It’s 3AM, I Must Have a Cold

My cold has settled into the back of my throat and sinuses. It has that constant tickle that keeps you from sleeping well. I had no problem falling asleep tonight. We have nice weather and I have our window open and the room was comfortable. I didn’t consider it was Friday night. Evidently the kid next store must have a midnight curfew. At exactly midnight a loud group of kids congregated in his driveway and proceeded to talk and shout to one another. That woke me and started my cold symptoms running. So I got up and grabbed my 7-shot 12 gauge shotgun and rushed outside—I was able to drop 2/3 of the group before I ran out of ammo. Just kidding, but it felt good to write that. Actually I got up and closed the window effectively deadening the noise.

I slept poorly until 3AM when my body said “you’re awake, fellow, so you might as well get up. I got up, took some cold medicine, made myself a cup of tea and turned on the computer. In the process I noticed 3 of the cats were outside so I went out and gave them some attention. The feed bin was empty so I put out some food. Now here I am not feeling tired, blogging away while the medicine and tea hopefully kick in. Saturday is not starting well.

Yesterday we did our usual Target run, got groceries and came home. I spent the rest of the day working on the lighthouse. I took some pictures so you can better understand what I am trying to do.

I explained yesterday—er—Thursday that I glued a bunch of MDF together and put it on a fixture that allowed me to rotate it. Here’s what that looked like:

Next I cut off the corners with the table saw.

Then I used the radial arm saw as a sort of reverse lathe. Instead of the object being shaped turning, the saw blade turns and I run it up and down the piece rotating the piece as I shave off a small layer.

This worked OK until my fixture started shifting without me noticing. The result was I have narrowed the base more than I wanted to. This isn’t a disaster but the lighthouse may end up less slender than I planned. I’m about finished with the radial arm saw and next I will do final shaping with sanders. I don’t have a picture of the work as it looked at the end of the day. That will be my next blog.

So far it’s going OK. I haven’t had any big disaster. So it looks like I’ll be able to make this thing.

Well, it’s now 4 AM and the medicine didn’t do much and I’m still not sleepy. I guess I’ll do some paperwork.