Day 6: I'm Cut Thin.

I fixed up Gretchen's bike so that I can get around town a bit, and I rode that down to Dwains. It is supposed to take 23 minutes to get there, but it took me about 15. It is literally downhill most of the way. Do you know how I know? I had to ride home uphill. That sucked!

So I'll ride and I'll walk and get rides from time to time. My legs will be so strong after six months of this!

Today we picked up where we left off yesterday--making friends with the bandsaw. I was on it all day cutting backs for the dulcimers. I cut eight sets, which is sixteen cuts. Each cut takes twenty minutes plus any adjustments that need to be made. And there were plenty!

The trick to doing this is setting up. The wood has to be be squared with itself, and so do the fence and blade on the saw. All of the stops have to be adjusted, and then the blade had to be tested to see how it would cut the desired width: .150 inches.

So Dwain showed me how he sets up the rig and gets it going. We spent at least an hour getting everything ready. And then Dwain turned me loose.

I have a lot of time on a bandsaw. I've been using one since I was a kid. But I've never had to fine tune one like this, my work just never called for it. So it was a treat to get to experience this. But since we did so much practice, which was really just restocking, there will be no need to cut like this again.




We had a watermelon break somewhere in here. Dwain always has two pieces, where I can only eat one.

And then I went back to cutting. The last piece I cut was no good, but the variance between each piece was acceptable. Dwain said I did a great job. Thanks, Dwain.

This is the final lumber. The wood was absolutely gorgeous, and whoever gets one of these instruments is sure to be pleased.

We talked a bit about woods and what I'd use to build my machines. But the Sunhearth/Bear Meadow instruments are tried and true, so why would I mess with a good thing. Perhaps sometime down the road when I have the means and time I'll experiment. But to start out with I will honor the tradition that is being given to me.

     A                            B

Okay. In which picture was Dwain more likely to loose a finger? Image "A" is Dwain working in the shop he built and has run for over 20 years. Image "B" is Dwain going for my mac and cheese after I've not eaten anything for seven or so hours.

We found this place that serves the best, and by best I mean worst for you, southern food in Rochester. They fried me up a whole half chicken and gave me a cornbread biscuit to go with it. I also got the sweet potato fries and fried ochra, you know, for veggies. They put sugar on the potatoes to sweeten them up. It was delicious!