Bye Koolewong

Wow, we didn't get to live there very long, under two years. The leaving was difficult, at least the boat is happy as it dominates the car port. Still lots of sorting out to do.

Our kitchen is smaller and there is no dedicated space for my spices and small bottles, so I made a rack on wheels that fits in the gap beside the fridge. Small fixed castors were attached to the bottom.

The timber was re-purposed, Brett had two unwanted paintings, we removed the canvas from the frame which I re-cut and laminated. The timber used is oregon, the shelves pine,  6 mm dowels for the railings.

I used dowel butt joints to assemble the main frame and was my first attempt at using dowels as a construction technique. The shelves have two dowels at each end. The concern was drilling straight, I used the Haron dowel jib available from Bunnings. The frame came out square, flat, everything it should be. Accuracy is critical and I was worried that the frame would never come together but got it basically right first time!

I used two coats of Feast Watsons hard flooring oil because it needed a strong finish as it will get a lot of use. Basically it's not a favourite, produces an uneven surface and slow drying. Never use a brush with this product, use a clean rag. I then applied wax and buffed. In hindsight, tung and wax would have been better and still have achieved a satin finish.

Generally happy overall, finish disappointing. I used a pencil to make my lines which I thought had been removed but reappeared when I applied the flooring oil. So my marking out tools will change.

Next job is a new workbench for outside. My old bench is a shocker, screw heads protruding, uneven boards and wobbly.