Sawdust and Shavings

Well that didn't take long did it, just over a month!! Not the most active blogger on the planet and hardly a candidate for Twitter.

Armed with my collection of carefully measured pieces, associated drawings and unbounded enthusiasm I headed for the workshop, donned my safety glasses and set to work. Very quickly I discovered that some processes are very easy, or so it seems (more on this later) so I happily set to work cutting wood to specific lengths after having "ripped it" on my shiny but terrifying new table saw and put it through the planer. Now if you want to make a mess in a workshop the table saw and the planer will pretty much take care of that for you in short order

Fairly quickly I had a pile of pieces that represented the center beam, the side and center supports and the upper and lower cross pieces. Holes were drilled, grooves were routed and all seemed well, now to move on to some of the smaller pieces. plywood selected for the sides of the windlass, pine for the trigger and the standard Timberkits assortment of drilled dowell washers and spacers.

Now, looking around at the piles of pieces and sawdust and shavings it did cross my mind whether I had created more waste than parts and I began to reflect on the challenges. Have you ever tried to drill into the end grain of a soft wood like pine? The drill has a tendency to wander off into the softer wood so drilling precisely is very difficult. If you are not really accurate with the inner and outer supports the Ballista looks a pretty strange shape. The axle was another challenge and this was solved using a square section of hardwood and brad point drill bits. So what is left, oh yes, the ratchetts!

Sinking feeling.................how am I going to make the ratchetts?

Next time.............dowell, routers and decagons!