Best selling wood projects - What You Can Do With Leftovers

Best selling wood projects

Shed time has been hard to find this weekend, as the rain-caused problems needed attention yesterday, and a trip to and from Coffs Harbour took up most of today.
As well, the tomatoes needed staking and the climbing beans had gone skyward without support. I was reminded of Jack and a certain giant. (Interesting little colonial story that one - use up all your own resources then go to another land and steal all the possessions of the inhabitant, before scarpering home and living happily ever ...)
I digress.
In trying to be more resourceful than Jack, I am pressing into service some re-cycled timbers collected from demolitions.
The bench is near complete. Last tasks were to panel the back for bracing, and to strengthen the unsupported particleboard shelf underneath.  Nothing fancy - a scrap of old masonite for the back and a piece of roughsawn roundback for the stringer.

The glued and screwed roundback stringer clamped to dry.

When I glued the nosing piece to the bottom shelf, I thought I had on hand more wood packers than were actually the case.  The glue was drying and I didnt have time to go cut some more - so - I did what every self deluding woodie does from time to time - I told myself that - just this once - it wouldnt matter, because the clamps would probably not mark the timber anyway.  

Doh!

The evidence is before you in the next picture.

After I removed the clamps, I sent myself to the corner to write out a hundred times - I must not listen to the little voice of stupidity that lurks in the impatience zone of the cerebral cortex. 

Gnats with lobotomies dont make this mistake. 

Double Doh!

 The near complete bench.

Next step will be to construct the carcass for the cupboard that will sit atop the bench.

I have a couple of demolition panels that I thought were meranti (pacific maple).  Turns out they are veneered solid pine core.  Good and solid with plenty of stability. 

veneered solid pine core

These will form the sides of the cupboard, and as an added bonus, they are already dadoed.  

The spacings arent what I would have chosen, but they are close enough.  

There will be a shelf divider-cum-mullion, (or maybe two, havent decided yet) in the middle, which will need dadoes on both sides.

Pre-dadoed panels  - eeeh ha!

This week in the shed is going to be interesting.

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Best selling wood projects - Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Best selling wood projects

Eons ago, in our first year in the Village, a good friend of my son thought to help us out, by delivering a grocers dozen of near-feral chooks that had been terrorizing Upper Rollands Plains. These, the boys had rounded up in one afternoons feathered version of catch the greasy pig.  A car boot load arrived just on sunset - and unannounced.
What the ...!
Where to put them - no chookhouse, no cages of any kind - in short - no preparations at all.  The boys stood there like cheshire cats, so proud of their contribution to Tele Point self-sufficiency.
The poultry spent the night in a zincalume garden shed, and the next day it was all hands on deck to .....lets go make a chookhouse.
There wasnt much in the way of materials - a little wire mesh, some scraps of corrugated iron sheeting, and an old childs swingset pipe frame without the swings.
Inside a day we had a lean-to roof and a half, and a wire enclosure with a rudimentary door.  Good enough for now - well build a better one down the track.
Seventeen years later, and the original dogs breakfast of a chook house was still there, and in need of a make over.

Out came the door, and in its place went a mezanine of nest boxes - three in all.  A new door was added in the side, and that same side extended to provide an A-frame yard. Another door, and we can walk in without stooping.  Add some more corrugated iron to protect against the southerlies and westerlies, and mesh on the northerly outlook - and it was nearly finished.
A small offcut of shadecloth to temper the summer heat, leaving a sunny corner for those cold days - and we are done.
All we need now is for the ladies to arrive and take up residence.
That should happen this week if the chicken gods are kind.

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