Andrew's View of the Week

Wednesday Woodworking – recycling

Posted on 09/03/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

It’s been a busy week. The kittens are taking a lot of time, there’s still plenty to do to clean up from the remodeling and Heather and I took a nice day trip this last weekend (more about that on Sunday). That hasn’t left much shop time. Tonight I did manage to get a bit done on my shelving project. Four of the shelves are ready for installation and I started on the milling the rails for them. Since my goal is to reduce my lumber pile, I decided to make the rails and doors out of wood recycling from my scrap pile. The rails are being cut from an old bookcase. It was bookcase set I had built about 20 years ago for a different house. They don’t match the style here and are kind of beat up so time to make something new out of them.

Here are some pictures of the project so far:

The shelves, siting on a shelf, waiting to become real shelves.

One of the old bookcase shelves. Needed to remove the edging.

I got a whole stack of them shelves.

Tools of the recycling trade. You have to break things down and pull out all the old nails. And yes, I still need to buy a metal detector.

The table saw does a nice job of ripping the parts to width.

So there it is – I now have more than enough rails cut to width. Next step is to cut them to length and mount the slides to the shelves. The only thing that made me a little worried on this one was that I don’t have a metal detector to scan the wood for hidden nails. Hitting a nail with the table saw blade would be bad and expensive if I had to replace a blade because of that. I felt somewhat safe with cutting these shelves up since I knew how they were put together and know where the nails were used. I want to put doors on the front of the workbench to keep the dust and dirt out. Still need to figure out how that is going to work.

If you need me – I’ll be in the shop.

Andrew

Posted in woodworking | Tagged recycled wood, shelving, woodworking | 1 Comment

The Woods

Posted on 08/31/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

At the trail head feet go on boots,
and the mind is heavy with the world,
and up the trail trudge.
The boots carry burdens unseen,
and unknown to the people of the forest,
the hawk, deer, grass and tree.
All look at me – questioning the weight,
that holds the soul so far away.
Each answers the question unasked,
“journey on,” they say, “journey on.”

The old man of the forest lives under the canopy,
with arms out stretched and beard hanging long,
he bids me leave the millstones at his feet.
I sit with him awhile,
and listen as he whispers the stories,
that are the people of the forest.
I leave my burdens for him to guard,
and feet in boots I travel on.
I give him my story, my gift,
to him and his people.

I find myself above the canopy,
on the mountain top.
From ocean to bay,
from mountain to valley,
all the world is there to see,
and the hawk sings my soul.
To me it rejoins,
soaring from the heights to catch,
and with a breath,
my soul and I are one.

————–

Still stuck on poetry as I’ve decided to become a world famous poet (details to follow). I wrote this poem about nine years ago and still like it. Next post I’ll get back to a non-poetry topic.

Till next week,

Andrew

Posted in Hiking, Poems | Tagged forest, hiking, poem, Poetry | 2 Comments

Heart Beats

Posted on 08/24/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

Heart beats
Lungs breathe
Blood flows
Life

Breath interrupted
Touched by pain
Frightened by visions of death
The mind reals

Where is strength?
The body fails
The soul seeks comfort
The monitor above the bed speaks its warning

Then a touch
Cool water
Warm blankets
Comforting words as warmth in the veins takes away the fear.

“Breathe”
is the command
Breath is difficult to find
Life slowly returns

The cat lies on the bed
Fur slowly rising
and falling
Breathing

The wind blows in the garden
The shadows move across the ground
Dark night and sleep come
and in the dawn, breath

Heart beats
A warm cup of tea
Sits next to the cards
Email on the screen

A noise from the street
A bird settles on a branch
A phone rings
and hands move while the lungs fill

With relief
With comfort
With strength
With the possibility

That a new day will arrive.

—————

That’s it this week, just a poem. Wednesday I’ll update you on my woodworking and next week I’ll update you on my plans to become to a world-famous poet.

Till next week,

Andrew

Posted in General, Health, Poems | Tagged illness, poem, Poetry | Comments Off

Wednesday Woodworking – Shop projects

Posted on 08/20/2014 by Andrew Reynolds

This week I got started on the shop projects. After the kitten attack and moving most of my shop outside (stuff to be trashed is in the driveway, stuff to save is in the side yard), I’ve started work on some shop storage projects. Turns out I’ve got a lot of junk in the shop so I have thrown a bunch of trash out and have more to get rid of but still a of useful stuff I want to keep.

That is the one big problem in my shop – effective storage. That is a place to store things in an organized and ease to get to manner. I need places to store parts, works in process, lumber and all my tools. The first project I am working on is some pullout shelves for under my outside work bench. I’ll use these small tools, screws, nail, finishing supplies and so on. I’ll put doors on it to keep out dust and kittens.

Here are a few pictures of the state of things:

The wood that survived kitty poop and fuel oil is now outside waiting for the new lumber rack.

With the wood and dust gone my outside shop looks very clean and has lots of space.

Here is the outside work bench with all it’s junk. There will be 6 new pullout shelves to store and organize this stuff.

I’ve got material left over from the office closet project so I am using that to make the shelves.

So far the biggest help to my messy shop problem has been admitting that some things I’ll just never use. I’ve taken what I can to the thrift store or sent to recycling but there is stuff that is just stored garbage and that filled up my trash can this week. Even with all that, I still have a lot of material left to deal with. I plan on using up as much what is left on the storage projects. After the shelves are done, I’ll move on to a new inside lumber rack for new materials and improvements on the outside lumber rack where I store my scraps and “recycled” materials. Yeah, that’s it – I don’t have junk, I am a wood recycler.

If you need me – I’ll be in the shop

Andrew