Someone might find this interesting

No Airstreaming in this one. Tune out now if that is all you are interested in. I have stated before that until I finish the house, no work on Anna. I promised Beth, and I am an honorable man. I will get the house done and then my time is mine. My porch design is based on a house I saw in Cape May Court House, New Jersey. I saw the house about seven years ago and the design of the porch has been in my head waiting to be put on my own house. Yesterday I began making it a reality.


The pickets are made of flat 3 1/2"x 24" spanish cedar boards. It will take 85 to make the entire run around three sides of the porch, I made 90 incase some were not up to par. So for the entire day yesterday I milled out 3/4" boards. Nine solid hours of running the jointer, then the rip saw, then the chop saw, then the jointer, to the planner, back to the jointer, a final cutting to length, a final rip to width, all to give me a 3/4"x 3 1/2"x 24 " blank. Each step repeated 90 times on each piece, 10 passes of each piece through the planner to get to 3/4". Repetition, repetition, repetition. Those are some of the blanks stacked up in the fore ground of the photo.

Today I made this jig. A jig is a set up tool to aid in repetition done by a tool. It keeps everything the same every time. This one has a place to drop the blank into and the holes are to guide the bottom bearing bit in my router.

Here is one cut out, still in the jig. So 90 times clamping it in, routing out the half circles, de-clamping, then cutting a bevel on the bottom. More repetition.....

This is what the pickets look like when put in order. A hand rail goes at the top and a bottom rail below.