Time to make that door

Now all the wood has been delivered I'm going to make the back upstairs door. I know its a bit unusual to have a door upstairs but when the ground was built up at the back you could step off into the back field. now its all been dug out its 10 feet off the ground. Trouble is its on the north facing side of the house and every time it snows, it snows in through the opening, so its time to fill it in. When I ordered the last lot of timber I ordered some dry stuff. The best you can do from the saw mill is get stuff that's been cut about 6 months. Even then in this load I was struggling to find enough that were straight enough to mill down into the stiles for the door. So in the best traditions of using what you've got I've modified the design to suit the timber and now its going to be a stable door, et voilà. By the end of play I had all the pieces for the door milled and cut to size. As the joiners amongst you will note this is not in itself a small task when you start of with rough sawn timber. Its always amazing to see the beauty of the wood reveal itself when you plane all the crud off, and each piece is different. Some even have a hint of pink in the grain! For my workshop Alison has been kind enough to let me use her garage (many thank's) which is close enough to run power (yipee.. lights) from the gite.

Here's a before and after picture of said timber. The eagle eyed and safety conscious among you will note that the planer is in fact about to fall off the workmate! I must build a bench that I can bolt it to....


Having cut the wood to size I carried out a few test cuts at my saw bench. This soon revealed what a pile of junk my saw bench really is. However its what I've got so I spent about an hour and a half going through and setting the blade, packing up the table insert and setting all the extension tables level. Now low and behold it cuts straight and true and at 90o and wood doesn't snag on the transition between the table and the table insert. Brill, should have done it 4 years ago. Still it's another job done.......

Lovely to see Mark and Julie in their shiny new camping car, our first visitors from England!