here in Upstate New York Forsythia generally blooms around the middle of April.  Not this year!

This bush is in front of the home of one of our neighbors.  It’s right next to the road, so it was easy to take this shot without trespassing.

Every time I walk I take notice of this twisted vine.  I can think of several uses for a vine like this.  It would make a really interesting curtain rod, for one.

Our neighbor with the cozy little house had a couple of cute miniature Daffodils in bloom this morning.

I actually lay down on the ground to take these shots so that I could get a very low angle on them.  I think they just scream spring!

More to come…

I have to say if you’re going to be sick, it’s pretty nice to be sick together.  Usually only one of us is ill at any given time and that brings lots of nastiness.  First, the healthy one wants to go out and do things, but the one who’s ill just wants to lie around the house.  Of course this does provide an opportunity for the healthy spouse to serve the one who’s ill, and there is great value (and fun; and brownie points) in that.  Second, when only one spouse is ill, both have to be careful about contact, and that precludes a lot of wonderful bonding, such as hand holding and kissing.  It’s never good to give those up.

When you are both ill, however, you get all sorts of benefits you’d otherwise not have.  Each spouse feels true deep empathy and sympathy for the other.  Nothing beats first-hand experience. You get to sit around the living room and watch movies together for hours on end, and neither of you feels the slightest inclination to do anything else. When both are ill, it is not necessary to avoid contact either.  Hand holding, kissing , and even sharing glasses and spoons is completely fine.  Seriously, you have to love that.

Being ill did put a damper on exercise for the last few days.  Feeling a lot better this morning, I ventured out. Only a few things caught my eye while walking this morning.  Many of them didn’t make very interesting photos. For example there was the deer carcass near the creek at the bottom of the big hill along my usual route.  I’m pretty confident that most people reading this would not want to see the shot I took of that.  I did find it interesting however, because it had a green rope tied around its neck.  I’ve seen a lot of dead deer, but seeing one with a rope around its neck was a first.  It isn’t hunting season, so I really have no idea what that was about.

Here are three pictures that, while not worthy of a gallery, are nonetheless more presentable than a rotting deer carcass.

This Pampas Grass grows along the road in front of the home of one of our neighbors.  I am always drawn to Pampas Grass.  I’m not exactly sure why.  Something about the way light makes it look I guess.  Even so, I have never yet made the image of Pampas Grass that I see in my mind every time I shoot the stuff, so I keep practicing.

Near the creek in the valley there is a utility pole that today had early morning sun all over it.  I love it when sun gets on stuff like that, so I took this picture.

Normally it’s April before we begin seeing leaves on anything around here.  One of the first things to leaf out is is always the Honeysuckle.  Here we are in the middle of March–a month that is usually still pretty certain about it’s place in winter–and we have Honeysuckle leafing nicely.  I even saw brambles with greening buds on them this morning.  Here’s a little example of the Honeysuckle.

After looking at these pictures you might be inclined to wonder whether my walking has any actual value.  While these pictures might lead you to wonder, let me assure you that there is great value in walking.  So far I have lost 29 pounds since beginning my (nearly) daily walks back around Thanksgiving.  When I began it was all I could do to go up and down the two big hills along my route.  In fact they initially seemed so daunting that I had to work up the nerve even to try.  I’m happy to report that I can now go up and down the two of them without huffing and puffing at all. For a long time I was experiencing minor knee pain on the hills.  Now I seem to have taken enough pressure off my knees that the pain is a thing of the past.  I have a long way to go, to be sure, but I feel great about the progress I have made so far.

More soon.

As I walked on Wednesday morning, I once again took the camera.  This time I decided to limit myself to the 60mm Macro lens.  I’m glad I did.  I got some fun images without relying on zooming to get me closer.

A couple of days ago The Most Wonderful Woman in the World pointed out this Violet that was going gangbusters.  Had to shoot that, don’tcha-know?

I found a similar event along my usual morning route.

These were popping up on a ditch along the roadside.  The ditch wasn’t along this stretch of the road, however.

Beautiful, don’t you agree?  I am grateful to God every day that I walk this route.  What a blessing He has given me.

I also passed these elderly White Pine trees.  The early morning sun made this a particularly spectacular morning.

I enjoyed this tattered POSTED sign and the way the sun hit it.  Carefully, I avoided violating the property line.  You never know who might take umbrage.  Fortunately my friendly neighbor is not one who would.  I just love their cozy little house all nestled in the trees.

Back at home again, I found some remnants of last year’s growth.  They remind me that things will not always be brown like these two old plants are now.

I hope you enjoy my stroll as much as I did.

This was my first idea.  I have always defined abstract as something completely unrecognizable.  Maybe that’s because I am a child of the ’60s and ’70s and there was a lot of abstract art floating around during my formative years.  The Interwebs define abstract as “Existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.”  So perhaps a photograph doesn’t qualify at all.  I don’t know.

After seeing a couple of the images that Scott posted, I tried this idea:

Looking at it after I shot it, I decided that this just doesn’t fit my idea of an abstract photograph.  To me it’s more of a pattern.  The next morning, I noticed that a small glass-topped table we have on our front stoop was wet from overnight rain.  On closer inspection, I noticed that the glass was pretty abstract looking and thought that the water on top made it even more interesting.  Here’s the result:

I personally think this is pretty cool.  Finally, last night while watching some TV in our living room, I got the bright idea to take a picture of my Android phone after drawing some abstract stuff using a child’s drawing app with which our grandchildren love to play when they visit.

I did a few of these, but this one is the one I think best fits Scott’s assignment.

I enjoyed the walk very much.

Another Bend

I walked past a neighbor’s cozy home.

A Cozy Home

And also found beauty in my own backyard.

Home Again

White Pine

Snow Laden

I’m enjoying photography again!

A recent event proved to be the catalyst I needed to force me to take a hard look at why I didn’t want to make images.  I had to take a long and deep look into my reasons for taking pictures.  I had to consider whether maybe it was time for me to sell the gear and get out of the hobby altogether.  Here are some of the things I figured out.  Maybe they’ll help your thinking too.

Since June of 2006 when I bought my first DSLR I have been pretty ravenous about learning photography.  I have an RSS reader full of photography-related sites.  I have far too many books on everything from basic photography to advanced lighting.  As I have read more and more on the topic over the years, I found that I gravitated toward the professionals when looking for advice.  My reading filled my head with a lot of ideas about “good” photography and with those ideas, eventually there came a sort of fence around my photography that sapped the joy out of what had started as a very enjoyable hobby.  Essentially I found myself so concerned with “doing it right” that I was no longer doing it at all!

I studied light and I know more than I am likely ever to need, but I found that in my attempts to actually put all that knowledge to use I only wanted to shoot stuff that took a lot of work to set up.  As a consequence I just didn’t bother.  I simply didn’t want to do all the work of setting up and tearing down a ton of gear simply to take a picture that wouldn’t be fully appreciated by anyone who was not an advanced photographer but would be criticized by most advanced photographers.

Some time ago I decided that what I really wanted to shoot was people, yet I found that I was no good at directing them, and I was afraid to even ask if I could shoot them.  That is not a formula for success and it led to a lot of frustration for me.  Consequently, I took a lot of candid shots of our grandchildren–none of which will ever see the light of day on the Internet.  Many of these shots were very nice and people who saw them could see that my skills had improved.  That was rewarding to hear, but I was continually unsatisfied because I wasn’t doing all the things the big names on the interwebs said I should be doing.

Observing what the Internet thought leaders were doing with their photography left me feeling inadequate and frustrated.  I wanted to show that I can take photos as good as many of them, but I just wasn’t in a position to do that kind of work.  As photography is a hobby for me and I have a family and extended family with which to be concerned, my time for shooting is limited.

So as a result of an event, my wife and I got talking very seriously about the priority I should be placing on photography equipment relative to our joint goals and priorities.  After some very difficult soul searching I think maybe I have figured out what I need to do.  I think I need to get back to my roots as a photographer.  I need to face the fact that I am a photographer of opportunity more than a photographer of purposeful planning.  By that I mean that I do not tend to go off on excursions for the express purpose of taking pictures.  Instead, I tend to take pictures in the places in which I find myself.  I plan to make more time for that kind of photography.  The Most Wonderful Woman in the World has made it clear that she is more than willing to sit in the car and play Sudoku or something while I go off for a while to shoot pictures during our journeys.

Last Saturday we had an errand to run that took us near the New York-Vermont border.  I used this opportunity to put my plan into practice.  Below are a couple of the images that resulted.

All Saints Episcopal Church - Hoosick NY

All Saints Church