Me and my helper finishing the framework:

Alissa with Uncles Alan and Calvin enjoying the half finished playhouse. The wall sheating is up and the roof is mostly shingled:

Fully shingled and mostly painted:

Now I just have to finish the doors and windows along with the trim. Alissa wants green windows and a purple door.

Here are some before and after pics:

Today, I got started on a playhouse for the kids. It’s kinda like a mini-shed. But it will have windows, a porch, and a more reasonably graded roof. Here’s some pics of Alissa inspecting my work. Everyone’s a critic.

I did make Alissa work for it a little. Here she is vacuuming up some sawdust:

In the background, you can see the other project that I finished up today. It’s just a bench
I had been working on here and there. It’s a design from “Wood” magazine. My friend Bryan gifted me a year when they offered him a free friend subscription. Yes, I get “Wood” magazine. Mostly, it just makes me feel inadequate… for not having bigger tools. I mean power tools.

It’s just some 3/4″ birch plywood left over from my speaker build with some hinges and knobs. Now, the babies can’t climb in and use it as their fort.

I chose the ZDT 3.5 design, from the same guy who came up with the other pair I built. Since Bonnie wasn’t a huge fan of the all wood look, this design will use a combination of painted MDF and plywood.

Here’s a pic in progress:

And here’s a pic in the later stages of assembly:

3/30/2010 – They’re done! Sort of…

Got everything glued up and wired. I still have to fix the paint that I screwed up while gluing the front and rear baffles. And since taking the pictures, I’ve already made some little outriggers.

They sound pretty darn good. I’ll reserve my thoughts for a more thorough review after they break in a bit and I get a chance to listen to a bunch of stuff. But initial impressions are that the imaging is very good even at close listening distances. The crossovers seem to be doing a very good job as I can’t discern any distortion or other bad behavior. And I think there’s enough bass response for my needs. I have yet to try any home theater stuff, but for music, I think I’ll be happy.

As for build notes, I did make that one mistake with the mid recess but it’s not too bad. Otherwise, I was very happy with the textured paint although I might polyurethane on top of it next time. It tends to hold on to dust and everything else pretty tenaciously.

More to come. In the meantime, here are some pics.

The crossovers are velcro’d to the bottom empty space of the cabinets:

3-channel Beta 22 with a gain of 5
1 sigma 22 with 100VA toroid
Nichicon Muse KZ caps used throughout
Single RCA input
DACT stepped attenuator
Neutrik locking headphone jack
Bulgin power switch
Vampire wire used for input and outputs
Dual enclosures from par metal
Neutrik Speakon locking power cable

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. At this point, I’m getting more efficient at both the case work and the trouble shooting and have enough experience to just build these without putting too much energy into the detailed layout and planning. And of course, it sounds fantastic!

Here are the specs:
INPUTS:
1. Toslink optical
2. USB
3. Coax S/PDIF

OUTPUTS:
1. K1000 balanced
2. XLR balanced
3. TRS single ended
4. RCA preamp

ENCLOSURE:
1. Custom machined Par metal case with solid birch front panel

POWER SUPPLY:
1. +/- 15V Dual mono bipolar power supplies for the analog sections.
2. Dual 5V power supply for the digital sections (Toslink, 4:1 Mux, Buffalo)

MISC:
1. e24 relay circuit triggered by an LED ring Bulgin momentary switch.
2. Man hours: Probably about 100 all told.
3. Birch panel was cut and then routed for the radiused edges and milled for the center stepped hole. The hole was stained with a pecan finish before tung oiling the remainder of the piece and then sealed with a few layers of polyurethane with light sanding in between coats.
4. It sounds fantastic!

You can see her all ready to go with her lunch box and everything. She’s going three days a week and so far so good. She had a few small issues, but for the most part, the teachers said she was doing fine… and talks a lot… and wants to help with ev.er.y.thing. I think Bonnie was probably the most effected by it. Her little girl is growing up! I have to admit that I did have some separation anxiety when I dropped her off each of the three days. But I stayed disciplined and didn’t even call to see how she was doing. (Instead, I relied on Bonnie’s phone calls and subsequent reports.)

In other Alissa news, she finally made some good progress with potty training. She had a couple accidents here and there, but nine times out of ten, she’s able to tell us that she needs to go potty and makes a successful, “deposit.”

With all the success, her crayon box has become quite full. (She gets a new crayon and an M&M with every successful attempt.) The cheapo plastic box that she uses to hoard all these crayons has pretty much been defective since day one so I used some scrap wood from my other projects and a hinge I stole from a binder to make her a nice wooden box. I still need to get a latch for the front, but it’s pretty much done.

It’s mostly 1×3 solid birch and 1/4″ birch plywood. I put a 1/4″ dado on the bottom to accept the bottom panel and made the lid with some 1×2 that I ripped to about 3/4″x3/4″ with a rabbet to accept the top panel. It’s just glued together since I’m lazy and didn’t want to fill in nail holes. Plus, I figure it’s only going to hold crayons so the not insignificant strength of wood glue should be plenty strong enough for this little box. Finally, I put a 1/4″ radius on most of the edges so if/when Alissa drops it, there’s less chance of her damaging our hardwood floors. Oh, and the finish is a couple coats of Minwax cherry stain with polyurethane. Fun little project. Learned a lot. Specifically that my woodworking skills still leave a lot to be desired.

I also finished off my first attempt at cabinetry. This was kinda my learning project in preparation for making the built-ins for the breakfast nook. It’s made of 3/4″ birch plywood for the casing and shelves and various pieces of solid birch trim. The “toy chest” drawer is also made with 3/4″ birch ply and solid birch trim. I routed the top trim piece with a 1/4″radius round-over bit for a comfortable grip when sliding. It slides on bottom mounted drawer hardware. Finally, the finish is a simple hand rubbed tung oil. It brings out the grain nicely and imparts a warm, golden hue to the naturally pale birch.

Lesson #1: Don’t skimp on tools. I had originally bought a cheap stacked dado set and got crappy cuts with lots of tearout. I’ve since upgraded to a nice set from Freud and expect better results next time based on the test cuts I’ve made so far.

Lesson #2: Prep work is just as important as the actual work. Planning, measuring, tool setup, etc. all contribute to the quality of the final product.

Lesson #3: 3/4″ birch plywood is HEAVY! I almost broke my back trying to get the thing up the stairs.

Now I just have to finish the shelving inside, get the trim up, and paint the thing. For now, it basically just holds all the tools that I used to make the darn thing. And some leftover materials too. If anyone needs any roofing nails or roofing paper, let me know.

I’m sure you all are sick of my stupid shed by now. I promise, just one more post when it’s 100% done. To make up for it, here are some pics of the girls:

… to riches

We visited Jef, Xiao Yi, and Gavin this weekend at their beautiful new place in Burlingame. Xiao Yi made a fantastic dinner as always. Beef noodle soup and onion pancakes. Very Taiwanese. And very tasty. Afterwards, we went for a short walk.

Alissa is getting faster and faster.

And she likes to push rather than ride in her stroller.

(I had to make her walk in the grass because the road was too steep and she would certainly have face planted on the way down.)

Gavin is so much bigger than last time we saw him.

And finally, here’s a random pic of Amanda.