Musings

Workshop Minimalism in the Heartland IV

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I now had a small but well tuned set of tools to conduct the trim work, perhaps not to Jeff Burks’ standards, but certainly adequate to the task of making our daughter’s rental house habitable.

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Toss in the bench-y thing outfitted with two large wood screws to serve as a vise, and we were off to the races.

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I made myself a makeshift miter jig and bench hook, and spent a week cutting, finishing and applying trim, trimming door panels so that damaged doors could be reassembled, hanging doors and refitting jambs with new stock grafted in to allow for lock mortises, and replacing missing flooring.

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A little glue and some strips of sandpaper combined with scrap quarter-round molding and you have a suitable rasp-like tool for fitting all those pieces of trim together perfectly.

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In the end it turned out to be a rewarding time of productivity and bonding as it was the longest stretch of time I’d spent with my beloved Professor Doctor daughter since she left for college eleven years ago.  You cannot place a value on that other than to say it was priceless.

I probably could have made some pretty good furniture with the setup.  And all it cost was about $60.