Four Part Harmony

Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks at the homestead. It continues to be busy, and as always, updating the blog tends to fall down the priority list pretty quickly if I let it. Here’s a few photos while I’ve got a minute.

We had Mary and Don (Grandma and Grandpa Newman) in town this past week. It was a very nice visit as always, and I think Anna is already missing having them here. This picture was taken last Saturday, at a tulip festival down south of Woodburn. The weather was really nice Saturday, and Don and I had essentially had to kick them out of the house (more on that later). Luckily, Nicki knew of this festival going on. It sounded like a lot of fun.

Here’s a really cute picture of Anna and Kadin at the Farmer’s Market prior to heading out to the tulip festival.

Here’s the reason that Don and I weren’t at the tulip festival or the farmer’s market. 24 new windows to replace our old crumbly wooden ones. It’s a long story how we got to the point of ordering 24 new windows, and if you stop by and care to hear it, I’ll tell it to you some time. Mostly it was due to the fact that we need to get our house painted, and the time, effort, and cost that was going to need to be put into repairing, scraping, and repainting the old ones seemed better spent on new windows that would provide us some energy efficiency as an added bonus.

Don got completely roped into this project (this always seems to happen when family comes to visit). Here he is on Friday, our first day of installing the windows. We got five in total on Friday, with our friend and friendly neighborhood window salesman Jason helping out and showing us how it’s done.

Saturday we worked in the main room, while Nicki, Mary, and Anna were out at the tulip festival. We had gotten the hang of getting them in pretty quickly, and at least half of the work was in keeping things clean inside and out. It took us all day Saturday, but we managed to finish the rest of the downstairs windows on Saturday.

Here’s me on Sunday. We managed to do all the upstairs windows on Sunday, 11 in total. We had the technique pretty much down at this point, and were only slowed down by the individual peculiarities of each window and situation. I was starting to feel pretty sore in my shoulders and my hands were pretty beat up by the end of the weekend..which I blame on the fact that I turned 31 on Friday (ok, not really…age is a state of mind after all).

We managed to get all the windows in, and now just have to finish up some trim work and some sill work outside. It was a massive undertaking, much moreso than I envisioned, but we are really excited to have them in. Nicki compared it to when she gets a new pair of glasses and realizes how clearly she can suddenly see. Also, they are nice and airtight (the old ones were not), and they slide up and down quite nicely.

Here’s a few more photos taken during the nice weekend weather.

A nice group photo of the chickens. It’s been a good year for dandelions this year in Portland.

Anna riding her “bike” in the backyard.

Anna driving a big old John Deere tractor at the tulip festival. Too funny.

We’re headed the beach this weekend for our annual spring getaway. See you all in a week or so!

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I’ve been meaning to post some pictures of one of Nicki’s latest sewing projects.

This is “Newt”.

Nicki had decided to make some dolls for Anna, and had tracked down a set of instructions for this cool brother and sister pair of dolls (In case you’ve never gone looking, the Internet is absolutely bursting at the seams…sorry…with craft project sites/blogs/etc…this is a “wee wonderfuls” pattern, I am told). This one, the girl, is “Newt”, and the next one will be “Acorn”. These aren’t the names that came with the pattern/instructions, but I think most of you know the significance of the names for us.

As with the last couple of projects, I’m super impressed with how this turned out. Nicki’s got endless patience when she gets into sewing mode, and will happily rip out a line of stitches if something doesn’t seem right. That said though, this project seemed to come together pretty quickly in just a few nights.

Anna’s rather fond of Newt, and has lately been taking her everywhere. These past couple of weeks, several times we’ve been out the door, gotten Anna all buckled up into her car seat and just about gotten the door closed, and then Anna says “I want to bring Newt along!”.

We’ve been busy lately, and craft/project time has fallen by the wayside. Hopefully we’ll be able to back into it soon.

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Well, as I mentioned the big day finally arrived this weekend. I got the guitar sufficiently put together to actually put on some strings and call it “done”.

First though, I wanted to post these last few pictures that I took as I was finishing up the last steps. As I got closer to the end I seem to have neglected my photo-taking responsibilities, but I did manage to remember to get a couple.

With the finishing process done, and the body and neck all polished to their final state, I took the masking tape off where the bridge was to be glued. I had to drill a couple of precision holes in the face of the guitar with my handheld drill, which gave me a minor case of the nerves. Everything went fine though.

Here’s the bridge clamp I made to glue up the bridge. It’s a pretty simple design I had seen other people use, and it worked out great.

Here’s the bridge clamp in action. Actually locating and setting in the bridge is another one of those precision measurements measured in 1/64ths of inches. It’s also one of the glue joints that is going to have the most direct stress put on it when the strings are up to pitch. I measured and remeasured several different times, and even did a dry run to make sure everything was going to work prior to actually putting the glue on the bridge (I’m becoming such a model woodworker). As careful as I was, though I managed to put a couple of small dings and scratches in the top already. The spruce is just incredibly soft, and the shellac finish is so thin, that there isn’t a lot of protection there.

With the bridge glued on, I set to work on all the final fret work, leveling and re-crowning all the frets to their finished dimensions. I didn’t get any pictures of that work though.

I installed the tuning machines, which really started to make things look finished up. In this picture (which was actually taken after the guitar was finished and strung up) you can also see the nut which was the other piece I carved out of that moose bone. That was the last thing I had to do, and the guitar had sat for a couple of nights with just that one last piece missing. I actually did the rough carving on Saturday after our hike, and did the final shaping that night. I strung the guitar up a couple times as I was fine tuning the size of the nut. Nothing exploded and I took that to be a good sign.

Here’s a back view of the headstock with the tuners installed. I’m really pleased with how the whole neck and headstock turned out

Here’s a shot of the bridge, all glued on with the saddle shaped. I’ve subsequently been taking the height of the saddle down to try and get the action a bit lower. When I first strung it up, the action was so high as to be almost unplayable (to me) in the first position. I’ve been working on it some, and it’s starting to get closer to what I would like. Depending on how well I did my fret and neck work, I may or may not be able to achieve the ideal low action I’m looking for.

And here it is, the finished guitar. I had to take it out while the sun was shining (sort of) to get some pictures.

Here’s the back view. I really like what the shellac and the french polish did to the look of the guitar.

A close-up of the back.

And another view of the front of the guitar.

I’m still working with the set-up, so I don’t know when I’ll actually say that it’s “done”, but I guess I can sit on the porch and play it now, so it must be pretty close to done.

I don’t want to pass judgement on the sound yet, as everything I’ve read says that newly built guitars generally “open up” in sound over the course of the first few weeks and months of playing. It really projects, and has some nice trebles. I worry that it’s a little too boomy in the bass ( a common flaw of dreadnoughts I think), so I’ll just hope that gets tempered somewhat during all of this “opening up” that is going to be happening. Maybe I’ll try to post some sound clips.

Thanks for reading along with me as I did this project. It’s been pretty fun for me. I suppose now I’ve got to go do something productive with my spare time…like paint the house or mow the lawn or something. Actually, I’ve got a couple pieces of mahogany and spruce in the basement that I hope to turn into a little 3/4 size guitar for Anna…so I’m sure I’ll be back down there working again before too long.

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Well, we had another couple days of beautiful spring weather this weekend. Saturday morning we got up early and drove out the Columbia Gorge to hike up Dog Mountain. We had a great day, and got quite a few good photos, so I’m going to put a bunch of them up here (apologies in advance to those of you that don’t live in the Pacific Northwest).

We met up with our friends and neighbors Dawn, Doyle, and Kadin. Here’s a picture of Nicki and Dawn hiking. I should mention that we chose the hike in part because it’s on the Washington side of the gorge on a nice south facing slope, so we knew it would be getting great sun. The part we sort of forgot about, was that it’s called Dog Mountain, and it’s a fairly strenuous climb up that big south slope. Nicki did a great job of just taking a pace that worked for her, and stopping to rest when she needed to. I started to get worried that we had taken on too much for a 31 week pregnant woman, but everything worked out fine.

Here’s Doyle and Kadin. We had the kids in the packs, and they were both happy hikers pretty much the whole way up.

We were a little early for the big wildflower display that will probably kick in in a few weeks, but we did see a few species that were starting to bloom along the trail. Here are some saxifrage of some sort blooming on the hillside.

Here’s a chocolate lily in bloom. There were just a few of these actually blooming, but we saw quite a few more coming up. This has always been one of my and Nicki’s favorite flowers, and it’s always nice to catch it in bloom. We also saw a couple small fairy slippers (Calypso bulbosa), which is a beautiful small pink orchid that’s a sure sign of spring. Another of our favorites.

Here’s a buttercup of some sort ( I think). There were also some little yellow lilies blooming, and I was taking pictures without paying enough attention to actually identifying them.

Here’s part of the view from where we stopped and had our little picnic. At this point, we’re probably only 2/3 or 3/4 of the way to the top, but we had broken out of the tree line, and found a great little sheltered place for a picnic, and we decided that it was a perfect place to stop.

Here’s Nicki and Anna enjoying our little picnic lunch of PB&J, apple, and fruit bar.

Anna giving Kadin a big hug.

Family Portrait.

After the hike back down, and a brief stop in Stevenson for a quick bite to eat and some refreshment, we headed back towards Portland. Anna was getting tired, but we decided to stop in at the Bonneville Dam to try and see some of the salmon coming through the fish ladder. The Spring Chinook are running right now. They have a window into the fish ladder at the dam, where they take the fish counts, and it’s open to the public. I guess maybe it’s still a little early in the run, and it might not have been a great time of day, but there weren’t too many fish to see. We did see a couple pretty good size Chinook though. They said the numbers were looking pretty low so far though.

They also have a fish hatchery there at the dam, where they raise salmon and trout. They also have a sturgeon pond with a couple really big old sturgeon. Sunday we spent some more time outside. I mowed the lawn, we weeded the garden and thinned the seedlings, and had a picnic lunch in the backyard. We also got together with friends in the evening for a birthday party/dinner for Kayla’s 4th birthday.

Among other excitement for the weekend, I also managed to finish (mostly) my guitar project. I put on the strings, and took some pictures while the sun was shining on Sunday, but I’ll have to put them into another post, maybe later this evening.

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Well, Anna and I took a trip to the bone doctor yesterday morning, and Anna came home with shoes on both feet for the first time in a month!

We weren’t quite sure what to expect. I knew they’d want to take some x-rays, but wasn’t sure if they could take them with the cast on, or if it would have to come off. When we got there they ushered us right in and set to work removing the cast. I’d been hoping that there would be some sort of heavy duty snips that would cut the thing off but no luck. The nurse brought the saw over and thought it’d be a good idea to just fire it right up so Anna could hear what it would sound like.

This was not such a good idea.

It was a little traumatic, but somehow we managed to get through the cast cutting process and get the x-rays taken. The x-rays looked pretty good, and so they sent us home with a clean bill of health.

Anna’s foot is a little bruised, and she’s still only taking very tentative steps on it, but we’re very happy to be further down the road to recovery.

Here’s a couple recent photos, since we don’t really have any from yesterday.

Anna with her friends Violet and Wren at the Rhododendron Garden. I love this picture.

Magnolias in bloom at the Rhododendron Garden.

This is a little violet that sprang up in a crack in our concrete front step. It seems like it bloomed over a month ago, and is still going strong. Surely there’s a great metaphor to be made here that would really wrap this post up in a tidy package. Something about tenacity and perseverance in the face of adversity, or the strength inherent in something so seemingly fragile…

But it’s also just a neat picture.

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Well, I’m continuing to make slow progress on the guitar. Actually, it’s mostly a test of my patience at this point. I’ve been really enjoying the french polishing, and the guitar is starting to look pretty nice. I think I’ve nearly got enough “sessions” finished, so I’ll soon be able to polish it up and move on to attaching the bridge. I think I mentioned I’m finishing the neck and headstock with tru-oil, which is a gunstock finish that guitarmakers have adopted as a neck finish (I guess you can even finish an entire guitar with it). I’ve gotten it to the point where there should be enough coats on it, so I need to let it sit for a couple weeks before polishing it up. Once it’s all polished I can go ahead and put the tuning machines on, which I’m pretty excited to do because it’ll really start to be looking finished. For now though…patience.

So I started making the bridge.

Here’s the ebony blank, which I sanded flat prior to laying out the bridge outline, saddle slot, and bridge pin holes. There are some pretty critical measurements involved with laying out the saddle slot. I think I spent several days reading and deliberating before I went ahead and routed the slot. It seems to have come out ok, but as with everything, I won’t really know until I string it up.

(editors note: Nicki says I need to make it clear that the saddle slot is really supposed to be crooked like that. It’s like that to compensate for the fact that the strings vibrate differently due to their differing thicknesses.)

Drilling the bridge pin holes was pretty straightforward, though as you can probably see one of them got a tad off center.

Then I rough cut the bridge outline on the bandsaw. It’s tough to see, but I also countersunk the bridge pin holes. I had purchased a set of countersink drill bits when we were installing our kitchen cabinets way back when. At one point, the bit that was getting the most use snapped clean off just past the countersinking part of the bit. I was pretty bummed at the time, but hung on to the broken bit, and subsequently that busted bit has become more useful than all the rest of them. I was able to use it here, and it worked great.

I started in carving on the bridge, but was having a pretty tough time. Ebony is pretty hard and heavy. Not very easy for chiseling. Still I wanted to remove the bulk of the material from the wings so I didn’t have to sand it all off. Once I had most of the material removed with the chisel, I did most of the rest of the fine shaping on the little belt sander.

Here it is after some fine sanding and polishing.

I also set to work carving up the bone, which seemed like it was going to be tough, but really wasn’t all that bad. I got a thin piece cut out to the appropriate rough dimensions, then fine tuned the shape until it fit snugly into the slot.

Here’s the bridge and rough saddle. The saddle height is still oversized, and the final shaping will be done when I’m doing the final set up. Which, if all goes well, could be within the next few weeks or so…

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We had a pretty nice first day of April here in Portland.

It was cold last night, and this morning was foggy and everything was frozen. I had to chip the ice out of the chickens waterer (with Anna in one arm).

Anna and I drove through the fog to meet Dawn and Kadin at the Portland Children’s museum. We had a lot of fun. Nicki had actually taken Anna yesterday and said that Anna played for two hours straight in the little “doctor’s office” section. When I came home from work Anna’s first question was “Will you take me to the museum tomorrow again Papa?”.

How could I refuse?

We have a pass checked out from the Library, which has a long waiting list, and only comes around every six months or so we have been happy to make the most of it.

We spent so long inside at the museum this morning, that by the time we went to leave the sky was clear blue, sunny, with just a faint cool breeze. Just perfect.

Anna and I celebrated with a long ride through the neighborhood, picking dandelions and heading to her new most favorite destination…the comic store. Or as she says “the homic store”.

We have this comic store down the street from us. Guapo comics.

I still don’t fully understand the attraction that she has to this place. I talked her into walking there once because it was right down the street and I’d never been…figured I should at least pop in see what it was all about. They have a little coffee shop kind of thing going on, and they have comics ( of course). What Anna really likes are the comfy couches, the mini etch-a-sketch they have on the table, and the deck of cards. There are also usually one or two interesting people sitting around that want to chat with her. She wants to go there all the time. It’s a destination, so I generally oblige. They know us down there now. About half the time I’ll buy a small cup of coffee out of guilt, but just as often we’ll just pop down on the couch, Anna plays with the etch a sketch and the cards or whatever else, and I’ll read the paper for a few minutes, then we’ll say “thanks!” and continue on our walk.

Oh, today was one of the days I decided I should get a coffee. By the time we got back home the weather was so nice we just sat around in the front yard. I was taking some pictures and Anna was goofing around pretending that she really wanted some coffee. She never did get brave enough to actually try it.

It was so nice that we skipped a nap so as not to sleep through a beautiful day. Anna did pretty good, but you could tell she was pretty run down by the end of the day. We took a nice bike ride to the park and to the farm to pick up veggies in the late afternoon sun. Made a nice dinner of risotto and collard greens (Nicki’s major new craving), and that was about all she had in her.

Tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice!

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