Day 5 - Sutton

Today was rather slow compared to yesterday’s intense productivity and action. My ears and and lungs, however, were thrilled to catch a break from the constant screeching of power tools and heavy clouds of sawdust. 

The first task I completed in the morning was resizing my mermaid tail diorama on Adobe Illustrator for a special commission piece. That’s right - my J-Term creation is becoming the next hot commodity. I then used the table saw to cut my legs (for the dog bowl stand). Since my boards are actually two boards glued together, Mr. Grisbee showed me a method for making sure the seam stays centered after I make my cuts. I have about a three foot vertical disadvantage compared to him, so at times, it was challenging to determine if the seams were aligned from a birds-eye view. Being the determined girl I am, I persevered and successfully completed the cuts to near perfection all by myself. Next, I used the planer to ensure every piece of my wood was the same thickness which is especially important as I will be doing splined miter joints. While the planer is quite simple to use, I seem to have a hard time finding the balance between skimming absolutely no wood off, and completely hacking off half the thickness. Though I dabbled between these two extremes, I ultimately produced four pieces of wood that look like four peas in a pod. 

I then served as “vaccuum-help” for Catherine while she used the planer since it was shooting mountains of hairy wood strands everywhere. I found this surprisingly satisfying and restorative. The experience made me consider dropping my original desire to major in marketing or biology, and instead, pursue vacuum therapy. I informed my parents of this thought during dinner and they couldn’t contain their happiness. 

We took a break for lunch where I had never been so close to melting in my life. Wearing a black shirt did little to help. When we returned, I used a compass to draw two circles on one of my boards for the dog bowls. On Monday, Mr. Grisbee will help me use a new tool to cut them out. In all honesty, I am rather excited to go down in history as the first student to use this tool. I hear they are already making me a plaque. 

In the afternoon, we watched a video about wood movement. Well “we” minus Sayer. He informed us he was going to watch the video on his own time and, for now, was going to indulge in peanut butter cookies in isolation in the back closet. What a legend. Per Mr. Grisbee’s request, below are my three takeaways from the video.

1. Wood movement is either caused by tension (a one time occurrence), or expansion and contraction in a radial pattern (continuous). If a piece of wood was part of a tree that was blown in one direction because of the wind (or experienced some other form of tension) it will try to relax and twist the opposite way once it has been cut. Expansion and contraction, on the other hand, is determined by temperature and humidity. The rings on the outside of the wood are larger so they will expand and contract the most, which can lead to cracks in the wood. In addition, once wood has been cut, the wood wants to straighten out. This can lead to cupping. While the "best wood" has diagonal lines on the end grain (so that grain is going across on the surface), cutting this type of wood creates the most waste because of the leftover wedges that are not used. 
2. If you are a carpenter, is important to communicate with clients about where they plan on keeping the wooden piece. Air conditioning, for example, limits the expansion and contraction of wood which allows carpenters to use certain methods that may not be appropriate for wood that is designed for an outdoor setting. Also, the belief that wooden furniture can spontaneously explode due to wood movement has become highly dramatized throughout generations. Generally, the movement of wood is so slight that this unfortunate incident is incredibly unlikely.
3. One way to limit/prevent the expansion and contraction of wood is through stabilization. This can be done by penetrating with epoxy or vacuum stabilization (where air is sucked out and polymer solution is forced in wood). This can even turn wood into a sort of plastic moisture can no longer get inside. Now, the wood can no longer move. I found this section especially interesting as I will need to consider a stabilization method for my project. Baker is a cutie, but he does splash some water around when he drinks and I would hate for that moisture to ruin my masterpiece.

After this enlightening hour, I used the laser cutter to print the layers for my diorama. For a while, we ran into a slight issue because we couldn’t get the laser cutter to turn on. I was slightly concerned that I had somehow broken it and was on the verge of an anxiety attack when good ol' Nathaniel saved the day and realized the machine wasn’t plugged into the computer. Phew. That was going to be a very awkward email. In the end, my layers turned out so well! I brought home some foam core and exacto knives to prepare for the next step in the process.

I can’t believe we only have three days left of A-Term. Time really flies by!