Making Sawdust

The first day is in the books.  Our task for the next few days is to finish preparing one of the housing units in the triplex for an incoming staff member.  The major tasks there are filling about a billion nail holes in the walls and replacing base trim in the entire second floor.  There is base trim already there, but someone used door casing, which wasn’t tall enough to cover the unpainted section of the wall so it looks really janky.

So after devotions this morning Deb started filling nail holes and I pulled off all the door casing. It took most of the morning to fill all the holes.  Tomorrow will be a re-do as the compound tends to shrink when drying and will require a second pass.

Once I finished the demolition, I went to the wood shop where there was a pile of lumber waiting for me.  Just a small twist, however, the available lumber was standard 1x4 boards and I had to make it into something resembling base trim.  The boards were a bit rough on both sides.  So I had to manufacture my own trim.

Each 12-foot board took a pass through the planer which took most of the roughness off of one side.  There’s now a small mountain of sawdust behind the planer.  Next was one or more passes over the belt sander to make as good of a surface as possible.  I then used a router with a Roman Ogee bit to put a profile in one edge and then passed it over the belt sander once more to remove any stray fibers.

It ain’t perfect, but it will be passable.  The knot holes in the pine boards make for some interesting edges.  Those sections will be put in closets.

By the end of the day, I had 11 of 15 boards shaped. The rest will be done tomorrow and they will be ready for painting and then installation.

Not bad for a day’s work.  It does help to have a well-equipped wood shop, and one that’s big enough to swing a 12-boot board horizontally and vertically and not hit the lights.

I don’t have any pictures of myself working as it’s generally not a good idea to take selfies while operating power tools.