Here are the results of some more woodwork from December. Seems I've been determined to spend time in my freezing cold garage - sort of had to for anything involving a saw or my power sander :)
My chief project was this new Nativity scene. I have done several now, but they each have a novel feature of some sort; here, the (slightly puny) palm tree which seems right for this Middle Eastern scene. Or should I claim it's a date tree? I don't really know. The task was a welcome request from a friend with a small boy, and this approaching Christmas provided an obvious deadline. That it was Christmas 2020 threw up various obstacles, from trying to get a few bits and pieces online, to arranging a meet for a handover. Anyone reading this some time in the future may need to be briefly reminded that most of the time during Coronavirus you could only meet people outdoors along with various other restrictions.
The bits and pieces didn't arrive in time. It didn't seem to matter, because I did have a couple of spare 'flickering flame' LEDs, and a packet of heat shrink wraps and whatever else had been ordered. I forgot that a way back when I'd tried all the original LEDs, one hadn't worked. So, after having fun installing the wiring, building the 'battery shed' you'll see at the back, soldering and everything, I found the fire didn't flicker. But (I think) it's not too awful a model of a fire, and at least it does light up.
The overall design of the scene has varied up till now, but certain features are beginning to set. I don't especially want a separate shed for the animals, but I do want an excuse for a flat roof somewhere, because you really want a spot for the Angel of the Lord to reside, preferably an elevated one. I like the idea of snow covered roofs, but the stuff adds cost and anyway for a lot of people it's odd for Bethlehem (but I should in fairness add that Bethlehem does see snow at Christmas very, very occasionally).
The roof: I've done it this way a few times now. The lengths of woody material - not quite sure what it consists of - are stripped from a still very productive old roll-up blind. The thing is, I want a kind of decrepit look without it being so tatty that it'll soon come apart. And I don't want to cop out and use plyboard or hardboard pieces, which would feel like 'cheating', and look cheap. The problem is that the strips of blind material have to be glued one by one, it takes an age, and I found myself doing an allnighter when time to the deadline began to run out - and I was hit by a couple of brief power cuts. This time of year, dark is utterly dark, I couldn't find matches for candles and I'd failed to get a new torch...
So there it is. I'm told the 'customers' are pleased, and it works and does good service for that set of figures (they're ~8cm if I remember rightly). These constructions are always a bit of an adventure and I like making them.
And for a bonus -
'Coronavirus Build 5'!
I stuck this together over the Christmas period itself, including a stint on Christmas Day. And why not? I couldn't go anywhere so I was pleasing myself. Very much in the spirit of keeping up the carpentry momentum. There'll be a couple more bookcases in the New Year.
Sure, it's nothing really. I'm calling this a bedside table but it is indeed merely a small stand. Here's a before-and-after view, of the awkward space on one side of my bed. On the left, the cardboard box solution I've been living with, for years. On the right, the new dinky little table.
Why didn't I just go and buy something?
Well, whether or not it's obvious, that chest of drawers is tall, and I can't reach the top of it from my bed. And I do need somewhere to put my phone (for the time) and maybe a few other items, that I can just stick my hand out and grab. But it also had to be something convenient to lift out of the way if I wanted to get into the bottom drawers of that big chest. The cardboard boxes make the place look like a tip, and anyway have proved tedious to shift.
I judge the new table to be an improvement.
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