After the framing and siding is on everything seems to slow down.
Today I got the attic door finished. Since the opening was not exactly square, and this is primarily to seal out drafts, I shaped the door to fit the opening. Two sides had to have a taper cut off, and one just needed trimmed. So how do you trim a board from zero on one end to 1/8" cut on the other end? Belt sander - maybe. Table saw - maybe. Band saw - umm... no. Hand plane -
Since I don't have a woodworking bench, I use my table saw to clamp work to. OK, why don't I have a woodworking bench? Because I want to make my own. And I'm rather proud I don't only put off my wife's projects.
I even have lumber set back to make a bench, when the cotton's high and the corn's growing and there ain't no fields to plow (plough)
Planing the edge of a door is surprisingly easy with the door laying flat. You can see your line clearly, plane to it with the plane tilted up slightly to avoid undercutting the other side, then finish off with the plane held vertically. Easy as 3.14159265358979.
And who doesn't like to make long smooth curls in near silence. Stepping on them is even a joy.
I had a twist in the door due to doweling without clamping. I didn't worry about getting it flat because I expect to use a simple clamp to hold it shut, and a twisted door works great when you get to select where it is clamped.
I decided to make a butterfly clamp, then changed my mind and went to a bow tie design but finally settled on a propeller design.
Maybe it is a bow tie after all, or a butterfly
Made the clamp out of bois d'arc, or is it hedge apple, or is it Osage orange? I don't know, all three names apply to the same wood. Very strong, very hard, very tough, very pretty. And it holds the door very securely.
I had to go to the local nearby town (Cleveland, OK) this morning for business. While I was there I almost went to Wallyworld to buy a drill powered paint mixer. But it seemed like I had one. Went home and found a new one in my painting supplies drawer.
Not only is it brand new, it was made in USA!
But not recently. I've probably had it twenty years. Why was it hard to open it? It is old enough I wanted to preserve the entire package. And you wonder why I need more space.
So as therapy, I opened it. Or was it punishment?
A little miter discussion. Many years ago (in the nineties) I landed a contract to make trivet frames for an artist whose full time business was painting on clay tile and wholesaling his art at the national gift show conventions. He was successful and wanted to expand into wood framed trivets. Here's one we made for my employer at the time.
And the back
If you look carefully, you'll see the joints are a little loose on the inside. The fastener I chose to use is the Senclamp. It's a wide shallow "U" with a slight taper over it's length. Driven in it pulls the joint together. But in the oak, it also bows the wood slightly. I wanted the points tight as that looks better when someone picks up the item in a store and expects it to be perfect.
So to meet the need, I had to be able to make good consistent joints. I bought a Delta chop saw and removed the table. The table was replaced with a piece of plywood and shop made fences. The front fence had a fabricated hold down to keep the stock against the fence.
Hold down was about where my left hand is located. We would push stock through past a mark on the table and chop quickly with a 100 tooth Freud blade.(over 10,000 cuts in oak on that blade and still no tearout) We had the trigger tied back and used a foot pedal to operate the saw. That makes the first cut.
In order to be consistent, I didn't want to adjust the saw angle to finish the pieces (the stock is not symmetrical) so I added a second fence at 90 degrees from the first. This fence is adjustable. The right hand wing nut is over a slot in the fence, so it can be loosened to adjust the fence to exactly what I want. Eventually, I settled on about 44-1/2 degrees to keep the points together even after the Senclamp spread the wood.
Clamping a stop to the second fence assures each piece is cut to an identical length, one of the most important criteria in getting a tight joint.
I picked up an old piece of stock and made four pieces. The fit together pretty well.
I was selling frames in the 90's for $1.50 each and I provided the wood. I had the wood milled by a custom mill company and got 14 to 18 ft pieces. Eventually we were making a few thousand per month. I hired the son of a friend on a piece work basis. he was making $15/hr and I was making $10 on each of his hours. We were making LOTS of cuts. The Senclamp is a hand tool, and I made a foot powered tool to hold it, used a wooden spring to contact the safety, then the wooden spring would flex and trip the tirgger. We had fences to align the two pieces to be joined. Quick and slick!
We did that for about three or four years. The artist contracted cancer and the business stopped as quickly as it started. I had about a thousand frames in stock I eventually burned (I just can't keep everything
) I still have several thousand feet of the frame material but have not used very much, all stock was paid for by the operation. Can you see the stock in the rafters?
Thanks for looking in!
The machine I like best is my circular sock knitting machine. It's really neat.
The Globetrotters line made me P my pants. I admire your wittiness and being a jack of many trades. Just went through all 33 pages over the past 2 nights, you've made some serious headway in short time 
Our double bed is a nice contemporary combination of stainless and Rimu(local hardwood not unlike red oak) which I made when we bought our house and it has not been thrown out yet. 
I was taking the picture and I DID NOT SIT IN THAT CHAIR
and my stash grows
