today, i tried....making a side table
keyword: tried
yesterday, i bought some wood from a craft store—as one does. i know you're probably looking at me sideways already, but, it's a craft and hobby store. woodworking is a craft/hobby. and i didn't need any fancy pieces. i just wanted to make a simple side table.
of course, right off the bat, i walked out the store without any wood glue—the first sign pf bad things to come. i try to get some overnighted. yet another pain. but whatever. i got wood glue to my doorstep. it came before i even woke up.
so, immediately, i'm ready to go. i grab the glue, grab my wood, and settle in.
i've got three semi–cricle boards, eight legs, and a bag of discs to use as feet. i know you probably don't quite see the vision, but it really was simple.
see? simple.
and yet....
it was such a pain.
putting on the feet was fine. i had no problems whatsoever. i gridded out the bottom of the table, decided where i wanted the feet to go, glued em on, locked it in place, and let it sit and bond for probably an hour. though it only needed to sit for thirty minutes.
after that, it was straight down a very steep hill.
despite gridding the next surface panel exactly the same, nothing was lining up. i was half–convinced i was doing it backwards or something. but no matter how i changed the math, it just wasn't working.
eventually, i recruited my mom's help. she got it figured out....using my grid. even she doesn't know what exactly i was doing wrong. but whatever, she fixed it....after a cumulative hour and half of us struggling with it.
so, finally, i could begin gluing the legs.
or not.
you see, in order for the glue to properly bond, you have to clamp the wood together for thirty minutes. but, clamping a leg piece to a flat surface is kind of difficult because, well, how would you do it?
i'm sure there's a special clamp for that, but, unfortunately, i did not have one to utilise at the time, so....needless to say, the table does not have legs. which means it's not technically a table yet.
now, i'm quite grumpy about this, however, all is not lost. i have two contacts who might have some tools to make this work.
thinking about my options, i have three ideas currently.
- use double–ended screws to attach the legs.
- use metal brackets. note that this is not my preferred method.
- just get thicker legs. obviously, thicker legs wouldn't be any easier to clamp. however, they would have a greater surface area for glue, and be sturdy enough for me to simply place weights on them to lock them in place, you know? at least, that's the idea.
i'm going to figure something out. i refuse to let the money spent on this go to waste.\
now, aside from that....
i ate half a box of pasta in between my failure and potential solutions. i looked to my comfort food to calm me down so i could think about the situation objectively instead of crying over something that is really quite silly to cry about.
and i watched a playthrough of reanimal while i cooked and ate.
and then, i didn't really do anything else with my day.
i'm writing this around 10 pm though, so there's still a bit of time to do something else. who knows?
until next time~
🩷