State Of The Project

It's a long project. Making four little bookcases requires so many steps as to be ridiculous, but it's nice nonetheless. If it were easy, then it wouldn't be such a good idea to try. In fact, we could make some analogies between building projects, and building confidence in ourselves and others, but it would become pretty forced, pretty quickly.

Right, how exactly does it work? Pay attention, class, as there won't be questions later. In fact, there may not be a later, if the rumours of the potato alien invaders are to be credited. To make one of these little three space cases, the following must take place.

One, and most obviously, you need a plan, which you can then use to know how much wood you need. Then, you need the lumber and the tools. This is all the preparatory work. Oh, and some furniture board to go on the back.

Two, you do your research and work out how to make the joints you're going to use in putting all the pieces together, and assess if you need any bits of equipment. In this case, there have to be four finger joints at the corners of the case, and four dado joints where the shelves meet the frames. Three, you get your nerve together, watch videos of how other people do these joints and use the saws and chisels, and then get down to actual manual work. Yes, manual work! No power tools exist in this world!

Four, we have the sequence of crafting steps. First, you measure and roughly cut the six pieces you need for the piece of furniture, leaving the back until much later in the process. Second, you plane the ends of each piece down to the measured lines as exactly as possible. Third, you mark the portions that need to be cut away for the finger joints and for the dado groove, and make saw incisions where necessary to reduce the amount of chisel work. Fourth, you go crazy with a hammer and chisel, while not hurting yourself too much in the process. Fifth, you treat your pieces. Sixth, you get the backing board, cut it to the required size, and then assemble all the pieces together using screws and good luck. You might have to make adjustments and do more work on the pieces here. If you don't have a work space inside, you may have to wait for weeks between spells of activity here, as rain pours down and all you can do is think idly about how you got all these scrapes, abrasions, back aches and delusions that it's all worthwhile.

Five, you assess what you've done and then... do more work! At this point, you still have to paint and finish, before finally wandering off into the limbo land of not having a woodwork project any more. This is, at the moment, only a fabled Nirvana. It may or may not happen. Oh, and you have to clean all the brushes after the treatments and the paint.

Was that all clear? Essays in the morning, please.

O.