Woodwork and Too Bright Headlights

Yesterday I worked on that board out in the shop. You know, the 8-foot-long board two and an eighth inches thick that was cupped and bowed pretty badly. I think it stood off the bench about an inch when I lay it bow down. I split it in half and turned one side long way and faced it against itself again. Then I slammed it down to the bench and glued it together. Here, let me show you.

This was sitting on the bench with the ends at least an inch up in the air and that’s not even accounting for cupping. Reverse half on itself, and flatten them together for glue up, and this is what you get, still in the rough. I can plane it down by up to five-sixteenths of an inch still, so there is plenty of room to reach a good flat, smooth board.

All of the other boards designated for the kitchen island top are a lot closer to perfect than this one was. This one was difficult to glue up because the clamps I have are weak, and I am not very experienced at hand jointing. I may invest in a little epoxy to do the middle of the glue joint. There is a length where the gap in it reached nearly a thirty-second of an inch wide. Not good, but I think it can be worked around with the modern techniques.

The whole goal of this project is to replace a solid core door that is being used as a countertop with a solid piece of wood made from a tree that I picked up at the dump. I have four pieces a little more than a foot wide each, and just over two inches thick, so the resultant board should be robust, especially as I don’t feel like planing it all the way down to a thin little piece of wood. Going forward, any damages the top takes should be able to be planed or sanded out and refinished. I suspect I may be able to glue two one-foot-wide boards to the two sides of this one, and have a full, nice countertop. But if there is any part that is unsatisfactory, I can replace it in whole or in part with the spare. It’s really a ‘we will see’ kind of thing. I have looked all the boards over, but I may have missed something, and I am ready to adapt as things progress.

My daughter drove to the school bus stop this morning as part of her logged practice required. We got to an intersection on the way where she was required to make a left turn, which she did alright. She lacked confidence, and who wouldn’t when there is a car behind, one coming the other way, and one waiting at the stop sign to the right? That last one was a rather expensive looking SUV with incredibly bright lights, daylight white LED’s. They followed us through as we made our turn. That’s when my daughter got a learning opportunity in patience. There is enough undulation in the road surface after that for a moment we could see our headlights illuminating the road, but when the car behind us came over too, our light all but vanished in the flood of their lights. It was only in the shadow of our car that we could see any of the coloring of our own lights.

I certainly understand driver safety and how nice it must be to see like they can. What I don’t understand is how we have come to the point where drivers are allowed to flood the road in front of them with so much light that anyone in another vehicle cannot safely see? How are people so selfish that they only care about their own safety, and don’t give a toss about others? Light like that would be valuable over 120 miles per hour, but at normal surface road driving speeds, it is not only completely unnecessary, but vision can be supplemented with technology that senses objects around such as that in the Tesla Model 3. When I got to ride in one of those, the in-dash screen was able to show a woman pushing a stroller in the crosswalk as she passed in front of the vehicle in front of us. Certainly, such tech can be adapted to highlight potential risks and alert the driver in a heads-up display or something. But rather, we live in the world where we would rather cause anger and anxiety to other drivers as we blind them while they drive.

The other driver did not take long to cut around and pass us, even though my inexperienced child was driving too close to the center of the road to properly allow someone to pass. Oh, she was there, but she left it narrow. By the time we had gone the last mile to the bus stop, the other driver had gone by fast enough to have been two miles ahead of us, driving at the posted limits. Whatever the other driver’s emergency, I wish them well.

I spoke briefly to two of my old friends going back to late elementary school days yesterday. It is none of your business what either of them had to say, but I will allow you to know that it was good, and I am glad to talk to them, always!

Enough for now. I will enjoy a little rest up while it warms up a little before I go out and get to work getting us ready for the last Farmers Market for this year.

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