16 Comments

Edges are so important to good furniture but they get so little attention. To me they remain a mystery even more perplexing than finishing. More edgy content please!

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Getting up in the middle of the night with ideas is more common than you might think. It's called biphasic sleep, or "two sleeps". It was a common sleep pattern before urbanization and artificial lighting mostly put an end to it. Alexander the Great called it "The Watch", where he would get up, write down the brilliant strategy he had just conceived, go back to sleep, then wake up ready to conquer the world. So, you are in good company.

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Thanks Chris. Throughout my working career, I often would awaken in the middle of the night with the answer to some vexing problem I had been working on. It is amazing that the brain will continue to work during its slumber. The key your success in using this phenomena is to slip out of your warm bed and actually write the solution down. Otherwise, it may be a bit of fading gossamer by morning.

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Sweet dreams!

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I have found adderol to be my best design drug. Thankfully I got it prescribed. My insomnia doesn’t happen unless I try to go to bed before midnight. If I do I am bound to wake up at three but no matter what I do I can’t go back to sleep. More design or carving time in those nights. I Love the witching hour.

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I say take off the training wheels. One more jig to get underfoot. Use your eyeball. Your best effort will at worst leave a line a bit uneven that will add character to the first chair you proudly made.

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Thanks Chris. A nice jig idea, but I prefer skilled handwork to get that crisp line at the spindle deck.

Cheers,

Michael

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I admire your willingness to abandon the comfort (and winter warmth) of bed to purge the mental arcane. At least the brain lets you go back to sleep.

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Not to be a springbutt ... but have you discarded the idea of thin sheet metal like an eraser shield?

While I mostly serve as the bad example, I think with power tools I would unevenly sand through the edges of anything both thin enough to not rip the paper and made of wood or paper-ish.

Of course, for me, power tools are like coffee and computers, they just enable me to make mistakes faster.

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An alternative to the router method in the ADB?

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Most of my life I worked third shift. So my natural time to get up is now about 3 am. It feels like sleeping in. And it's nice, because no other people are about.

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Eureka! The template thing I mean.

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Thanks, I am going back to bed now.

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I guess I’m not alone in these recurring seasons of insomnia. It was bad in my early 20s and now has returned as we have small kids. Was kinda hoping it would go away after that 😅

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As someone who’s been up since 4 AM with a severe case of loud brain this resonates with me on a spiritual level.

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