The joy of the buildsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #woodworking5 years ago

20181231_124058.jpg

This is a bar. The top is made from a panel of silky oak, that was atop a chicken enclosure, and the legs, support beams, and stabilizing bits were made from scrap pine and other various hardwoods.

I built this. Not the island, not the grass, not the boats.

The bar.

This was constructed over the course of just two hours, with me playing second fiddle to a colourful personality. I'm not a carpenter, and nor was the man who "had the vision".

Why build a bar? Because there was a boatshed that had no tables, and that is where New Year's Eve was due to be celebrated.

The process was a fairly simple one, although, fairly physically demanding:

  1. Lift piece of enormous pine from top of shed.
  2. Carry it approximately fourty metres to different shed, which contained all the tools.
  3. Cut it down to length, removing cracks and structural weaknesses in the timber.
  4. Plane down the bark from the side that would be the top of the table.
  5. Sand down the top using handheld belt sanders.

I'm going to stop the process there. Murphy's Military law about "hapiness being a belt fed weapon" - is absolutely true. This was the first time in my life I had used a hand-held belt sander, and oh, my, lord. These things make the job of sanding enormous planks of wood a joy.

The shrill wail of the machinery, the torque employed by its motor, and the grip delivered by the sandpaper itself made the tool an absolute joy to use.

Let's go back to the actual building, though.

Once the top is sanded down (and you get a bit artistic on the edges, cutting in, and rounding, at various areas, however you feel like it) - it's time to build a support beam underneath.

This was achieved by getting a straight piece of timber, finding the mid point of hte bar top, completing some maths, and then pre-drilling enough holes to ensure this would be firmly attached to the bar.

The legs are a simple T-Structure, attached to the underside support of the bar.

These were planed and sanded down in a similar manner to the remainder of the bar, but not in as much detail.

What's the point of building a piece of furniture, however if you can't see people enjoying it?

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Things like this happen when I go away on a trip with no plans to do any fishing, hiking, or other island-based activities. Someone starts a notion, I get a grasp of it - and that project gets completed.

This bar will be adapted in future to act as a piece of furniture beyond its initial use as a bar, but the sense of satisfaction obtained by building something, and then; having people use it for its intended purpose (without it falling over, or coming to pieces) made New Year's Eve, 2018 - an even better experience.

Even though the elderly gentleman's facial expression in this picture begs to differ.

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