Starting to wonder about myself?

[Tony Shea]

Over here in Maine I have been on a huge job in Somesville. The main building that actually overhangs the ocean 40' or so and is just an imaculate engineering feet and an incredible veiw that you just can't get with new construction these days due to codes. I've been doing the wiring in kitchen remodel and have spent much time in the attic and all walls are now exposed. The entire house (which is huge) is completely framed up with full width Doug Fir 2x stock. There isn't a 1 1/2" stud or rafter in the whole building and the every bit of it is old growth Doug Fir that is just beautiful stuff. There are very few knots of any kind and the growth rings are extremely tight and lots of them. Not sure when the intial construction actually took place but believe it to be in the 50's, if not earlier. The carpenters have special ordered full size Doug Fir 2 by stock in order to keep with originality of the building in the remolding process. It's been an interesting job to say the least, one that I'm happy to have been a part of. Lunch breaks there are mind boggling as far as what we have for a veiw every day. It's amazing what being a Billionaire will get you in these parts.

[David Cefai]

Andrew Gibson wrote:

On plywood I just figured that when they started making it in china they made it in metric and that is why it is all weird thicknesses

Not so, I'm afraid. I am fully metric except for some neander stuff and the plywood I can get is undersized and of variable thiskness. I recently had a sheet which was 5.6mm thick but a part of it hit 6mm.

[Dave Matson]

Sometimes undersizing can be handy. A 15/32 labeled sheet will fit cleanly into a 1/2 in dado. The fit may not be very snug but it nice not having to wail on it with a mallet.

Perhaps this touted as benefit for kitchen cabinet builders. Funny thing is now one can by 15/32 router bits to get a tighter fit. Lets hope this doesn't perpetuate.

[Tom Vanzant]

Harry,
I inherited a pie safe (circa 1900) from my grandmother. It has four doors, M&T, with two punched tin panels each. There are two drawers with threaded wooden knobs. All the carcass wood is 14" wide 1" pine w/o a single knot. All face wood... doors, drawer fronts, edges of the sides and top... are black walnut. Construction uses face and sliding dovetails throughout. All fasteners are square nails of various sizes to suit, including tiny ones in the half-round covering the cracks between the doors.
It is currently at my daughter's house, lovingly cared for as the heirloom that it is.

[Rob Young]

I still have my lil drafting table made from the top of an old discount store puter desk no one wanted, and my drafting tools and overlays. I am not very puter literate and someday I may be able to make sketchup do what I want it to. Mostly if just frustrates me quickly, altho they say its so simple. I guess its the old dog, new tricks syndrome. LOL Maybe my internal hard drive (brain) is too full of other info from the years.

Harry, it's not you, it's SketchUp.

Thinking in T-squares and triangles just doesn't work well in SketchUp-land. Their hippy-dippy user interface can't deal with it.

I have the same problem. It takes me a while to stop thinking about how I do things in other CAD programs or by hand to get into the swing of using SketchUp. Then I finish what I'm doing and 3 months later when I want to try something again I've forgotten the "tricks"!

I'll probably break down and buy Bob Lang's new book soon just to see if it can help. I've got one other SketchUp book but it has so little rigor and wanders all over the place I've never gotten much use from it. SketchUp for Dummies indeed!

[Rob Young]

Harry, you don't have to wonder about yourself. We all will do that for you...

Neat trick on recycling the plywood.