Wow - thats really good Jim. I didn't know you were so artistically talented.

I like that, Jim. You captured the surly teenager, there.

I made a house clean...ish.

thanks kero, he's 11 in that pic though! i dread him at 14.... shiver.... kidding.. he's a great kid.

this one is pretty OK too:

Jim - you did those????

LJ those are gorgeous.
Of course I've only ever seen your kids in photos or videos, but as far as I can tell you have captured them perfectly.

Like Shawnee (grumble, grumle talented people).

Yesterday I blitzed my room. This fits because I made a room clean, okay?
At Mum's request - natch.

But when Diz woke me up at 05.00-ish this morning I did revel in the fact there was nothing to trip over on the way to the bathroom. I'm not really messy, I just have a tendency to store things on the floor. Especially library books, which reside in at least three piles (read, unread and worth another look).

And I could easily access the window to open the blinds. Maybe she has a point.

this is the one i used to do ippy:

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs063...._5674451_n.jpg

I LOVE her hair colour there!

jim - you're a true renaissance man.

She has the most beautiful eyes and you really captured them, jim.

Lovely kids, Jim - and I envy you your drawing skills.
I finished this shawl today - for my SIL's birthday. Took 20 days to knit ...

Lucky SIL!

When I blitzed my room on Friday I came across the gloves you made me.
They were tucked away because it's summer of course.
Made me smile all over again.
I'll definitely be bringing them with me in January.

very pretty, Limey. I like the coloUr too!

I just noticed the shawl. Very nice, Limey!

Didn't get around to posting this until today, but yesterday I made this sieve. I wanted to take the kids fossil hunting at Calvert Cliffs yesterday, but I planned poorly and didn't realize it was 2 hours away instead of 1 hour away. 4 hours round trip requires a little more planning, and the trip was scrubbed.

Anyway, I took the suddenly free time and built this sieve so that it will be easier to find the sharks' teeth in the mud when we do get around to going. Made it from scraps and some boards the neighbors were throwing away. Total cost: free.

You could also use that for cleaning out your kitty litter.

So yesterday I took that sieve to the beach to go fossil hunting, and it was horribly disappointing. Found some shells. Big whoop. I had found fossilized shark's teeth on that beach in the past, but absolutely nothing this time. I had high hopes with the sieve. Oh well.

But I'm here to show the movie I made this morning as a test of MonkeyJam, a stop motion photography program. It's nothing special, but I'm hoping to have something better to show for it tomorrow.

I made this to enter a contest at another website.

very cool glatt.

reminded me of this William Wegman short film. It's only about 10 seconds long.

I made old-fashioned dill pickles from scratch (using this recipe.) They turned out great!

glatt,
Did you have to make multiple drawings of the girl and horse and switch them between every shot?

yes. There were 5 of the girl, and 4 of the unicorn. The film was made of 194 individual frames.

That's impressive.

Thanks! It took several hours to get everything drawn and set up and to take the 194 frames.

It would be cool if I won the contest. There were roughly 20 entries for 3 prizes. A laptop, a PC, and a monitor. The odds aren't horrible, and I think my entry is in the top tier of entries in terms of quality and subject matter, so I'm hopeful.

I couldn't figure out how the winners are determined. Can we vote?

No voting. It's completely arbitrary. The Boing Boing judge or judges will decide based 25% on how awesome it is, 25% on how original it is, 25% on how funny it is, and 25% on how closely it conforms to Boing Boings ideals. My entry and two others are the only ones that reference Boing Boing in any way, so I hope that gives me an edge. The girl and the unicorn are both Boing Boing memes/logos.

It's totally arbitrary, so I just have to cross my fingers and wait. They also don't say when the winners will be announced. The running of this contest is kind of amateur, but in a way that's good, because it was not publicized much at all.

Poo...sorry...that's all I made today.

Jim, those are some great pics.

Birthday present for a friend. I wish I had made the front wheel a little shorter, it's kinda awkward. But they're awkward to begin with.

That's very cool. :thumb:

Cables, ALLLL day , i can still smell the solder

That is sweet! You do all the glass work and everything? How do you fill it with neon? Where do you get the neon? It needs a ballast, right? How did you get into neon sign making?

The school I'm at has a nice neon shop, which makes everything easier -- I got into neon here, through an art class on the topic about 4 years ago. Recently I realized that (although often extremely frustrating) it's one of the most satisfying things I've ever tried.

The glass comes in straight tubes which you bend into shape. 99% of what I use is donated off-spec tubes from EGL, one of the main producers of neon products. Once bent you seal on electrodes, which give a vacuum-tight electrical contact through the glass. The whole piece is then connected via glass tube to the manifold, a system of valves which let you control how much vacuum is in the neon piece, as well as measure in an appropriate (minute) amount of neon / argon. Before adding the neon, you bombard the piece to remove impurities, moisture, etc: pull the tube into a light vacuum and apply a lot of electricity (~15kV @ 200-800 mA.)

I've got this neat old card table that came from my FIL's apartment and won't fit into his new digs at the assisted living facility. Unfortunately, it's really rickety. Before I start to fix it, I want to make sure it's not worth a fortune and I'd be ruining its value by even regluing the joints. I'm also really curious about what the story is behind this table, because it's got some very unusual features. I was hoping maybe a someone in the Cellar might know a thing or two about antiques or can point me to a forum about them.

Here's an overview of the table. I think it's in the federal style, but I really don't know anything, so if you know, please let me know.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/...b028ab20c7.jpg

The rear leg swings out to support the table top when it folds out.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6199/...2156f095be.jpg

This is the open table top. It's got some stains on it and could use some cleaning or even stripping and refinishing.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6198/...c57e22fe92.jpg

This is where it gets interesting. See how this support leg has a little notch cut in it so it can wrap a little bit around the apron? The other legs also have this, but they don't wrap around anything, so they have all been patched.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6076/...e4ba261afc.jpg

See this leg? It has a patch where it was notched just like the leg that folds out. Also, see the mortise and tenon joint that has been cut apart, showing the end grain of the tenons? This leg was cut off of another card table before it was added to this one! And the rest of the stationary legs on this table are also that way. See the horizontal saw kerfs in the apron joint to the right of the leg? They are there to hold splines that will reinforce the joint, and they are all different depths. They were hand cut. Also, look at the pocket hole for the screw that holds the apron and table top together. That was definitely chopped out by hand with a gouge.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/...35de1f4af7.jpg

This picture shows the structural problem with the table. The legs are connected to the apron with dowels, and the joints are really loose. You can see daylight through the joint, and clearly see how the legs are loose. Also at some point, somebody must have dragged the table forward, because the upper dowels on both front legs broke the aprons and made the veneer flake off in places.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6181/...c707d83d1f.jpg

This table needs to be disassembled and re-glued, but I'm not sure if it's something I should touch. I'm confident in my woodworking skills, but portions of this table are clearly hand made, and I see no evidence of machinery use on the table anywhere. So it might be fairly old and possibly valuable. Thoughts?

I'd take it to Antiques Roadshow if they show up in your area. Failing that, it might be worth paying for an appraisal before you start working on it. It's a very lovely piece, and certainly isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think "cardtable."

I know from my close reading of Lovejoy that it wasn't unusual to take two pieces of furniture and stick them together, however, depending on when that was done, it might have some value.

Yeah, you always hear on Roadshow how "it would have been worth 40 billion if you hadn't fixed that wobble. But you can still get about 1000 at auction."

Or, conversely "Sure, get this fixed up and you can sell this for 50,000 dollars."

I wouldn't touch anything before having it appraised.

It's a beautiful piece. It would look lovely in my home. If it turns out to only be worth, like, a grand...and you want to get rid of it. ;)

My old Philco needs some work done on parts of the wood, but who to trust, where to go?

STOP! DON"T DO A THING. That looks like a VERY VALUABLE ANTIQUE. I'm not kidding. Let me direct a knowledgeable friend to this thread.

Well that would be interesting. I'd actually be a little disappointed if it was extremely valuable, because my FIL is still alive, and it still belongs to him. So I would need to tell him and let him decide what to do with it. But if it's not valuable, then I can keep it and just fix it up and put it in the living room. On the other hand, if it's super valuable, he could use the money. The facility ain't cheap.

Thanks, footfootfoot!

Oh, so I was right.

DON'T TOUCH IT GLATT. You heard it straight from the horse's foot.

What did I make today - final payment on two debts!
Three if you count paying Dad back for Diz's attempted suicide vet bill - and I do count it, it was the largest payment every month for four months!

Yay me.

As you were.

Yay Sundae! That must feel SOOO GOOOOOOOD!!

Oh what a beautiful piece of furniture. It reminds me a little of a table my gran had years ago. I wonder if that was a card table? She just used it as a phone table but if a lot of us were gathered for food, she'd sometimes pull it out and it would fold out similar to that.

Lovely pics. I found your breakdown of the subject really interesting.

I actually saw something very like that on Antiques Roadshow a week or two ago. It was pretty valuable, but I don't remember the number.

I just took another look at it, and don't know how I missed this before, but the top was stolen from another table too. It currently has hinges on the edges like this:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6183/...fdd2cff0a3.jpg

But it also has old broken hinges that are not evenly spaced. They are hidden by the apron, but one of them becomes visible when the table is upside down and you swing the movable leg out:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6062/...d8a49eba4e.jpg

The other old hinge is barely visible and is in totally the wrong spot for the table as it's built right now:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6193/...19f66a72d2.jpg

I love this table more and more. It's a real Frankenstein piece. It was made of bits and pieces of other table(s) a long time ago.

I also sent an e-mail to a local auction house that does assessments to see what they have to say. I'm sure they would charge for a written assessment, but I told them I might be interested in selling it, and hopefully they will give me a ballpark.

of course, you could just fix the damn thing, it would certainly make it as valuable as a wooden card table, of no particular interest to your FIL and you'd get to play cards on it.

I would really enjoy fixing it. It would be beautiful and sturdy when I get through with it.

I used to have a job right after college in an antique furniture repair place. We fixed them and refinished them, but didn't know a damn thing about provenance or value.

Sotheby's will do it for free. Just email them some photos. They'll email you back with an estimate. It's their bread and butter.

My friend who I sent the photos to started out in a antique restoration shop and was given a highboy with a missing drawer. The owner told him to match the drawer. After fifteen years there the owner would hand a drawer and tell him to make the highboy.

He's very very good, he's made a lot of antiques.

Fascinating table. I suspect that because it is a Frankenstein job, you wouldn't get super-top dollar for it. Buyers like original condition. On the other hand, it has such a great character and story this itself becomes a plus.

[echoing] Appraise first. if it isn't crazy expensive, you'll have a fun little project. [/herd]

Sometimes the Frankensteining makes it more valuable because it's part of the history, like this part is definitively pre-Civil War, and we can infer that that part is newer and had to be added after half the table got burned in Atlanta...

I heard back from Sotheby's!!

So now I can fix it up!

excellent!

Good news, good news.
Keep an account of your restoration, and it will make it much more interesting to anyone you bequeath/ sell it to. And also mean they are never disappointed on Antiques Roadshow.

Today I am considering making Cheese and Onion Monkey Bread, and/or cookies.
I have the ingredients.

I would prefer to make things out of Yummy Dough (edible PlayDough) but they are supposed to be eaten within 24 hours. Maybe on Sunday then.

And I've love to make my Dalek cake, but I can't get a lift to work on Monday and I fear he would shake himself loose on a mile walk.

Cool!

I mean, it would be cooler if it were worth half a million dollars, but hey, getting to start a new project is cool too. ;)

I'm surprised that it's worth so little. It's a nice looking, hand made, 200 year old table. A similar quality new table without the fancy inlay designs would cost close to $1000. So I figured that would be the starting point. Oh well.

But I really am happy that I get to just keep the worthless table now, because it really is nice and will look good in our living room.

Now, a question for you woodworkers, when I re-glue these joints should I just use regular wood glue like I would use in new construction, or should I invest in a glue pot and get some hide glue for a more traditional approach?

grind up some horses! If you're going to go old school, don't pussy foot about it!

Go hide glue, it's much more reversible, especially if you get good at this and want to remove the frankenstein parts and make it "right" Then, if you are really good, it will be worth mad loot.

have fun

Go totally old school - no modern glues, no power tools. Use 18th century cusses while working, dangnabbit.

for the win

couple hundred