Paul: Woodwork
Last year I found out the local library has a laser cutter. I immediately fell into an obsession with making wooden squiggles out of the "Spectre" aperiodic tile. I had never done any "working" with "wood" before.
I'd been lately thinking about trying something more involved, craftwise. Our kitchen knives have suffered the indignity of living out of their retail boxes for years, and I've always thought the idea of a magnetic wall-mounted knife rack was very clever, so I wanted to take a crack at it.
After ruminating on the notion for a while, it hit me that if I could make a really, really pretty one, it might make a worthy anniversary gift.
Molly and I were married on 7/7, which we realized only after the fact is the date typically associated with modern celebrations of Tanabata. Tanabata is a very romantic holiday and full of promising imagery, so I made a couple of sketches of a design riffing on the idea of "two stars separated by the Milky Way".
My plan was:
- cut a piece of hardwood to a reasonable size
- saw a thin piece of veneer off of the face
- laser cut the veneer and stain alternating sections to create the two-tone effect
- inset rare earth magnets into the hardwood
- glue the veneer over the top of the magnets
- apply some kind of finish
I had never done any of this before, but each step seemed plausible enough.
First I took the library's certification orientation to use their richly-appointed wood shop (previously I was only cleared for laser use).
Then I looked up where to buy wood in Columbia and discovered Noble Hardwoods five minutes away. I traipsed into a warehouse that was absolutely not a consumer-facing space, but Jim gave me a friendly greeting, listened to my halting explanation of the project, and handed me two chunky pieces of oak scrap for free.
"Just buy from us when do your next project," said Jim, and gave me some apple juice for the boy. Jim: As long as we live in this town, I will buy wood from no one else.
I finalized the design in Inkscape:
Then I ordered a hundred and twenty 3/8" x 1/8" rare earth magnets from Total Element.
Then I went to the library and started cutting.
Now how about that.