Categories
Ewan Guidance

Carpent With Ewan

Ewan in a drawer

What’s this in the drawer of my new coffee table? It’s a shark called Ewan, and he’s going to show me how to reinforce it!

These drawers just ain’t strong enough. The bottom bit slots into some grooves that are just a few millimetres deep, and once these drawers are laden with magazines, that base bit will buckle and fall through. We need reinforcements!

Before and after

Here is the drawer that we are about to reinforce, alongside one I prepared earlier. Get ready for the ride of your life!

The pencil line being drawn

Measure twice, cut once. Or, in our case, measure once, draw a pencil line on the piece of wood once, take it through to the kitchen once… whoops, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Sawing

…put some newspaper down once (pleases the sharkette no end). Sawing is definitely a job for someone with opposable thumbs, so Pete did this bit.

Saw

When you are finished sawing, put the saw on the work surface rather than leaving it on the kitchen floor. I learned this the hard way. Note also that when you pick the newspaper up, it will be covered with a dusty reside, created whilst sawing. This dusty residue, created whilst sawing, is not too dissimilar in colour and texture to sawdust.

A line of glue

After checking that your pieces of wood fit, apply a thin line of wood glue to the edge that will be your vertical…

Two lines of glue

…and a thin line of wood glue to the base. Assuming that gravity points downwards in your region, make sure that your drawer is upside down when you do this. There is no point reinforcing the top of the drawer. Also make sure that your thin line of wood glue is close enough to the edge of the base that it will make good contact with the piece of wood, when you put it in place.

Application

Put the wood in position and press it firmly into place. For every hour that the glue says that it needs to dry, allow four seconds. This drawer is ready to put back into position in a rip-roaring one minute, thirty six seconds!!!!!!!

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Meander

Car-ga

That’s “car” meets “saga”. Sorry, bit obscure.

It is commonly known amongst everyone in the whole wide world that my car key has a problem. The moulded plastic bit that should hold onto a keyring is worn and cracked, and so under extreme forces, the key can separate from the ring entirely.

Today, a co-worker gave me a lift to the bank, and since we were passing very close to the castle I stopped in to get my mobile phone, which I had forgotten to bring that morning.

FFwd to later on that afternoon. I remove my keys from my pocket (they were probably interfering with my karma or, more likely, my right testicle). Or, should I say, my key (that’s singular, there).

Like a finely honed analytical machine, my brain leaps into life and replays the last five hours of film. Maybe the key fell off somewhere in the office? Five minutes later, we can discount that possibility.

Maybe the key fell off when I parked the car in the car park this morning? Ten minutes of scrabbling in the dark later, we can discount that possibility.

Maybe the key fell off when I was sat in my colleague’s car? I borrow his key, and perform a quick hunt. No joy.

My colleague gave me a lift home tonight, to my warm house, and my spare car key. And who was waiting for me on the doorstep when I got home?

Kevin Spacey.

*Originally posted here*