A project complete

This week, amidst the trials and confusions of the family, Blaine and I finally got a couple of days of "project building" in. The first project took us only about 6 hours in which Blaine "sweated" 68 copper joints. The first lesson, however was mine. I have been going along through life blythly, picking up pennies now and then, but once in a while deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to bend over. I had been operating on the "a penny saved is a penny earned, but a penny found is better than work" philosophy. However after reaching this ripe age, I had decided that it may not be worth the effort.... So I went to buy the copper for the project and found that copper prices had zoomed up while I wasn't looking. (Yes, I realize that pennies contain considerable zinc to save on copper.... but that's been going on for years.) Once we got the blade changed in the miter saw, we were off and running. We reduced 70 feet of 3/4 and 1/2 inch rigid copper tubing to 1.5 and 2 foot sections, smoothed the burrs and Blaine commenced to sweating joints as I was his "flux man", nursing my recently repaired right hand (carpal tunnel release surgery). After approximately 6 hours of work, including 4 trips to the hardware for more parts and 2 reconfigurations of the geometry of the project, we ended up with this work of art to hold up the wisteria over our back door. Here are some close up views of his joints. The first is of some of the first joints and the second is of one of the later ones. Problem here is that I didn't realize that the camera was focusing on the house rather than the joint until too late, but you get the picture of the improvement. The really great thing is that most people use this method to join copper pipe for water supply in the homes and businesses. On his first day, not only did he demonstrate considerable improvement in the appearance of his joints, but pretty well passed a "plumber's test. Before we set it up, we laid it on it's side and ran water through it, plugging end holes until we were assured that water filled the entire structure. We found only 3 small drips coming from those 68 joints. I'll bet most apprentice plumbers don't beat those odds.

So that was the first day of our "project session". The second day was devoted to a wood project. I had seen this little table with a drawer in Newport Oregon at an oceanside B & B we stayed in and took pictures for future reference. We modified the legs but hopefully it will be "better" than the original. Having designed the size of the project in our heads, we put together a "shopping list" the nite before. We went to breakfast, then to Lowes to sort through piles of "Top Choice" lumber. The problem is, I had left our shopping list in the other car, so we picked out lumber by memory (plus a bit more cause we didn't have time to go back for more on this day.. besides, you can always use a board or 2 in the garage for "just in case". We took it all home and started making sawdust fly. We cut and shaped and edged, the started assembly. Here is a pic of the parts of the first table (minus the top). Since we only had part of a day, this is as far as we could go as we had to wait for glue to dry before proceeding to the next step. We'll have to cut the profile on the top and finish assembling it on the next session.

One thing I learned long ago was to make 2 sets of parts so that after you assembled the first version of a new project, you had patterns for the next. Because of time, we didn't cut the profile on the legs for the second set of parts, but here it is ready to make patterns for more should he or I decide to make more of these tables. I have little groups of boards like this all over my "shop" just in case I decide to make another of something. If not, I guess the grandkids will have patterns to go with the pictures of things I have made (found in my "projects done" folder). After working on finding time for a "building session" such as this, we finally accomplished one. Probably not the most opportune time due to my recent hand surgery, Grandma Bea's injury, and the loss of the mother of our nephew (by marriage), but at least we got a start. And I must say that at this point we are proud of the fruit of our labor. Sure hope these table parts fit together when we try to assemble it?????