Emily helps make sawdust
The girls are home from college for the summer, so when it came time to rip the Cypress into all those little strips I got some help. Saturday we did the ripping. I didn’t think I could rip to consistent widths, so ripped them all to 3/8”, leaving room to plane them down to an even 1/4”. Turns out my fence jig worked well enough I probably could have done without the planing, but a pass through the planer on each side cleaned them all up nicely. It will save on sanding later I suppose.
It’s a messy job, though – loud and dusty. Saturday night, when we were done ripping, I just turned off the lights and left it all til morning. Sunday, when we came down to start work again, there were little trails and tracks of critters all across the floor through the sawdust.
I’m guessing some of the tracks are from spiders or beetles, but they were definitely busy while we slept. Who knew? Something was low enough to the ground that it had to drag it’s belly through the dust. As Terri and I were walking out, she spotted a centipede on the stairs. She suggested we catch it and set in the powder to see what it’s tracks looked like and, sure enough, he turned out to be the belly dragger.
The planing made another big pile of sawdust – six garbage bags full – but the strips are done and ready for decking. And, if I’ve figured everything right, I even have enough Cypress planks left for framing. Maybe I can get started before the holiday weekend is over.
