A Day in the Workshop

On Saturday, I worked with Mr. Huminski for a little under 3 hours. We started by determining the amount of wood we needed and seperating the wood into the needed width for each pile. We created 3 piles of 3/4 in. wood, 1/2 in. wood, and 3/8 in. wood. We then used a surface planer to plane the wood down to the width that each pile needed to be. It was a long process in which you must slowly plane the wood down by putting the pieces through the machine numerous times. A sort of vacuum is attached to the machine so that all the sawdust goes straight into a large bucket. The bucket is about 3 feet tall and we filled it almost twice. After planing about 60 or 70 square feet of wood, we began building the front legs to the desk. They are each 30 inches tall so I had to cut them at the appropriate height. To create the correct width, I then glued two pieces together so that the two front legs together require four pieces of wood. The legs are now clamped together and drying.
It was a very successful start to building the desk. Dr. Huminski claims that planing is the worst part of the building process and I even enjoyed that so I cannot wait to get to the more enjoyable parts. We will continue working together in a week from Saturday.
The Senior Retreat was an excellent break from school. It was my first time at Windy Gap and I was extremely impressed. It is a beautiful place. Although we placed second, I am still very proud of my fellow Abominable Snow-Porcupines. We competed valliantly. Watching Walden chop down trees with a little knife to build our raft was quite entertaining. It was dissapointing to have to leave and I still think that we should make another trip up there before the year is over.