Today's Photo...

Water Lilly, Duke Gardens
September 19th, 2013

Today's Photo...

Well, taken yesterday actually...
Magnolia Cone, Sept. 9th, 2013.
Duke University Campus

Milling around...

Waterwheel detail from Yates Mill

Took Pillion and the FJR out for a spin to central North Carolina to visit the historic Yates Mill. Here are some photos from that trip:

Saturday's ride to Pittsboro

Pittsboro Courthouse, restored after a fire a couple of years ago.

So, while I was good about getting some long overdue work done in the library Sunday after church (yes, I worked on the sabbath, but it was after going to church, so that's okay then, right?), I did manage to slip in a quick ride with Pillion down to the small town of Pittsboro, NC the day before.
The weather was miraculous for August in NC - mid 70's and low humidity. Here are some more photos from the short trip:

Shelving the shelves...or, Library Part 6

New oak panels to replace the old Birch ones

Wayyyy back in early March of this year, I got bogged down choosing stain colors for the trim in the library I'm building. While I had originally thought I'd have it all finished by sometime in April, here it is going on September, and I've not worked on this much at all in the 5 months or so since.
In the interim, I had decided to solve the staining issues I had been having with the pine and birch I had originally spec'd - splotching, unevenness, and mis-matched coloring - by ditching the birch and pine trim altogether and starting over with oak instead.

Stain tests on the old problematic birch plywood. Even tho' careful sanding and chemical pre-treatment
cut down on the blotchiness, once I switched the edge-face trim to oak, I'd never get this to match...

Of course, I had all the larger trim surrounds for the window, door and window seat already cut and ready to stain in Birch, so switching to oak meant additional purchases, and trimming/fitting all the pieces anew, not to mention now I have all this Birch trim I can't use.
But...
in a fit of motivation, I was able to purchase, remeasure, cut, trim, sand and stain all of the trim surrounds in oak in a single day:

After sanding, the oak faced plywood took the final stain very well with good grain detail

The oak performed as I had hoped - it sanded easily in one step, took the stain well, and in a matter of a few hours I had all the pieces I needed to face the window and door surrounds in the Library. And since the shelf edge-facing will be of the same red oak, they should end up matching exactly.
The remaining steps on these surrounds will be to apply several coats of semi-gloss varnish, lightly sanding with 300 grit between each coat, then glueing/nailing them into place.
I'm still on the fence on whether to rebuild the window seat from scratch in oak, rather than the birch its currently in, but as that's a big expense to rebuild, I'll have to think hard and long on that one. If I leave it in birch, perhaps I'll think about staining or painting it a contrasting color to the oak, rather than trying to match it.
In the meantime, I also have a front tire for the FJR to save up for, as well as a battery for the GB500, and a trip to Italy in the fall...
Seems completing the library may have to wait on the backburner for a little while longer.

Commuting as best I can...

This RR bridge lies at the bottom of a left downhill turn, with a tight right-hander just beyond...
and adds just a bit to the commuting goodness...

Today's Photo

Chapel
August 7th
(20D, 24mm f/2.8)

Every day brings a gift. Yesterday, this was part of a gift to me...