Best vacation EVER

I'm doing well: best vacation ever...!!!


Similar to professional chefs (well: I imagine) who have several dishes going in parallel -- I have four(?) projects that I'm hoping will all get completed by the end of my two-week vacation.

I putter along with one, until I reach a stopping point (usually gluing or applying an oil-based finish), then let it "rest" overnight as I turn to the next one.


The projects are:

1. Making substantial progress on my mini-drumkit in a suitcase.  I've been working on this during most weekends for the last month or two (would have to check the date-stamps on the photos I've been taking).  Lots of minor components:  as mentioned above, when one needs gluing or oiling, that's the stopping point for that specific component -- so I turn to another.
2. Making a stool out of a wooden seat that I got from a co-workers wife, plus some thick branches that I've been saving for about five years, for just such a project!
3. Making a stool-slash-endtable out of a short stump or piling (the local style of architecture would raise houses up on "stumps" -- basically pilings -- like this -- but made of wood.  The total length is about the width of an office chair -- so, pretty short, so I'm having to engineer a solution.
4. Recording a song that I wrote a few weeks ago.  It'll be the first song that I've recorded that has me playing actual drums -- rather than using a programmed drum machine, or just foregoing drums. 
5. I picked up (used; online) two wooden boxes that will go under my desk at work to hold some of my "things" (e.g. I have a spare change of clothes -- just in case I totally spill; also a towel (Hitchiker's Guide); also a pillow and a blanket...).  I'm patching some holes, oiling them, and doing a mod to the bottom of the larger one.
6. Miscellaneous lathe work:  two weekends ago my next-door brother in law (the mechanically-minded one) repaired my lathe (an easy fix; duh) -- so I've been having a great time making various pieces of wood cylindrical.  It's full of micro-reinforcements (e.g. seeing the shavings fly off; continually changing the shape of the workpiece) that makes it inherently enjoyable to me (but YMMV).  Lovin' it; not yet tired of it. 
7. Creating an auger-ing jig for stool-making, to control the angle of the hole that I bore in the seat (the legs are then mounted in the holes). 
8. Planted some date pits (hoping they will sprout); planted a sprouted avocado pit in a large pot; and have suspended another avocado pit, and also a mango pit (seed?) in water to try to sprout them.
9. Have re-ground a skew chisel blade (picked it up at some garage sale, perhaps a year ago?) and tang, and will probably turn a handle and mount the blade.
10. Finally finished sharpening the hewing hatchet that I modded from a "regular" (symmetrical) hatchet. 

Regarding the lathe:  having a functioning lathe now opens the world of possibilities for making stools.  Before, I could cut a square or rectangular tenon on the end of a stool leg, then chisel a corresponding mortice in the seat -- but, that's a pain.

Whereas:  with a lathe, as long as the leg is short enough to fit in the lathe (not sure about tall stools...), you turn a round tenon, and then just drill a hole in the seat:  easy!


Anyhow:  grand times; making progress on all of them; and will have at least some things to show for the vacation.   :)


At some point, I'll post photos and create blog entries on most or all of these...   ;)


--GG