long weekend

[cellio]

Today is Memorial Day. I live across the street from a cemetary, and it's surprising and a little humbling to see how many flags appear this time of year.

This weekend was mostly consumed by Pennsic construction projects. My camp, having already built a house (well, we contracted out the hard part there) and a kitchen, decided this year to replace our pantry tent with a structure matching the kitchen. We re-used the pavillion roof and are replacing the canvas walls with a wooden structure. It's going to be very nifty, and it looks huge inside even though it's the same dimensions as the pavillion it replaces. (Straight walls not subject to sagging or wind gusts will do that. I think its being painted white helps too.)

Construction happened all three days of the long weekend. I wasn't there Saturday, but that day they fabricated the roof support and some of the walls. (Also three new box benches, to solve together the problems of storage and seating.) Sunday was a fairly long day of, for me, sanding, priming, and painting. (I prefer not to be in the same room as power saws in operation.) Today was less productive because there weren't as many things in the pipeline (so more time was spent watching paint dry) and because of scattered rain, and probably because we were all tired. I sure feel tired out of proportion to the actual useful work I did today, and I got off lightly compared to some. Johan, the engineer and chief lugger of heavy stuff, must be exhausted.

Lesson learned: the vibration from a hand-held power sander and the process of painting stress some of the same parts of the hand and wrist. Different power sanders that look the same cause more or less vibration; I wonder if the difference is in power levels too subtle for me to detect, or in better insulation. I wonder if the right gloves would help. (It's not just sanders; I've had the same issue with drills in the past.)

The benches are finished but the structure is only primed (and the support beams aren't primed yet). We're going to need to spend some more weekends on this. But I'm really looking forward to using it at Pennsic!

There are four people or couples in camp who've expressed interest in building structures like these to camp in, but based on the amount of work, that could take a while. One per year is probably our max.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Why avoid the saws?

Bicycling gloves with gel padding in the palm are a delight when spending tons of time with hand-held sanders. I'm just saying...

[cellio]

Why avoid the saws?

I'm afraid of them. They have an unfavorable ratio of potential damage to reaction time needed to avoid same. The jig saw and I have an uneasy truce, but the circular saw is the enemy. :-)

Thanks for the tip about the gloves!

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I understand the saw thing - I have made friends crazy when I do woodworking with them. Every cut - I plan it, I plan what I'll do if the wood shifts, if the blade binds, I make sure that I never ever push in the direction of the blade in case my hand slips, etcetera. I'm very very careful.

Some years ago, we were making poles for 3 new pavilions in my driveway. After squaring 2x4 poles, I was taking the corners off of each one, 4 cuts each. So, for some 70 poles, that was 70 cuts to square, 280 cuts to take the corners off, or 350 cuts.

About, oh I guess, some 100 cuts in, I turned off the saw. My friends looked at me - "what's up?".

"I'm getting bored, and bored is not cautious, and that's not safe. Let's take a break".

Like I said, I make people nuts about safety.

[cellio]

I'm with you. I was once, unknowingly, careless around a table saw; I was just the flunky holding the far end of the board being cut, but I was standing in such a way that if the saw kicked and if the board caught in a certain way I would have gotten nailed. I was glad for the safety lecture I got when the saw operator noticed, and I now realize just how many things I don't know about saws. I don't want to make that kind of mistake again.

All of which leaves me idly wondering if it was smart for me to trade off hands when sanding today. For coarse work like sanding or painting walls I'm about as good with my left hand as with my right -- but I'm probably not quite as good, and does that matter? (For the sander, I mean; I'm sure it doesn't for painting. :-) )