Router Table Project – Drawer Pulls

Worked on the table a little today. Added the self-closing overlay hinges and created some drawer and door pull handles for some scrap walnut from another project. Just wanted to give a little contrast in color from the red oak the rest of the project is built of.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get the opportunity to use my palm router to cut a dado in the melamine top to install a set of T-tracks to mount the fence and dust collection apparatus to.

 

 

Router Table Project – Doors

Got the doors cutout and temporarily mounted to the router table body.  Still need to put on the hinges and the door pulls.

I actually used the router table to make the doors even though the table isn’t finished yet.  I can tell this table with the DeWalt 2HP router that accepts the 1/2 inch bits is really a good one.

The small folding table that I’ve been using to rest the router table on while I work on it is the second project that I ever completed.  It was constructed during a ten session class taken at Holmes Junior High School.  Each session was a one day a week 2 hour class about 4 years ago.

 

 

 

Router Table Project – Drawers

.The bottom section of the table is going to have a drawer and I cut the front, back, and sides to the correct dimensions. Cut a small rabbet near the bottom edge of all those pieces in order to slide a 1/4 inch sheet of plywood for the drawer bottom. Glued all the sides together with the bottom in place.

Next I edge joined two pieces of 3/4 inch red oak together to make the drawer front. Added drawer slides to the side and mounted the front fascia in place.

Going to work on the permanent drawer pull and adding doors above the drawer.  

 

Router Table Project – Jessem Lift

I received a new DeWalt router for Christmas to replace my old Craftsman router and table. The new router accepts 1/2 inch shaft bits and has a more powerful motor. The old Craftsman only accepted 1/4 inch shaft bits and came mounted in a small plastic table with a melamine top.

I’m in the process of building a new bench-top table and portable stand to complete the setup.

The router is mounted in a Jessem router lift that greatly improves the ease of changing bits and the accuracy of setting the height of the bit for various cuts.

The plans for the setup came from one of the Steve Ramsey courses to which I have enrolled. I am heavily modifying the plans but the bulk of the design is his idea. I like Steve’s designs because he, like me, is cheap. Oops, I mean financially conservative.

I may use some of the dust collection, fence, and feather boards from the old system, not sure at this point. I will add T-track guides to those parts if I eventually add those as planned

Nesting Chairs

I made three of these chairs as Christmas presents for family members from a template that I bought from Jay Bates.

The chairs come apart for easy transporting and are intended for camping, outdoor sporting events, or just extra when needed in the backyard or around the house.

These are made of 3/4 inch red oak and finished with a satin exterior oil based polyurethane.

The Guys | Udorn Thailand 1966-67

TRC90-A Comm Van

Most of these guys were African American, drafted with a two year commitment and really couldn’t wait to return back to the States to get on with their lives. The only difference between me and them was that I had enlisted and had an additional year tacked on to my commitment. The route we took to get there didn’t matter we just had to get through it.

Seay

One big brother from Texas, I think Houston, was named Seay. I can’t think of his first name which will be typical of the stories as I go through them. At this writing our last interaction was 53 years ago.

Seay thought he was a lover, a player, and any other cool name that fit the era. He couldn’t wait to get off duty, put on his bell bottoms and disco style shirt and head to town. Lord only knows what he did but when he came back to the barracks, if he did, he would be wasted.

He would give me a bad time because I rarely went to any of the clubs downtown, I preferred to stay at the compound and drink top shelf booze for 25 cents a shot.

One afternoon Seay stopped by my bunk with only a towel wrapped around his fat ass, put his foot up on my footlocker and commented about me reading a letter that I had received that morning. He said “Damn, Skip. You get a letter from your wife almost everyday. I don’t get shit. When I go to the mail-room I don’t even open my mailbox I just “peep-off” in there. Yeah, he said “peep-off”.

Doc

Doc was from South Carolina and had a drawl to go along with it. I can’t remember his first or last name now after 53 years. Doc, as the name implies, was a medic. We affectionately called him the “pecker checker”.

We played bid whist a lot to pass the time and Doc was one of the best whist players that I have had the pleasure of playing with or against. Which begs the question of why he would try to cheat if he could. He really didn’t have to but, he would renege given the chance.  Of course, everytime he was caught it was by mistake.  Right.

After the cards were dealt, Doc would slide down in his chair, eyes scanning left and right, and a big grin would come over his face like the Grinch. Now that wasn’t a tell, his hand could be terrific or horrible but the demeanor didn’t change.

Inevitably as the bids would go around the table Doc would tell the last bidder, no matter where they were in the sequence, that they had stole his “bud”. Of course he meant his “bid”, but his South Carolina drawl wouldn’t let him.

Tiger

Again I’m lost on the actual name but he named himself Tiger, we didn’t pin him with it. Tiger was about five foot six. Weighed about one hundred thirty pounds and thought he could kick anybody’s ass. Well that was after about one beer. Before drinking Tiger was a mild mannered quiet guy with a great sense of humor.

One could watch Tiger begin to change into a different person as he consumed alcohol. A pleasant face would slowly begin to turn dark, eyes would begin to glaze over and a smile became a smirk and the orneriness would begin. First a few playful fake jabs to the face of the person he happened to pick that day or night.

Fake jabs would began to get closer and closer to actual punches to the face so much that one would have to start blocking his blows and began to become very defensive. Usually protecting yourself only aggravated Tiger more and the punches would escalate until a full fight broke out or Tiger directed his attention to someone else.

Tiger did this to me on many occasions and usually I could get him to stop or I’d just leave the area until he found someone else to harass. On one occasion I couldn’t get him to stop or maybe I was just in a bad mood that day, Tiger and I had a real fight. This little guy was a scrapper but my height and weight were to my advantage plus the fact I hadn’t been drinking the way he had been. I must say that I kicked his ass pretty good but I guess he had a short memory because it wasn’t long after that day Tiger was back again with the fake jabs to my face.

Cool Breeze

Cool Breeze was from Los Angeles. Talked shit all the time about “I did this in LA, I did that in LA”. I’m from Compton, don’t mess with me.

Cool Breeze didn’t like living on the compound with the rest of us GI’s so like a lot of other guy’s he rented a bungalow off base. The rents were dirt cheap and on a E3 or above rank the  rent was doable.  

Cool Breeze and I worked some of the same shifts in a set of communications vans which were located a few klicks down the road on the large joint US and Thai Udorn AFB. 

He kept bugging me to come over to his rented bungalow to hangout and smoke weed with him.  I didn’t smoke weed, never had and thought that I never would.  Cool Breeze kept pleading, begging, prodding me to just take a hit off this “good shit” he bought from a Thai friend. He kept giving me some excellent bourbon he had stashed in a secret place in his solo bungalow.  

I was 22 years of age at this time and pretty much never succumbed to peer pressure but I finally gave in and took one hit.  Nothing happened so I took another and I knew right then that I had screwed up badly.  Before Cool Breeze could stop me I was out the bungalow door out into the streets running like a mad man a mile back to the army compound.  

Days afterwards I was telling Tiger, Doc, Seay, and some of the other guys about my experience and they just laughed.  They all knew that Cool Breeze fortified his “good shit” with more potion stuff that I don’t even want to know what it was.  

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I Hate Best Buy

i contacted the customer service department via online chat to see about the delivery of my equipment that’s been delayed 3 times. It was supposed to have been delivered on Wednesday December 11th. I recieved a text message Wednesday afternoon telling me my order was delayed and would be delivered the next day.

OnTrac is the carrier and they never showed up or notified me in anyway. That night their website simply said my item was delayed but there was no ETA. I called the customer service center for OnTrac and after going through the automated call center I was put in queue with an estimated 75 minute wait time with no option for a call back.

I tried Best Buy again to see if I could get an update on the delivery. Their virtual chat dropped me two times after waiting approximately 25 minutes each time.

The third time I was able to connect and was told that the delivery was now scheduled three days from now on Monday the 16th. So a Next Day delivery will be a 5 day delivery if it happens then.

Neither Best Buy nor OnTrac seems to care at all about customer service. Other than a text message three days ago I have not heard from anyone pro-actively.

Previous Best Buy post.

The Fuck You Lizard

One of those stories that get passed along from GI to GI in Thailand is the famous Fuck You Lizard.  It is actually a gecko  called the Tokay.  Herpetologists say their call is “Tokay” thus the name, but to a GI with too much time of their hands in a foreign land it is easy to get the translations “Fuck You”.  I can attest that a many of nights while in the barracks writing a letter while sitting on my bunk the sounds from outside the louvered slats on the window the insulting lizard would be calling out.  “Fuck Que, Fuck Que, Fuck Que”, well into the night the sounds would reverberate throughout the compound.

The gecko was smart also, knowing we were Americans, they spoke in English to us.  How nice!

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One Night At The Bunker

The soldiers that had spent some time at a particular location made it their duty to pass on the stories, legends, and folklore of the facility, the post, or base where they happened to be stationed.  Most of the stories did have at least a little bit of truth to them but all of them were embellished to make the incoming troops feel uneasy for the entertainment pleasure of the short-timers (a term for the guys nearing the end of their tour assignment or their discharge from the service).

In Thailand one of those stories was about a snake named the Banded Krait, a short but highly poisonous viper.  To illustrate its so-called high toxicity it was called the “Two Stepper”, meaning after you were bitten you might take two steps and then keel over dead.  Actually, they are less venomous and shier then some snakes, such as the cobra, their reputation was bolstered on purpose to satisfy the stories passed on from troop to troop.

There were sandbag bunkers at various areas all around the perimeter of the compound that were to be used if and when attacked by the so called Thai Cong.  They remained mostly unused and just needed a little cleaning out from time to time due to the torrential rains during the monsoon season.  Each squad had their own set of bunkers assigned to them.  During one cleaning out session I spotted the “Two Stepper” and that bunker didn’t get a cleaning that day.


Well as you might guess the very next night we got roused out of our bunks about 2:00 in the morning due to a suspected raid by the Thai Cong.  Everybody had to report to the quartermaster to get a rifle and helmet and report to the bunkers.  All unnecessary lights were off as a defensive measure.


Well, Specialist Harrison was born at night but not that night so he also grabbed a flashlight out of his footlocker.  With my helmet on and rifle in hand, I got to the bunker shining my flashlight at anything and everything until the squad leader snatched the flashlight out of my hands.  The career sergeant was screaming at me and whispering at the same time that the ‘enemy’ might pick me off with one shot by just aiming at the light.   I told him that the ‘enemy’ might,  maybe, or could be out there but I saw a “Two Stepper” in there just the day before and I’d take my chances on the outside of the bunker.  After saying something about my mother and something about stupid comm guys he left me to my devices. 


It did turn out to be a false alarm that night but my commanding officer told me the next day that if I pulled a stunt like that again Specialist 4th Class (E4) Harrison would be Private First Class (E3) Harrison.  I never had to call his bluff since that was the last time I had to visit the bunker at night time.  Oh, by the time I left Thailand I was Specialist 5th Class (E5) Harrison, so take that Captain Napier!

Banded Krait

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