Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

A couple days ago, I started building some shelves on which to display some of my smaller projects.  They will be floating shelves, with no visible attachment point.  I could have made them a basic rectangular prism, but if you know me, you know there’s no way I would leave them that simple.  I decided on a simple carving along the edges that captures the eye with the subtle shadows it throws.  The white paint emphasizes the shadows.  Before jumping into production, I made a prototype to make sure I was happy with it.  Here is the prototype test-mounted to my shop wall.

Happy with how it looked I went forwards with production.  The shelves are actually 1″-thick torsion boxes (more on torsion boxes in a later post) and are edged with 1/2″ poplar.  I laid out the wave design using the largest French curve in the set of three and carved away material from either side of the line, saving the line.  My #3 gouge was the right size for this job.  I decided to continue the wave design around to the ends of the shelves in my production run.

I particularly enjoy carving because it is a quiet activity that I can do without disturbing anyone else.  Carving is something I can do for hours and completely lose track of time.  As a result, I found myself turning in at 2:15 am yesterday morning.  Tonight (or should I say this morning?) I worked in the shop late again.  I shut down the shop and wrote this entry.  Just now, I remembered to look at the clock.  Wow, it’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow morning.  I don’t really have time t