A more complex pattern with the super-shiny pour-on epoxy finish. The whole thing is like a solid block of plastic now.
November 3, 2009
November 2, 2009
I know, I know. Get a life and all that. But these things are looking really good and deserve to be addressed because as I said before: free hardwood flooring.
Yesterday, I took my two prototypes over to my friend’s house (garage actually) who has a thickness sander. This machine took out all the changes in elevation and got rid of my silly angle grinder mistakes and produced a perfectly smooth, flat surface on both. He even gave me a couple of bottles of clear epoxy finish that he was not going to use. This is the stuff you usually only see on bars and/or the tables in Mexican restaurants with coins and stuff embedded in the surface.
I took them home and proceeded immediately to mix up some of the epoxy stuff. This is a strange material that is very viscous like honey but has a high surface tension and will seep into any crack now matter how small. It both fills the crack and locks the whole thing together into a solid mass. Like most things, the process is fundamentally simple but there are a hundred little things that you need to be aware of that can bite you. This inexorable crack seepage is a double-edged sword. It fills the cracks, yes, but it can also flow under the whole thing and stick it to your workbench. Luckily this occurred to me in time to rescue everything and I hurriedly arranged for a pedestal to sit things on so that the excess ran off the side and puddle on a piece of paper that I also hurriedly arranged.
Also, when bubbles form, you can pop them easily with the flame from a blowtorch held well above the surface. This is satisfying on several levels. You get rid of an imperfection and get to play with a blowtorch at the same time.
This crack seepage also means that you end up with little depressions where the epoxy flowed into the crack but hardened before the rest could flow in to the gap and make the surface level. Still, one can hardly complain. This is easily remedied by a second coat and the process has the advantage of getting a beautiful finish in place in one step. Two steps I guess when you add the leveling coat.
If I were to do it again, I would apply a very thin coat first with a brush and let all this seepage occur and plug all the leaks in the process. Then I would pour the top coat on. It would still be a two step process but would not involve any sanding. That’s always a plus. I find sanding to be a very unrewarding process. It helped when I bought a random orbit sander with easily replaceable disks which I replace often.
Amongst woodworkers, this thick, ultra glossy type finish is looked down upon. It’s considered the equivalent of too much makeup. Purists say that if you want your woodworking projects to look like they are incased in plastic, just use fake wood to begin with. But this really does accentuate the grain.
These things look like museum pieces when they get done. I might just frame one and hang it on the wall. I can’t get over how beautiful they are.
In the end, I’m not sure I can lay my hands on enough of this stuff to actually make an entire floor – at least not out of walnut. It would be pretty easy to lay my hands on enough oak though. I’m sure I could raid the woodpiles of all my friends and neighbors for a few sticks each and get enough for the job. But there is also a precision that is required that I haven’t quite worked out yet. Each of these, to make an entire floor, must be absolutely the same size; otherwise, the tiles would not all line up and the eye would go to those imperfections immediately and be a source of annoyance forever. I think that by building myself another jig for the table saw, I could solve this problem. It’s not important that they be any particular size – only that they all be exactly the same size. I suppose I could also just take all of the tiles and run them through the table saw after they are assembled and take off a tiny bit from each edge – that would force the consistency. The only design issue to be worked out is to avoid having any teeny tiny pieces that have to be cut since it is a dangerous business to do such things on a table saw and to cut tiny pieces by hand would be only slightly faster than weaving chain maille. I’ve done that too but would prefer a more expedient approach.
I also looked into the issue of whether you can glue these things down directly to concrete slabs and the answer is yes if you buy the proper adhesive. This is a fairly recent innovation so I’m lucky there. The stuff is pretty expensive but will allow the job to be done easily. Then there is the issue of how to break up the existing floor and get the concrete smooth. Perhaps you don’t do that at all, you just trowel a thick layer of adhesive right over the old uneven mortar that was used on the old tiles. I’ll have to answer this positively before doing anything else.
I’m a gnat’s eyelash away from being able to produce an intricately designed hardwood floor for my entryway. I’m talking about an intricacy and elegance that you might find in the palace of Versailles. And all at very little cost – only labor. That’s pretty exciting.
October 28, 2009
Now that I’ve had a few days to look at my parquet square, I’ve decided that I like it. It helps that so many others have said the same. Last night, I decided that the old-school pattern was boring so I chose another to try. As is my usual wont for overcomplicating EVERYTHING, the pattern I chose has a 45 degree miter ON EVERY SINGLE PIECE. There are about 20 pieces in every tile and most pieces have a two miters; one on each end.
All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time because it looks cool.
Still, I enjoy the process and as with all hobbies, it doesn’t matter how much time it takes. I just feel a bit silly looking at it from an objective distance. I won’t stop though.
Last night, I was trying to tool up for all these miters. The thing is that each of these pieces needs to fit exactly – to within the proverbial gnat’s eyelash. Anything less or more and the whole thing becomes skewed and you have an EPIC FAIL. So I have to be able to make fine adjustments. Plus you need to be able to cut these without also cutting off your finger on the saw. To this end, I completed a little table saw jig and set to work. Then, the in-laws came over and I had to stop. Dammit.
I’ll take up the task again tonight hopefully.
I’m not terribly good at seeing the big picture. I like the way this looks but I don’t really have a feel for how it goes with everything else in the house as far as color and style is concerned so I don’t know if it will work for actually covering any of the floors – even those small areas near the front and back doors.
For now though I think these things look awesome. All those miters are going to get tiresome soon. If I had to do an entire floor, I’m not sure how long it would take. Probably not as long as I think.
October 26, 2009
I set to work with great gusto on my parquet flooring project on Saturday. I had my bandsaw set up already and so I sawed up the remaining wood and ended up with a rather impressive pile of thin slabs which I sawed into strips on the table saw. I then got set up to cut these into smaller pieces of the correct length. At long last, I had a pile of pieces from which I could assemble one tile.
I glued these to a piece of plywood which was my substitute for the actual floor. After getting these down, I realized a slight mistake. I was making the classical woodworker noob mistake: I was relying on my own measurements rather than measuring one piece against another. At any rate, the length was off slightly which, when stacked up with the other pieces, amounted to a slight gap in the middle which admittedly is not usually noticeable when the tile is on the floor. Still, lesson learned.
One can never achieve absolute thickness consistency when doing things the way I was doing them so the resultant tile was a bit rough with the minute changes in height from one piece to another. That is easily remedied by sanding. Most of my mistakes in life can be traced to impatience and so I was again guilty of trying to hurry things along by using a sanding disk in my angle grinder. So the tile is wavy. Again, not really noticeable until you run your hand along it.
I put some shellac on it to see how the color and grain would come out and so I was done. The wavy grain that you find in wood from the branches of trees is really pretty and walnut has a very rich color when you put a finish on it. Still…
I’m not sure how well I like the color – it’s a bit dark for my taste. It’s pretty classy looking to be sure but I’m not sure how it would look to have these all over the floor near the front door. I’ll have to think about it and solicit Mel’s opinion. I intend to assemble one in a different pattern too to see how that looks.
October 23, 2009
This goes back to the big ice storm a few years back. A friend was called by one of his neighbors who had a huge walnut tree fall into her yard. She had already had it bucked into firewood length chunks but it was otherwise intact. He went and gathered it all up. He and another friends figured out how to take these large pieces, take the bark off, and saw them up into large pieces of about four to six inches in size and set them aside to dry.
He gave me one or two recently since a) he can’t figure out exactly what to do with such short pieces of hardwood and b) he’s a nice guy. Plus I gave him my film scanner.
Not long ago I saw an article in Fine Woodworking about using scraps to make parquet flooring. *DING* I thought “Let’s make some walnut flooring!”
So last night I began. I jointed one side and when it was flat I turned it 90 degrees and made the mating side flat and square. Thank goodness for that nice jointer I have (although I’m getting a bit of snipe on the back edge of each piece which I can’t figure out – better get out the manual). I then took these to the bandsaw. I raised my guide as high as it would go. I had attempted to build a rip fence some time ago and I installed this and sliced my first slab off. This same friend had also given me his old bandsaw blade when he upgraded to a larger saw a couple of years ago and this blade is special – it has carbide teeth. I had never seen such a thing before and as far as I know they are only available from Iturra who has no web site to shop from so I don’t know how much it cost but it must have been a lot. It made quick, easy work out of slicing through a four inch chunk of seasoned hardwood. I’ve seen mature walnut like this slow down a table saw so this is no small thing.
It was then that I found that my homemade rip fence was not square to the table. Note to self: measure a little more carefully in the future. The first slab was a bit thick so I moved the fence to make it thinner and sawed it again, slicing off an amazingly thin slab. It was awesome – good tools are wonderful. I took this thin slice and shimmed up my fence and was all ready to saw more slabs – square this time.
I went back and forth from the bandsaw to the jointer; slicing a slab then smoothing out the freshly sawn side of the big chunk until I had a nice pile of stock – about 5/16” thick. Just thick enough to put everything together and then run it through my friend’s thickness sander and leave it at ¼” thick.
Now, on to sawing this into strips from which I can assemble one 10 inch floor tile sized piece of parquet flooring. I can’t wait.
I was so excited by this that I ended up feeling as if I had chugged one of those gigantic cups of Starbuck’s coffee and thus had a very hard time getting to sleep. Perhaps I’m getting a bit too excited by this. It’s only wood after all.
October 20, 2009
Mel’s back. And thank goodness for that. Not that Erin and I can’t get along by ourselves; it’s that we don’t want to. This brought me too close to that awkward “married but not living with your spouse” demographic. That’s just too much trouble to explain and not particularly pleasant to experience.
It’s very similar to why I refused to name our children with names that are the least bit ambiguous. It’s too much trouble. Likewise, I would never want to live on “Rohr Road”. It has two problems. First, there are too many “r”s. Say that three times fast and you sound like an old pickup that won’t start. But most of all, for your entire life you’d have to tell people you live on “Rohr road – R-O-H-R – pronounced like ‘roar’”. That’s just too much trouble. You shouldn’t have to spell everything for others all the time. Make life easy on yourself; live in places that are easy to pronounce and spell, and name your kids names that require no further spelling or gender specification. Oh, and live with your spouse.
Anyway.
Mel’s back in town. Her mom is still not recovering like we’d hope but it’s someone else’s turn to go sit and wait in the hospital for awhile. Life for us is back to normal and normal is good.
October 15, 2009
So far, with Mel in Fort Smith and Erin and I here at home, things have gone well. Of course, things usually take longer than a couple of days to fall apart even if they’re prone to falling apart. We can take care of ourselves though. I say that although I have yet to actually plan the meals for a week ahead and shop for the stuff. Mel made sure we were outfitted with provisions before she left.
The first day, I was pretty much in bed with a cold. I didn’t feel that bad but I was afraid it might blossom into the flu. I don’t know how bad the epidemic actually is because the new media is making quite a hoorah out of it. We even get periodic schoolcast messages on our phones from the school district reminding us all to wash our hands all the time. Well, I do and still got a sniffle. The sniffle gone though and I had a very pleasant day napping and watching movies.
I wish this stupid sciatic nerve pain would go away. It is in my nature to always want to do that which is forbidden and now that I find it painful to bend over I find myself wanting to do all sorts of things that involve bending over. I need to just lay flat when I can and get past this thing. For the first time ever I’ve gotten one of those highly adjustable chairs at work and tinkered with it to make it more comfortable to sit at my desk.
Erin had a boy over one evening for dinner and to “read lines” for the upcoming play although I was not conscious of a whole lot of that going on. It was mostly goofing around since they both knew that fall break began the next day and there was no real homework to be done.
She took the PSAT yesterday morning and we’re all hopeful that she raised her score a couple of points which would put her in solid National Merit contention. Even at a school as big as ours, there are still only ever about eight National Merit Scholars. Competition is fierce but I remain hopeful.
I also remain hopeful that Mel’s mom can stay off the respirator and finally begin her recovery. Erin and I can do fine for awhile longer and worry about the truly important things.
Eventually I will have to tackle the truly hated tasks: laundry and grocery shopping. But that’s another day.
October 12, 2009
Erin had an actual car date Saturday night. It went fine for her but the guy had some issues.
It all started with a party announcement. It was also announced that alcohol would be present. We therefore quickly nixed Erin’s attendance. Then this guy asks her to go to dinner with him after rehearsal. They decided to come over to our house afterwards to watch a movie. Word got out.
Apparently there were a few others that would have preferred not to go to the booze party although that one was emphasized not to be a wild party. Still Erin found herself host to about eight others who tried to call it the “anti-party” until Erin shushed that up. She didn’t want to set herself up against the popular girl who was hosting the other one.
So, they headed off to dinner – the guy, perhaps realizing that their moments alone would be few, apparently got nervous. He left his cellphone on the outside of his car and it flew off at first motion. He didn’t locate it till later since somebody found it and it ended up way across town. They had dinner at a local place where one of Erin’s friends works as a waitress. So Erin had a “wingman” in the house. Then when they got done and were ready to leave, he discovered that he had locked his keys in his car. He called his family (on Erin’s phone) but discovered that they were at the fair. I had to go get them. Kinda funny from a parental point of view but I’ve done similar things and so I was sympathetic.
The group all showed up and watched movies and did other stuff until midnight or so. I guess that was all a success.
October 12, 2009
Mel has returned to the hospital in Ft. Smith. Her brothers spent last week there with their mom and now it’s her turn again. Her mom is still on the respirator although she has had episodes where they’ve turned it off and pulled the tube. Still, she seems to be recovering very slowly although her doctors haven’t said anything about her recovery being slow. It’s the sort of thing that hangs over everybody’s head all the time.
October 12, 2009
When we moved Evan into his dorm room, I strained the muscles in my lower back. I still don’t remember what caused it because I felt nothing at the time but I guess it was when we were taking the bed apart in order to bunk it. Or perhaps when we were bunking it and it fell on me. Not sure.
Anyway, with time and stretching, it started to feel better. And then the sciatica started. I started to feel this shooting pain from my butt down to my left ankle. To say that this is inconvenient and depressing is a huge understatement.
I find that I feel fine if I stand up and if I lay down flat. Anything in between is problematic. All the old comfy chairs I used to enjoy now cause pain. A plain old hard, straight-backed kitchen chair seems to be the best thing as long as I sit ram-rod straight with that piano-teacher posture.
According to the interwebs, this will probably go away with time. Probably. With time. My office chair at work is unfortunately particularly painful so I went and got one of those fancier ones with all the adjustments and that has proven tolerable or even fairly pleasant.
Getting old sucks.
