Archive for April, 2009
Smyrna Jonquil Festival
I can’t believe that I actually had a show where it didn’t rain. I wasn’t sure how to act without a rain suite. It was warm and sunny both days at the Smyrna Jonquil Festival. The attendance was huge both days and I think everyone was ready and willing to get out and visit with the artists. It was a continuous procession of baby strollers and dogs on leashes.
This is a real good show. JRM Management did a very good job putting the show together and had a lot of good entertainment throughout the day. I was fortunate, or unfortunate to be across from the main stage. On one hand, I had a very large amount of people congregating in front of my booth to watch the entertainment. This translated to a lot of traffic in my booth. On the other hand, I had trouble communicating with customers at times because of the loud music. I’m not sure I want that same space next year because of the noise. Overall, it was a great weekend!
Watching Glue Dry
My world is centered on watching glue dry. No matter how many projects I have in progress, invariably, somewhere in the process, I have to glue something and wait for the glue to dry. Most everything I glue up has to have 24 hours to fully cure. It’s not that big an issue except that the more items I have glued up and in clamps, the more places I have to find to set these items until they are ready to come out of the clamps. Today was no exception.
I assembled the raised panel doors for the bar I am working on. Once I got the spaceballs in the grooves, I glued the rails to the styles, clamped them square, and then set them off to the side. I have a small shop and with the doors, a few cutting boards, and an assortment of cabinetry in various finished stages, space was becoming a challenge. I needed a little diversion from watching glue dry, so this afternoon I took a break and worked on bookmarks.
I glued up scrap wood a couple of days ago and put them in the corner while….you guessed it, the glue dried. I have a two day show in a week and I needed to build my inventory of bookmarks back up. Bookmarks are one of those easy things to make, and sells well at shows because I price them at $5 each. At slow shows, bookmarks have made the difference between breaking even and losing money. The Virginia-Highland show last weekend was very slow due to the weather. However, I saw a small profit because of my bookmarks.
I spend an hour cutting out strips, glue, clamp, and wait. The easy part is cutting them out. Today I cut out 55 bookmarks on the bandsaw in about an hour. I set the fence to about 1/8” from the blade and ran block after block though the blade. Thirty minutes later, after running through the drum sander to get them to the final thickness, they are ready for a clear coat finish.
Virginia-Highland Show
The Virginia-Highland show is part of the AFFPS (Atlanta Foundation for Public Spaces). They promote different shows around the Atlanta areas all summer. These are Saturday and Sunday shows where you can do one or both. The neat thing about the shows is that you can apply as late as the Thursday before the weekend show. They also provide tents for a small fee if you don’t want to mess with putting your own tent up.
The show promoter, Patrick Dennis, is one of the best promoters I have worked with. His shows are very organized and he really gets involved with the artists to make them feel at home. At this weekend’s show, he was there all day, wandering around talking to everyone, and even picking up trash. I intend to do more AFFPS shows during the summer.
Making Doors
Well, I have a show tomorrow and I didn’t have to do anything today to get ready for it except load the van. Yea! I got a lot done today on the bar cabinets for my basement remodel. The cabinets are done with the exception of the doors. Making raised panel doors are not difficult if you have the right tools. It’s just a little time consuming. If I need a few doors, I will make them myself. If I have a large project, like a kitchen, I generally outsource the doors to another company. Fortunately, the bar only needs four doors so I am making them myself.
It’s a pretty simple thing. I just had to determine the dimensions for the frames, called rails and styles, and rip the frames to a width of two inches and cut them to the right length. After all the rails and styles are cut, it’s just a matter of running them through the router to cut the matching profiles. Cutting the edge profile on each one of the rails and styles is the easiest part. Using a router bit made specifically for this purpose, I just run each rail and style against the fence the length of each piece. This is done on one side only.
The next part of the process requires the use of a matching bit which is a mirror image of the first one. This bit is used to cut the end of each rail, which is the horizontal top and bottom door pieces. Because this cut is across the grain, or a cross cut, the pressure is pretty intense against this small area. It is just about impossible to hold it by hand or even with a miter gauge. If the cut is not exactly perfect and even, it will not fit flush into the style. For this reason, I use a jig made specifically for the operation. The jig firmly holds the rail and keeps it from pushing back from the pressure of the router bit.
After all the smoke clears, I have a style and rail that has matching profiles cut into them. As you can see, they fit together perfectly. The only thing left is to glue up the panels to go inside the frame. Once I have a glued up panel, I will use a raised panel bit to cut the profile that gives the panel the raised look.
Sunny and Warm!
It’s nice having the garage doors open in the shop for a change. I seem to get more done when the doors are open and I can get fresh air flowing through the shop. It probably won’t be long before I have to close everything up and turn on the air conditioner. Atlanta can get real hot and humid (what we call muggy), and it can be very uncomfortable when wearing a dust mask and safety glasses with sweat dripping off my nose.
I have a show coming up in about three weeks and I’m glad I have a lot of product in inventory right now. I need to get this basement remodel finished in the next couple of weeks and I don’t have time to deal with making cutting boards. The customer wanted everything finished in time for the Masters golf tournament, which is next weekend, but I don’t think we are going to be 100% by then. The electrical and drywall is complete, but the drop ceiling and carpet still have to be done, as well as, trim and paint. Every time I think we are almost there, I find more things that need attention. Of course, the homeowner making changes every few days doesn’t help matters. It’s going to look good when finished.
