Now, call me a princess, but I like to sit my arse down when I’m putting on my shoes. And not on the ground either, I like to have a nice chair or stool to sit on. Unfortunately there’s not room for a chair in our little vestibule, and in muddy, snowy Tulita you don’t want to take a single step into the house in your outdoor shoes.
Time for another pallet-based construction project. This time the plan was to just cut a couple of support-beam sized dadoes exactly half-way into a couple of pallet support beams, slot them together, cut the ends at 45° and stick a piece of pallet slat on top. If everything is cut exactly right, it should just slot together perfectly, sit perfectly flat and take no time at all.
Of course, that didn’t happen. My middle joints were off, my 45 degrees were actually somewhere between 44.5 and 45.5 and the whole thing wobbled wildly when I stood it up.
A month ago I was navigating the dilemma of what to buy to bring up. I didn’t know what I’d need but I knew I had only had a one-time shipping allowance. Easy to get spooked and over-buy, but also easy under-buy and be missing something essential for three years.
I decide to buy a table saw, but decided to buy the cheapest table saw. The first decision was a good one! The table saw has been super useful. Unfortunately the cheapness means that:
- there’s no precise depth-gauge, so I need to rely on my imprecise eye-ball and ruler,
- the hinge that sets the bevel angle is plastic, cheap, weak and easily jostled by the depth adjusting handle, so the blade is often not exactly straight,
- the bench is short, so it’s hard to align long pieces, and
- the whole thing is unstable and shifts small amounts easily.
So, cutting *exactly* straight on this table saw isn’t something I’ve mastered yet. But I’ve got time, I’ll figure it out.
Anyway, add a few hours of patient chiseling, measuring, fitting things together, wobbling them, unfitting them, and lots more chiseling to the initial plan and I ended up with a nice, compact, stable, stool for changing your shoes on.
