Weekly Ideas Post

[seryn]

It looks like everyone is in the same boat I am, where nothing I do feels creative. Even the food I have made this week has been the same kinds of dishes I always make. Seriously, the sum of my creativity for the week was adding a rubber stamp to a thank you card.

With that in mind, I think we should all challenge ourselves to come up with a creative project. What would you like to make or build? What questions do you have? Are there design issues you would like to address through discussion or do you tend to "wing it"? Feel free to make a whole post or to comment here (which I plan to do).

And thank you to all the new members for subscribing, the poster and commenters for participating, and the lurkers for lurking.

Comments

[seryn]

I should do more "yogurt art" like the icon. ;-)

My next big project feels more like a chore because I have no idea what I am doing. I have a rocking chair. Its legs were glued in originally but at some point someone added nails. I took the nails out when they were splitting the wood spindles and the seat. (One was at a bad enough angle to be causing the seat surface finish to bubble.) But now it is structurally iffy.

I actually own wood glue, but do not have any giant clamps like that Yankee Workshop guy has. Are there caveats I have not considered?

I would consider refinishing the chair entirely but the slight bubble on the seat is easily covered with the chair pad and the rest of the finish is better than I am likely to do, especially in the winter.

Every time I look at the chair I hear Bob The Builder saying, "Okay Team, Can we fix it? Yes. We. Can." So I need to work on it just so the voices in my head can mature a bit.

[reishka]

Since you don't have clamps, is there any way you can use cord/rope to tightly secure the legs against the seat as it's drying? As long as the legs fit into the joint tightly, I don't think you should have too much of a problem using cord. It's not THE best solution, but it's good for a quick DIY fix. If the finish bubble doesn't bother you when it's covered, I'd say don't worry about it and pretend it's not there. On the other hand, if you want to have a go at refinishing, there's no real reason NOT to.

[seryn]

If I refinish it, I think I should do so while it is disassembled. It would just be a lot easier to get an even color on the leg spindles if I could work from all sides. But it's been weather-ing a lot here and that means I'd have to work inside. I've been putting off working on this for almost a year, so I should probably not throw roadblocks and caltrops in my own path.

I'd been hoping that gravity (turning the chair upside down) after pounding things in with a padded rubber mallet would be sufficient in lieu of clamps. It can hardly get worse than it is now because sitting in the chair makes scary noises. ....