Three Hobbies
The winter blues finally got the best of me, and so I gave in, and started planting seeds early. I told myself I was doing a tomato trial of sorts, rounding up seeds from years past and plugging them into the soil. I carefully marked each seed type, from my experimental Cherokee Wine and Cherokee Tears through Red Lightning and Yellow Brandy-wine. I also planted three different types of greens.
Tomato Seeds
This whole project started when I discovered several trays of saved seeds in the greenhouse. I was pretty happy to discover some seeds marked “Jessica’s Monster Gurl”. These are seeds I harvested from a heritage tomato passed down from my nieces Great- Grandmother. These were the last traces of this line, and I had thought I lost them forever.
Tomato Trials
Once I was finished with my planting, I noticed the irony of my work. Here on this table were three hobbies, each varying considerably from each other. I’ve been working on the table for the better part of this winter, while waiting for parts for my robot project.
Ike, Re-Constructed
Ike is finally back together, with some additional parts located on his shoulder. He now has an Ultra-Sonic distance sensor on his left shoulder, and a sound sensor on his right. I’m wrapping up his new wiring tests, but so far things are looking great. I’ve programmed him to be a bit shy, with calm blue eyes until you cramp his space, in which case they slowly changed to red eyes.
Weathered Boards
The table was comprised of one very long and wide board I found in a shed, exposed to the rain and weather for years. The wood had a rough-cut texture, which was dulled to a gray by the rain.
I cut this board into two equal pieces, and began sanding it. The board above shows the wood after a significant rough belt sanding. The dust smelled like cedar as I sanded, but the grain lacks significant detail, so I’m unsure what wood it could be.
Weather Detail
The board was also weathered to the point were it began to dry rot in places. When sanded down, this added character, and I was hoping Polyurethane would fill in the spaces nicely.
Table from Weathered Boards
I had no idea how well it would turn out. I used a mix of Cherry stain with a bit of Walnut, and some Mineral Spirits to really pop out the grain. Next time, I’ll be sure to stain first with Birch, then Cherry with a hint of Walnut. The different colors seem to soak into the different grain densities causing a very attractive finish.
