Another fine day. Laundry in, I headed to town early for coffee, water is on sale buck off, get two, chicken at 79 cents a pound, one bird, the shampoo I need. To Garrett’s for screws, I need qty 28 size 10 by 1 3/4″ long for the chair and five small brass ones to fix the music box.
Back home I threw the chicken in a batch of brine following the turkey recipe cut in half, a cup sugar, half a cup salt, 3 cloves garlic crushed, 5 allspice berries, five juniper berries and a large bouquet of thyme. I finished blanching, seeding and cutting up the next bowl of tomatoes for sauce. I put them in the dutch oven to cook down with the other bowl from the fridge I peeled yesterday, eight pounds. What the heck, I headed out to the landlords tomato patch with a bag. A whole lot more tomatoes, mixed cherry size, romas, early girls with a few yellow ones. I peeled and seeded a few more of the ripest romas and threw them into the sauce.
Meanwhile, I cooked up the linguine pasta and microwaved the frozen Alfredo sauce. The Alfredo sauce didn’t stand up to freezing very well, the butter all separated out. I poured it off to a container as flavored ghee. The sauce is thick but tasty, added to the noodles and packaged in a large drum for Tuesday.
As the sauce is getting close I fire up the canner and put cup jars in the oven to heat. Sterilize the lids, rings, into the sterile colander, funnel, tongs, knife, ladle and board. Good to go, I tong a jar from the 215 oven, ladle the sauce into the jar funnel, a lid and ring, repeat. I got five and a half cups of thick sauce from maybe ten pounds of tomatoes. I added a small piece of star anise for about ten minutes removed near the end to sweeten it up and loose the acid, Tom Stobart’s trick. Jarred and boil canned for more than ten minutes.
In the garage I laid out the chair parts. I laid out some guide blocks and cut them so I could reproduce the drill holes easily. Clamped, drilled and screwed the pieces together, first the small inner one, the outer one, need to drill the swivels, marked to center and each 1/4″ drilled. Assembled they look good. I laid out the back rest holes at four inches down using the guide block, centered. The back rests I drilled at center 5/8 from the end, a little more than center to reduce the stress. I put the cross brace in the middle of the 22 inch back rest, 11.
It all worked fine. I think the back rest could be shortened ( or maybe lowered) an inch or so to match the folded chair. Rather than cutting canvas, I have this roll of jute. I used it to tie a crude woven seat, adding a figure eight to the back. It works as a crude seat. I find the width is not enough as the front edge (now down to 11″) is way too short. I think a 16 inch minimum width could work well. If the front edge was rounded it would be better. But as a proof of concept, this chair design is very simple and effective. The back is fine, using canvas instead of the crude woven stuff would make this a very comfortable chair at 16″ wide. I’ll finish designing it in CAD at that dimension. Note round the outer edges.
I laid out the glued up neck for the ukulele. By reducing the head stock width I can make the part fit the plans. Also reducing the neck width will bring everything into scale. The angle of the head stock is not flush with the neck. I used a piece of flooring as a spacer and used the surface grinder to make the neck flat again the full length, ready for the fret board. I cut a couple pieces of maple from the end to glue up, clamped done, to make the neck fit the body width. Wayne gave me some spruce to use for ribs on the soundboard and back. I cut them to size at a 5 mm and sanded them flat smooth with the surfacer. Progress.
I baked the chicken at 350, done at 165 in the leg joint. Cooled and cut up for Tuesday lunch for the gang. The crostinis are also baked for the week. I have a full quart of small tomatoes, split in three. one for the landlord, the lunch gang, and the team. We’ll eat well.
8shotoflove8 