Not as in opposed to, but the opposite. I was asked to make a barn roof sign like the “See Rock City” that are around this area. This one says “see Blairs Valley Boarding Stables”. It was fun having a serendipity incident with the flaky paint stencil. I should finish it with another two or three hours of work.

I’m not comparing myself with these guys, but here’s an interesting Bible verse that talks about God giving people skill in a craft. It’s  from Exodus chapter 31:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: Exod 35:30; 1Chr 2:20; 3 And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 5 And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.

You can see the methods at this site:

See This Barn Sign

At my other blog, I recently wrote about my fascination with the word ‘manifest’. Part of what I wrote was about a new idea improving our lives. For years, I’ve had an idea, maybe it’s not new to others, but I wanted to try it. I was thinking that if I had a really long, straight fence for my table saw; I might be able to use the saw as a jointer. Part of that process will be to extend the top plane of the table saw.

I needed to rip cut some pressure treated wood this week, so I did a temporary extension of the saw top/plane. I used 3 deck boards, supported by a couple of short posts sunk in the ground. That along with a tweak to the alignment of my saw fence (short one), I had a pleasurable time ripping all the little boards I needed for window trim on the railroad coach I’m trying to finish. The trim holds the clear plastic panes in a few of the doors. I could buy quarter round trim at the store; but it would be pricey, and it wouldn’t be pressure treated. This was simple, no router needed. The edges of decking boards are very rounded, so I just trimmed those off, and used them for this project.

Anyway, the table extension worked great. My safety and accuracy were up, stress was down. This very table saw, not one like it, cut off a previous owner’s fingertip through carelessness. It’s powerful and demands respect.Here’s another little idea I had, and it…worked. The fence boards at the nearby horse show arena badly needed painting. So I ended up working on that project. The first picture is the fence in its needy condition. the picture doesn’t show it very well, but there are lots of old paint chips stuck on the wood.

The idea I had was for a reusable post masking device. It’s just a used sign I was given by a local sports stadium. I cut the sign in half, overlapped the two halves, and bolted them together at one edge near the middle. I also cut two rectangle slots. This idea actually worked. So many ideas seem great “on paper”, but the design overlooks a critical flaw in the plan.