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.