The $50 Tattoo

Ty Black in one of my Roorkhee chairs made with mahogany and (oddly) scrap leather used for making NFL footballs.

Once when I was shooting some poo with friends, someone asked: “Do y’all have tattoos?”

I don’t. I’m too old. But my friend Ty Black said, “I do.”

Ty is a software engineer. Born square from a square uterus (this is a compliment). He is the last person I ever thought would have ink.

“Show me,” I said, immediately wondering if I would regret this.

Ty held out his hand.

“I don’t see a tattoo,” I said.

Ty pointed to a dark freckle next to his thumb. “It cost me $50, which was the absolute minimum charge at the tattoo parlor.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a black dot. I got it in college to remind myself to stop messing around and get back to studying. Every time I saw the black dot it helped me regain my focus.”

That’s a bit weird, I thought. Until yesterday.

I’m building a fireplace surround for our third floor. I don’t like doing projects around the house because I feel like I’m losing money the whole time. If I’m at the bench, I want to be making something I can sell.

But I have been promising Lucy that I would build this surround for three years. I am way overdue. So as soon as I finished building my final chair of 2024, I broke into a stack of quartered white oak to build the surround.

Besides procrastinating on house projects, my other problem is that I don’t skimp on materials or joinery – even when it makes sense. So this thing is frame-and-panel, pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery. Very nice quartered oak with some insane ray flake.

Everything was going smoothly until I started working on the face frame’s top rail. I don’t have an easy way to clamp up the face frame when I put it in place on the fireplace. My clamps aren’t long enough. I considered a few other options (pinch dogs, stringing clamps together etc. etc. I’ve read all the damn Tricks of the Trade columns for the last 28 years).

So I decided to drill a pocket hole on the backside of the rail. That would allow me to pull the mortise-and-tenon tight while the glue set up (no clamps). Then I could slide the assembled surround in place.

So I whipped out my Kreg jig and drilled a hole.

My attention wandered. I completely lost focus for about two seconds. I don’t know what I was thinking of – probably about making dinner (chicken and dumplings).

I began drilling the hole on the wrong surface of the rail. I drilled for a couple seconds before I caught myself.