2012?? Yoo hoo, Where are you???

Well. So much for THAT year!

After finishing the Japanese tool box my plan was to do some machine restoration. I started on a Continental made in Montreal jointer, but for whatever reason I could not get my machine restoration mojo back, so I wound up back in the shop working on a couple of long neglected projects.

First, it was the desk for my daughter. I guess it is only 2 years late now. I had previously built the body of the desk out of poplar and decided it was too ugly for words, and abandoned it. At some point I picked up some milk paint thinking I could hide the poplar, and so I finally did the deed. Two coats of black milk paint sure hid the poplar! The next step will be a couple coats of a clear coat, then some wax.

The top will be an east Indian rosewood slab. Probably put in a butterfly key to control the crack at the top. Various parts of the table as well as the slab I will use for the top are here:

And a small panel to cover up an attic access panel in our house. The panel is made out of catalpa with a poplar frame. Since I was in milk paint mode and the frame needed to be black to match the rest of the bathroom, it seemed the obvious thing to do was to milk paint it. It was nice to be able to use up a spare piece of catalpa that Ryan had cut for me on his very excellent bandsaw a couple years ago.

And the same piece after a coat of Tried and True:

And I have a load of arbutus in the kiln, should be ready shortly. Speaking of that, I had some guy email me last week looking for a piece of arbutus for his father in law who lives in France. Nice guy, he told me "you are all over the internet". I laughed and gave him a small piece, hopefully I'll get a similar chunk of olive or something in return.

Also cut up a bunch of Manitoba maple AKA box elder. I chainsawed it into chunks, then used my bandsaw to cut it into something resembling 1" thick pieces. Some I put in the kiln with the arbutus, some I put in my furnace room as shown here. If anyone is interested in some let me know.

And in the good news department I have extended my lease on the neighbour's garage for another year, and the new owner has agreed to have a roofer replace the leaky roof on it! So I will be snug as a bug in a rug until the end of Jan 2014!