What a difference a few days make. My electric was restored late Sunday afternoon. Thus ending the almost four day struggle to keep the water pipes and myself from freezing. Today the temperature climbed to almost 60F. No complaints with that.
It was actually so warm outside that I was able to sneak in a little shop time after work today. Sans heater. That, combined with my impromptu woodworking in the house over the weekend siege, allowed me to finish the mortises and dados in all of the corner posts. This joinery is repetitive which allows me to develop a rhythm to the work. All of the dados in each post are tackled at once. First I saw all of the walls, then chop all the waste, then pare all and finally pass the router plane through all to bring them to the final depth. I don’t often listen to music in the shop, but I find it helps establish the pace for this kind of work. Jerry Jeff Walker works for me. Your mileage may vary.
One thing that I’ve become acutely aware of is that, approach greatly affects accuracy. A bold, deliberate approach, devoid of any hesitancy, yields greater accuracy. I don’t mean rushed or cavalier. That increases the chance for error. No. Confident and controlled is what you want. I know this is basically common sense, but a lot of time and practice needed to pass before I was able to achieve it. For me it finally happened. I couldn’t tell you exactly when, but I do know its a whole new level of fun. Maybe this is what is meant by the zen idea of becoming one with the tool. Of course it may just be a fluke and everything will run off the rails the next time I’m in the shop. 😉
So the bulk of the post joinery is completed. All that remains are the end tenons. These I’ll cut to fit the mortises in the cross rails once those are complete. To that end, I completed the layout for the front and rear cross rails today before I called it quits this evening.
HILLBILLY DAIKU 
Zen and Jerry Jeff Walker. I like it.
LOL…I doubt those two appear together very often. But it work for me.
Greg
I *knew* one of us was going to be making sawdust in the living room, I just thought it was going to be me. I really like your approach to joinery, I’d love to see what you do with a toolbox. Somewhat gratuitous, as I’ve been toying with building a small tool chest myself.
As far as jams, I usually go with Lightning Hopkins. The pace sets the mood and lets me tune out and get into the rhythm.
Don’t think that you didn’t cross my mind when I was working away on my living room floor. 🙂 Funny thing is, the wife would have known nothing if I hadn’t posted about it on here. All evidence had been erased by the time she came home.
Don’t get too excited for fancy joinery on my Japanese style toolbox. I’m going traditional. Simple construction and nailed together. I’m working on a post that explains why.
Lightn’ Hopkins, now that’s old school blues. Awesome! Reminds me of when I lived in Memphis and would go down to Beale Street.
Greg
I like Memphis, I’ve been there two or three times I think. The National Ornamental Metal Museum is there, or at least was at the time.
I was thinking of making a toolbox for my marquetry tools, saw blades and so forth. Then I realized that aside from the chevy there are some tweezers, a knife, an upholstery pin and that’s it. I just need a small brown paper bag.
What you need is drawer under the seat of the chevy. LOL
It’s been better than twenty years since I left Memphis. I was 21 and had a lot of fun. Maybe too much fun a couple of times. 😉
I’m all for putting the iPod on shuffle and letting it do it’s job, of course ‘Up against the wall’ happens to be one of the songs on it…
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