Fun With Mortises and Tenons

...els of craftsmanship, I haphazardly fixed the table with screws and nails. Making the mortises and tenons took forever even though I was working with power tools–a plunge router to make the mortises and a table saw to cut the tenons. Of course, a great deal of the time in the workshop was spent in idle chatter. My workshop is right on the public sidewalk and serves as a kind of conversational trap for every passing neighbor and dog walker. Kelly s...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Root Simple’s Miscellanies

...cutting some grooves. My friends at @rootsimple might enjoy. #jig #router #making pic.twitter.com/bHqtYRjx2l — federico tobon (@wolfCatWorkshop) August 23, 2017 An Experimental Trickle Down Solar Water Heating System: https://t.co/MipsQ2Buj7 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) August 26, 2017 Saying goodbye to a garden: https://t.co/UhQ74Mgeqt — Root Simple (@rootsimple) August 26, 2017 America's Sorriest Bus Stop: Pittsburgh vs. Medford https://t.co/...

Read…

Cutting Dovetail Joints With a Router Jig

...at I needed to cut some dovetails. Dovetail joints are used most often for making drawers. The arrangement of the joint makes for a drawer that resists racking. Dovetail joints also prevent the front from coming off with repeated use. Even without glue the joint wants to stay together. It’s also, I think, very attractive. The two most common dovetail joints are through dovetails: Image: Wikipedia. And half-blind dovetails: Image: Wikipedia. Since...

Read…

We Grew a Cocktail Avocado!

This morning Kelly alerted me to the latest avocado news making its way around the internet tubes. Apparently a chain of grocery stores in Great Britain, worried about the lack of knife skills in our young folks (ugh), is marketing a seedless “cocktail” avocado. What is a cocktail avocado? Some deep Googling revealed that they aren’t some new variety, just un- or under pollinated Fuerte avocado. Since we have a Fuerte tree in our backyard, I deci...

Read…

A Spidery Christmas

...nka and, hearing this, a spider overnight spins its web all over the tree, making the spiderweb sparkle and glitter in the morning sunlight. This explains the tradition of tinsel on the Christmas tree. The various embellishments of the story depend upon the teller and the tale. Another version has the Holy Family hiding in a cave during their flight to Egypt. The benevolent spiders spin webs and cover the whole entrance to the cave. When Herod’s s...

Read…