Last night Heather and I went to see the traveling production of the musical Hamilton here in Reno. We loved it and this morning my thoughts are turning towards the theatre:
If all the world’s a stage – where is the audience sitting?
Just read about the set designer who got fired for not making anything. They said he didn’t make a scene …
Our local postal worker wants to become a comedian, but, I don’t know, his delivery is awful.
I acted in a play on a farm. It wasn’t good and we got mooed off stage.
I tried writing a script once but it just turned into a play on words.
My friend is opening a new shadow puppet theatre. The business plan says he’ll make a fortune – those are just the projected figures.
New paper reported a thief broke into the theatre and stole the spotlight.
I’ve been able to smuggle chocolate into movie theatres – I always have a few Twix up my sleeve.
We ended up leaving the play after the first act. The program said, “Act II – one year later” and we couldn’t wait that long …
I kept telling everyone that the Titanic would sink, but then they threw me out of the movie theatre.
Be nice to the lady selling pop corn – she’s made a lot of concessions.
Why do actors have great hair? They want the perfect part.
I’ve been busy this week, but not a lot to show for it. What I have done is:
Two birds are done. Third is in progress and the fourth is waiting its turn. The blank is wait for a bird to land on it.
I’ve been spending an hour or so a day working in the shop shed cutting the birds out. I have two ready to paint and am cutting the third. A couple of things I’ve discovered about my new workspace is that I’ll need some kind of shutters or blinds and I’ll need to work on the ergonomics of my scroll saw. In the late afternoon, the sun cuts across the scroll saw table and casts shadows that make it hard to see the pattern lines so I’ll need some kind of window shade to fix that. I’ve also noticed that my current chair for the scroll saw has me at the wrong height so I’ll need to make an adjustment. The little light and magnifier I current have is a bit small for these old eyes so I might be on the lookout for something bigger and brighter.
In the big workshop I had to make a platform for my new cabinets:
The cabinet platform.
The garage floor isn’t flat and it slopes. This platform is about 3 inches high and lets me adjust for the irregularities of the floor and as a bonus makes the center section a little higher which will be nice for workshop. Next step is to start connecting the four units together and make a countertop for it.
That’s about it from here this week – if you need me, I’ll be in the garage.
Sunday is Halloween so I feel morally obligated to offer you these insights about things that go bump in the night (or stop by your house to get candy). Well, I hope it doesn’t rain on Halloween – that would dampen a lot of spirits.
Ghouls like demons because demons are a ghoul’s best friend.
I’ve heard that ghosts like to go to bars for the Boos.
I heard that the headless horseman decided to go into business. He said he just wanted to get ahead …
The mummy wasn’t allowed to go to school with the witches because he couldn’t spell.
I was told that being kissed by a vampire is a pain in the neck.
Did you hear about the vampire who was having trouble with his house? It’s a grave problem.
Do you know why skeletons are so calm? Nothing gets under their skin.
Werewolves hate flea markets.
A skeleton walked into a restaurant and asked for an order of spare ribs.
Who won the skeleton beauty contest? Nobody.
The vampire got a bad case of heart burn after he had a stake sandwich.
They had to put a fence around the graveyard because everyone was dying to get in.
My son asked me to fix his broken Jack-o-lantern so first we got some pumpkin patch …
A witch just asked me to build her a garage. Well, really it was more of a broom closet.
It’s been about 18 months since I’ve done any serious scroll saw or marquetry work. I’ve been itching to get back to it so even though I’m not 100% done with setting up my workshops, I went ahead and started working on a project. I have to say, it just feels good to be making something, just to make it. The workshop is setup enough for me to do a small project and there are still some choices I have to make about storage and work surfaces so doing some work out there gives me an idea of what I’ll really need.
Since we’re moving into the Christmas season, it makes sense to do some tree ornaments. Years ago I did an intarsia bird project that Heather really loved so her request was that I do some kind of bird ornaments. I looked through my stash of patterns and didn’t really find what I wanted so I went on-line and found some nice simple birds to make this year:
Bought this pattern set for bird ornaments.
At least one of you should recognize the name. Sheila is among the top scroll saw pattern designers around and this set really fit the kind of project I wanted to do. There are eight birds in this set and there is a second set with another 8 for 16 birds all together. Haven’t decided if I’m going to do all 16 or just a selection – depends how much scroll sawing I want to do before building more fixtures for the shop.
The process starts with cutting out the paper pattern and gluing down to a pice of wood. I’m not doing anything fancy on the wood here, just using some of the excess flooring underlayment I’ve got. Heather wants to paint these so the kind of wood didn’t really matter. Here’s one of the birds in process (it’s cut from a 4 inch by 4 inch square):
Starting with the cardinal.
Each ornament has a back ring for the bird to sit on and I’ve finish a few of those:
The back ring. Needs a touch of sanding.
That green mat is really this:
My third hand for cutting veneer. Yes, that’s a rotatory cutting mat I bought from the quilt shop. Works for knife cutting.
Normally I use it for cutting marquetry stuff but it comes in handy for lots of things. My scroll saw is currently setup under a window in the shed:
The scroll saw in its new home. I like it in front of the window, nice natural light and a view of our backyard
In my last shop, I didn’t have a window to look out of and this is so nice to have a window with natural light and a view of our backyard.
Don’t want you to think I’ve stopped working on shop setup – here’s what I just had delivered for my big tool shop:
Kitchen cabinets for the workshop so I don’t have to build them.
Yes, cheap kitchen cabinets for shop storage. I’ll be putting a counter top on the base units and the two tall cabinets are sold as pantry cupboards. In between those cabinets I’ll be putting up some pegboard for hand tools and things. I had thought about building cabinets for this shop, but that would take time I’d rather spend at the scroll saw or sewing machine so big box store to the rescue. Not the greatest quality cabinets, but they’ll be fine for tools, blades and bits.
Well, that’s it for this week, if you need me – I’ll be at the scroll saw.
Andrew's View of the Week 