the final week: days 37-40

July 27-31, 2009

This last week was all about finishing up any last minute tasks we could get to. I was primarily working on finishing assembly on the last kitchen cabinet and then proceeded to make more cabinet doors for the rest of the kitchen, laundry room and matron galley. I was definitely a hustle and bustle week. In the end I felt like I had acomplished all that I came to do. Right now I just want to pause and reflect back on everything that I have acomplished this semester.

Details....deatails, without them we would all be in a mess of hell. When I first started working with Adrian I thought....damn this dude is seriously looking at something that doesnt exist (refering to the 1/1000 of an inch shaved off the riving knife). I seriously respect people who can see these details now, because ultimately they will find your flaws and most likely find and way around them. By the end of the semester I found myself commonly conflicted with small minute things such as a 1/64th of an inch lingering on the side of a cabinet door or calculating cuts based on the amount of material lost in using the table saw with a shakey blade. These things I would agrue most people would never even think about, but lets face it somewhere along the line the flaws have to show...otherwise nobody would ever know you made it.

I had alot of fun and if theres anything better than sanding or assembling cabinets...its putting yourself inside of them....I guess I should say that wheat board was the death of us, or maybe just the death of cabinetry.

Assembling cabinetry was not particularly fun, however it did challenge me the most of anything I had done this summer. This material...wheat board...cannot and should never be trusted, it bows and bends in all directions. Finding square with this material was like finding a needle in a haystack. Through alot of clamping and creating setups for working the bows out, we did manage to find that needle. I think in the future I would much rather be drowning in toxic residues of mdf than working with wheat board.

I got to use alot of really amazing tools, such as the router which by far made its way to the top, due to its ability to do almost anything. The table saw came to me mostly towards the end of the semester and I had struggled with it at first but by the end I was spliting sheets and trimming cabinetry to perfection. The tool I think I learned to use the most was my hands, and I realize now that there are alot of things that one person or even a group of people can acomplish if they put there heads together. I realize that there were some disagreements and maybe I wasnt too sure about much of the design decisions..I did realize that it is important if not vital to understand your design on all levels including person to person interaction and construction method, materials, and assembly. I think overall the experience was difficult and strenuous, and maybe I didnt get to go anywhere this summer but I did get work in the slums of greensboro.....for less than free.