Studio Tasks

Originally on the schedule for today was the taking down of the East Meets West show at the Jersey Shore Arts Center.  Than last night I got an e-mail from East Coast Mary, telling me that the schedule had to change.  Nichole, our boss at the building, realized that she had another thing to deal with early Monday and asked us to move our plan to Tuesday morning.  I can accommodate that, so I sent an affirmative reply, and came up with a new plan, mowing the lawn.

The weather was clear today, so I started that process late morning, doing the front lawn and a little bit of the back before the fully charged and bit of leftover battery from last week had both run out of electricity.  Left one in the charger for next time.  Home for lunch and then it was time to go out again.

A short while ago my brother offered me a piece of wood he figured I might be able to use.  (from something he had to dismantle) It was 1/4" plywood, about 4 feet square.  A little too large to fit in my car, so I had to leave it there for another time.  But I was reminded of it when I was back there the other day for a child's birthday party, and yesterday I went back with a saw and dealt with it.  Just drew a line down the center (with the grain), plugged in my saber saw, and cut it into two pieces, which would fit in my car.  One will be cut into something smaller soon, a new project I plan to start this week.  If that works, I'll see what I can salvage for something larger.  I haven't bought 1/4" wood for woodcut for a while- don't like how they are making it- but this stuff is a bit vintage, so it may be fine.  It has a few knots in it, but if I can work around those, the price is right.

My exhibition plans were done for the day, but I still had to get up to the Studio for other stuff.   Got those pieces of wood out of my car and left them on my table.  Deal with that tomorrow.  And speaking of tables, the shifting of the plan to dismantle the show put off for a day the plan to give a table price to Nichole, but that could come soon.  I tried to price materials online the day before but didn't get very far.  I used a particular size and style of bolt when I first built them, but finding that on the website was a challenge.  Over 300 varieties of bolts, and not in any order that I could see.  It would be easier to go to the store myself and just see what was available, but first I wanted to make sure of what was needed.

The easiest way to get at one of bolts would be to just flip the table and unscrew one, but that would require clearing Molly's junk off one of the tables, an arduous task in itself.  Since each leg is held in place with three carriage bolts, temporarily removing one would not make the table less secure, but it meant crawling around on the floor a bit.  Used my ratcheting set to take off the nut, hammered it back though the hole, then used the hammer's claw to try to pry the bolt out.  But the threads on the end of the bolt were snagging the wood.  Inserted another heavy screw into the 1/4" hole left behind by the bolt, hammered that a bit, and finally forced the bolt most of the way out.  Now I could actually get a grip on it and slowly unscrew the bolt from the wood.

 After measuring it, I was able to re-insert the bolt, and put on the nut and tighten it.  Then on to the store to see what they actually had available.  I bought the wood and hardware for the original tables at the local Home Depot, which is right there in town.  Of course, Neptune Township is quite large, so it was still a bit of a journey by car.  As expected, I was able to locate the desire hardware in seconds just by looking at the shelves.  Didn't buy anything, just wrote down prices.  Did that for wood as well.  And with that, I could go home and relax.