Quickie Work Bench : A table from six scraps

Last year I pulled these six scrap boards from of a dumpster behind an old Ingles. They're pretty badly cupped but otherwise solid, hard yellow pine 2x12s.

 

It's amazing what people get rid of during a tear-out.

I squared up the boards and made some rips.

All of the wood for this project is stacked on the left. The only scraps are on the right.

You may have noticed that for way too long I have worked without a bench. Cuts were made out on the deck and most pieces were assembled on the floor.

So this is long overdue. 

 It's a simple design from scrap lumber and it went together quickly. If every project could be like this...

 I won't be making any more cuts out here.

This helper really digs it.

 He also helped me install additional bracing from the leftover cutoffs.

Little known fact about furniture biology: tables asexually reproduce more tables. It's a fascinating life cycle.
] j [

Adventures in Sierra Nevada Land: Clover's Rabbit Hutch Part I

In my ReBoot, I offered a dedicated post to Clover's rabbit hutch. I have so many fun images that I've split it into two parts. The story begins in Mills River, North Carolina where Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is busy constructing the largest 'craft brewery' I could ever imagine.

Through Kitty Love of the Asheville Area Arts Council, I learned of a call to local artisans: to collect and make good use of abundant crates and pallets before they should be turned to mulch!

These pallets are built with a 17-foot diameter arc to transport 60-foot tall stainless steel fermentation tanks from Germany! You can see some of the tanks towering in the background.

 

(no shortage of plywood scraps)

 

It just goes on and on. These images don't even show everything. Don, the Site Manager, took me around from pile to pile so I could see what was available. Along the way he educated me on Sierra Nevada's green building initiatives. However, I wasn't permitted to take images of the actual building sites.

We joked that the stack pictured below is only lacking a few posts and drying in and you have an instant cabin with a deck!

 Unfortunately, two standard sized pallets was all that I could fit into the Love Machine that day.

Back home, I set to the task of deconstructing my scrawny pallets. The larger one contained some decent boards and lumber. Virtually all of the wood available was heat-treated and so dimensionally stable and (relatively) free of insects.

 (below you can see the 'HT' stamp)

(the Juju jar is quickly filled with scrap nails)

The next day, I lured Justin into the fray. He came for a short visit with Charlie.

 Yup, almost Nine-Inch-Nails.

 

We grabbed three long pallets similar to the one below. The largest was a couple feet longer than this one.

Cutting the boards loose proved to be the quickest way of disassembly. Someone in Germany went overboard with the ring-shank nails . . .

 We agreed that for the use of his truck, Justin should take the choice material: straight clean pine timbers.

We had two other helpers along that day and they were thrilled to tour the Brewery site. After all, they were required to wear hard hats. This one is destined to have his tongue carried away by birds:

 They did a wonderful job of neatly stacking the boards upstairs in my workshop.

Just kidding; I had to do that part. But they did happily bring it all upstairs while Justin and I were busy cutting and whacking away.

The next day, I graded and stacked the wood; now I am ready to get to it!

How's this for synchronicity? Sixteen prime boards (relatively uncupped, unbowed, unchecked & untwisted) and the number sixteen randomly appears twice. In the end I needed exactly these sixteen boards for siding on Clover's rabbit hutch . . .

I might make a cutting board from the top piece there. I wonder, would that knothole be annoying or useful?

ReBoot: material pile

  (Mom's old boots)

 Time has certainly been happening for a while since I last published.
As you might expect, material has been piling up, like scrap wood.
What follows is a year in a life, a good year gone by.

This dresser was decrepit, musty, and delaminating. Hours went into rehabbing its function before I could get down to aesthetics. A good helper helped me to an imaginative transformation when we began to peel off the layers. And of course the finished product needed some pink.

Then there was a real job: good while it lasted, a fair share of suffering, plenty of laughter and in the end it ended. I found myself working in very beautiful places. Wonderful old scraps were commonly found and in them I rejoiced.

As always, I found time to explore my relationship with fire . . .

Beauty abounds.

 At some point I handled much more T111 siding board than ever intended.

I certainly didn't care enough for my health and safety, but here I am still alive.

At times, this work afforded me places of space and of peace.

With the family, I visited a workshop of some boatwrights.

In Hickory, I trapped four racoons in three days. First came ginormous Purina-fed Rocky and then his perhaps-mate Ramona. Then there was Beezus, Ramona's perhaps-little-sister, pictured below. Yet another, even smaller raccoon was next and I took perhaps-Rocky&Ramona's-lovechild very far away.

After this Rocky and Ramona returned and we had a serious talk in which Rocky was told they should never come back. And they never did.


With Justin and Charlie I helped repair roof, soffit, fascia, and rafter tails on a much-loved old family getaway on Lake Norman. We also cleared much brush and fashioned a new cover for the pump house.

Charlie is the dog.

Justin visited me in Asheville when I learned that Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is giving away very good crate lumber. As massive equipment and machinery are unpacked at their new east coast flagship in Mills River, high-grade mostly-German crates are free for the taking. Don, the Site Manager, gave me a little tour and a run-down of the incredible efforts they are making to reduce the impact on the environment.

(a very small sample of what is available)

 (note the size of the nails)

Pictured above is one of the helpers who moved my share of the booty upstairs.

I took on a week of work on my Mom's land, a general farm-and-garden variety: replaced a barn-post, cleaned and repaired metal roof and gutters, built raised beds, mixed trenches for asparagus, hauled well over two tons of fieldstone down a steep mountain pasture with a wheelbarrow, and hung a new swing.

I even managed to make it all fun!

Now it may seem impossible, but my next caged animal is even cuter than the last:

Clover the Bunny now has a new home, built almost entirely from Sierra Nevada pallet boards.

 This one will definitely be getting a dedicated post before long.

And finally, awhile back I was inspired by this hardwood floor in a little furniture shop, old and honest.

 And now I know to what end.

More to come as it progresses . . .

] j [

ps -I believe the "tea-biscuits" in the last image are aged Southern Red Cedar. I'm slicing them from a rough sawn timber cutoff I found in a closet tear out. I'm not an expert on ID-ing hardwoods so if anyone has a better idea, let's hear it. But let's not belabor the identification, or we might end up like this guy.