My sister had an accident on her bike on Saturday...she is having surgery on Wednesday. I just now made it home (didn't make my midnight deadline). I spent the evening with her while her husband was at work. I am beat. I will post this entry tomorrow...Kurt helped me assemble Woodlee today.
Post Update: I spent a couple of hours at Joanne + Kurt's house where Kurt was doing the skilled assembly part of the process for Woodlee for me. I originally thought that we could use long thin wood screws at the various joins for the base/legs, legs/body, body/head, and head/ears. And I thought we could use two little screw eyes to attach the paint brush handle tail. After working with Woodlee for a few minutes Kurt realized that little wood dowels would be better and actually follow along the theme of the project better, too. Here are some photos of Kurt at work on Woodlee's assembly.
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| Woodlee set up on Joanne and Kurt's dining room table. |
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| Bella, their dog. |
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| Woodlee in pieces in the workshop. |
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| Cutting the legs all to the same size on the saw. |
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| Kurt setting up the drill press. |
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| More set up. |
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| Drilling the holes in the legs. |
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| Drilling the holes in the base. |
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| Adding the dowels instead of using screws for assembly. |
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| The first dowel and wood glue. |
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| The legs are attached to the base. |
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| Putting in the dowels at the tops of the legs for the body. |
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| I absolutely fell in love with this tool -- Kurt said it is called a cat's paw -- but to me it looks like a little goaty foot. |
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| Awww...see? Little cloven goaty foot. |
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| And ta-daaaa -- Woodlee is very securely assembled...Kurt in the background returning from the basement with the surprise for the tail. |
Then it was time to attach Woodlee's tail. I had originally thought two little screw eyes would allow the tail to "wag". Kurt liked the idea, but suggested a nail with a big head in a hole that was slightly larger than the nail was thick...which worked for me, too. Kurt needed to go down to his basement for that and when he came back up to the workshop he had a bit of a twinkle in his eye -- he came back with a spring that could be inserted in a drilled hole and then 2-part epoxy'd to be secure -- and the tail would freely "wag" with very little effort. SO cool! I still need to stain the tail and add the epoxy but Kurt drilled the hole and fixed it in the tail for me.
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| It won't stick out this far when it is all done, but what a genius idea to use that kind of a spring to make the tail "wag"! |
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| Woodlee in the backseat of my car for the ride home. |
Thank You so much, Kurt -- I enjoyed watching you work with the tools and assembling Woodlee. I enjoyed collaborating and tweaking my ideas. I couldn't have done it without your help -- and the spring in the tail was pure genius!
A little while later I went to Sue's to keep her company and help her until her husband came home from work. We had a reasonably good time watching stuff on On Demand that Sue wasn't familiar with, we ordered dinner in, we kept her mind off of her ankle and the upcoming surgery (as much as possible) and we played Yahtzee (Sue on the sofa, me in Pepper's recliner). Fingers crossed for a successful surgery.
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| My poor sister Sue and her very badly broken ankle...being brave. |
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