This one's for you Hamish.

Earlier this week, I experienced a weird tingly sensation in my finger and when I inspected it, I realised that I had manage to sand the tip of my finger nail off. Whilst I can be quite blase about this now (its the least of the many nicks and dinks I've managed to inflict on myself!), if someone had told me 5 years ago, I would one day sand the tip of finger nails off I suspect I would never have believed them. I guess it just shows you what a funny twisted journey life sometimes takes you on.

Now there's a lot of ways that one can injure oneself in the workshop, some more seriously than others, and if you think about it, a workshop can double up as a torture chamber, enabling you to inflict major pain on your arch nemesis (not that I spend any time thinking about this at all). Even setting aside the risk of dismemberment on any one of the more lethal machines (think table saw, cross-cut saw, band saw or router), the possibilities are endless. You could stab yourself with a chisel, scalpel or paring knife, cut yourself with a handheld saw, flatten your fingers with a mallet, graze yourself with the sander, or even stab yourself with pieces of wood (I have managed to do this one on numerous occasions in a variety of different ways and have a rather spectacular bruise on one boob to show for it). If I had to pick though, I think death by broken veneer press would probably do the most damage. How? By producing the most irritating and high-pitched whining noise imaginable (worse than finger nails on a chalkboard). As everyone is required to make a veneered piece this term, the blasted thing has been on pretty much constantly and I had reached the stage where I was just about ready to stab myself in the ear to block out the noise. Thankfully, however, the thing got repaired!

This week's rant over - here's what I have to show for this week:

1. We finished our French polishing and have some shiny boards to show for it.
2. I've played about with some bendy ply and veneer and now have the drawer fronts for my dresser ready to go.
3. I've made a mess of several bits of my dresser having to cut and re-cut pieces as result of my incompetence. Nonetheless, and despite my best efforts to the contrary, some basic bits of the carcase are coming together.

So shiny you can see your reflection in it!

A former and some bendy ply = serpentine drawer front

Building a dresser one small piece at a time