Part IV 

All right then! Here it was, around the beginning of April, and I had a plan for the new shop (more or less) in hand. It was time to go ahead with the construction... or so I had thought, anyway.

I got a contractor lined up to do the concrete. I had decided that work was simply too much for me to handle on my own, and that it would probably serve me better to have it done by somebody else. I didn't have the equipment, nor did I have the help (or the back) to put down the concrete by myself. I might have mentioned that North Idaho was undergoing an unprecedented building boom at the time. What that meant for me was a wait for the permit. Permits usually take just a couple weeks. Usually, this might not be an issue, but the concrete guy I had lined up had a very tight schedule. Well, it turned out I had a couple of issues that permitting wouldn't allow, mainly the bathroom I had discussed previously. With that, I took the plan home and removed it entirely from the design (which actually helped me out budget-wise), but as it would have it I couldn't take the time off of work to get back to the permit office for two week. When I did finally, it was two more weeks before I got the plan reviewed and approved. I called the concrete guy up, and turns out I was past his window of availability. I would have to find another.

That delay led to a two week long search for another concrete contractor. The only one I could find available was still three weeks out before he could start, but he didn't do excavating - though he knew someone who did. So, I contacted him, and he was three weeks out too. So - what I thought might be a two to three week period of getting the permit reviewed and groundbreaking turned out to be entirely too optimistic. By the time I got the excavator there it was the end of May, a full 5 weeks later than I'd hoped.

Being an architect, I'm familiar with the whole process so didn't let it get me down, and just chalking it up to the way things work. But - when this showed up out front of the house early one morning, I started getting a little excited:

It's not really the machine I would have chosen for the task, but as long as the hole got dug, I wasn't going to worry. I had considered doing it myself... had I done it; I would have rented a loader with a backhoe mounted on the back. A track-hoe (like above) tends to rip up the lawn too much when you turn on it... It's also a very small bucket - which can be a good thing, both for digging utility trenches and when you have a plan with a lot of little corners... But I don't have a great deal of experience in digging foundations, and what little I had done was over 20 years ago... I figured it best to leave it to someone who knew more. Besides, the cost of renting a backhoe for myself would have been 2/3rds of the price of paying someone else to do it, so I figured it was better hired out.

It was finally time to break ground. Here's where the shop was to go shown in the site plan again:

Here is a photo of the yard, talen looking north from the end of the patio:

The scarring you see in the center of the yard was from an old willow tree that had to come down a few years prior when a windstorm had knocked the main portion of it's trunk down. The scarring was from the year previously when I finally got the stump out of the ground using a skid-steer I had rented when putting in the pavers for the patio, which you can see in the lower left. Within an hour or two, the trench for the main footings were dug:

Finally, something was happening. I was still worried about the excavation, though - I thought it odd that he would only dig the trench and not strip the topsoil within the footprint of the building first. In the end, it turned out I didn't need to worry about it. The fellow was a young guy, for whom renting himself and his track-hoe out was his main method of income in the warmer months. While young, in the end it turned out he was hard working, honest, and truly concerned with doing a good job - and for not really all that much money, either. But I didn't know that yet at this point, so was concerned. Even though it was taken care of later and I was satisfied with his work, I do wish it had been done properly. But with the building environment the way it was, I was just happy to have somebody to do the job.

Up next, the foundation!

The architect mostly achieves the ideal process of culture combination and success to represent a unique colour of ur main pillars (as part of Joglo) and Soko Geder (one pillar). On the top of soko guru there are put tumpang songo (nine support) (it musn't be nine, it could be only three support (tumpang telu (tiga)) which depend on the capability of the owners), as the support of roof construction.

The roof construction of traditional house of Kudus shows the level of wealthy of the owner since cost to make the roof is the highest cost compare with any other parts of the house. The expensive cost was because of the motifs perfection and the carved style also the difficulty on the process to construct it.

The Pencu style roof (the towering roof) used to be made of Rumbia (a particular kind of palm leaves), but now more likely to be made of tiles. Kudus tiles often have special plant motifs, and there are the so-called genteng gajah (with elephant ornamentation) on the wuwungan (the topmost row of tiles), and the genteng raja (king tiles) which are beautifully decorated.

The design interior of the traditional house of Kudus looks simple and divided into Jogo Satru room as a guess room, which in the standard traditional house of Kudus the cover area is around 3 x 10 msq. In this room, the floor is lower around 1 m from the main room (inside room) and is a part of the fourth step or floor.

Then, inside room (jogan lebet) is a fifth step with area around 7 x 10 msq. A chair uses as the connection between the two rooms because of its level differences.and as partition between the two rooms used Gebyok.

Inside the inside room (jogan lebet), there are several rooms such as living room located below the joglo, then bedrooms and gedongan as the place to keep the heilroom and wealthy. Gedongan placed between inside room and pawon (kitchen) that located in the left or right of the house.

This pawon except use for cooking and dinner room, also use for the family activity, such as made of convection products and other home industries. In front of the pawon, precisely in the edge part of the yard placed well complete with the bathroom.

There are several types of doors in the traditional house of Kudus, there is one door, two door and sliding door. One door is usually for the kitchen, two doors in gebyok and the sliding door is in the front.

One thing that necessary to be noted is that traditional house of Kudus always build face to the south that full with the philosophy meaning and based on the natural rule of rational calculation.

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When I was writing my review of the Harbor Freight Cen-Tech Digital Angle Gauge I realized I hadn't really used it for anything other than setting my tools to 90 degrees. So I took a quick survey of what wood supplies I had in the garage.

Hmmm... I have a few boards of purpleheart, some "hobby wood" curly maple boards from Lowes, some scraps of poplar, a bunch of redwood... I got nuttin'.

As I walked into my bathroom I found my wife had used some fugly light blue plastic drinking cups to put Q-tips in. *MY* bathroom! The horror! I realized then I had to make me a Q-tip holder that would look nice in my bathroom on my redwood shelving. But I really didn't want to make it out of redwood. That wood is so brittle I cringed at the thought of getting accurate angles without splintering.

But 1/4" maple with some purpleheart strips would be nice! And a perfect use for my angle gauge!

I decided on a hexagon shape, using six strips of purpleheart cut with a pair of 60* angles on the long sides and 1 1/2" strips of curly maple.

I first cut the purpleheart using a scrap of wood for a pushblock and the blade set to 60*. I got that 60* setting by dividing the number of degrees in a circle, 360, by the number of sides in my project, 6. 360 / 6 = 60. The cuts were made with my Delta/Leitz 24 tooth rip blade. That blade leaves such beautiful cuts...


That was easy enough. But the maple cuts weren't. I have a large crosscut sled I made for making some table miters when I first got this saw. But it is really unwieldy when using for small parts. So I had to make a small 48" x 24" crosscut sled. No construction pics, but it's 3/4 MDF with doubled up 1/2" birch ply for the handles. Simple, sturdy, and accurate. It also makes me feel MUCH more comfortable cutting small parts on the table saw. Especially using the David Marks trick of a pencil eraser as a hold down.

• NOTE: When using a stop block with a crosscut sled, you MUST hold down the piece between the block and the saw blade. Kickbacks are fierce when a piece gets wedged in there. Ask me how I know...

Back to the original project. I cut the maple so the curls ran vertical and the grain horizontal. This gave me less splintering in the curly maple when using a card scraper. But it also increased the risk of grain separation because I was scraping across the grain. I don't know that either orientation would be easy. But I liked the appearance of the vertical ripples.

The maple was 3 x 2 1/2". I cut six identical pieces with the crosscut sled and a stop block. (This is where I learned about holding down the piece between the blade and the stop block!)

I set up my router table with a 1/4" straight bit, set 1/8" high with the fence 1/4" from the front of the cut. This gave me a 1/4" x 1/8" rabbet to set the bottom of the cup into. I ran all the maple as well as the purpleheart through the router.

I placed two strips of blue masking tape, sticky side up, on my bench. I then clamped a straight edge to the bench a little ways below. The straight edge was the register for my parts to keep them aligned and give me a cup that is square to the world.

Once I was happy with the alignment, lack of gaps, and the test fit went well, I brushed Titebond II on all the joints and rolled it up. The overlaps of tape held it together and acted as a clamp. No strap clamp needed on such a small piece. I left it to dry overnight.


The next day I set up my sled again to trim the proud bits of purpleheart. The sled really came into its own for this part since I needed to make 6 identical cuts.


I used my cabinet scraper to clean up the outside of the cup and ease the edges, gently rounding the joints between the maple and purpleheart.


To fit the bottom I used a scrap of 1/4" poplar with the outside of the cup traced to it. I rough cut it on the bandsaw then used 60 grit sandpaper to fit in the rabbet around the bottom of the cut. Once it fit I used a cabinetmaker's triangle to mark the correct orientation then set it aside.

I sealed the inside of the cup and the bottom as separate pieces with some Zissner SealCoat. I'm trying to use this stuff up before it goes bad. It's the same stuff I put on the crosscut sled I made during this project. I don't like how it looks compared to "real" shellac, so I use it in places that aren't seen, or I don't care how it looks. I have started mixing my own shellac from flakes distributed by Hock Finishes and denatured alcohol. The lensing effect of the home mixed shellac is far superior to that of any of the canned finishes I've tried so far!


After two coats of the Seal Coat had been applied and dry, I applied self adhesive felt to the inside surface of the bottom and the inside of the cup.

Yes. It's red. So sue me.

This self adhesive felt is available at WalMart for around a buck for an 8x10" sheet. It took about 3/4 of a sheet for this project. And it was my last sheet of any color (that's why I used red). I need to stock up again.

Once the adhesive had a chance to become permanent, I trimmed around the rabbet and lip of the cup with an X-Acto knife. I double checked the fit of the bottom. It fit a bit proud, as I expected because of the felt. I brushed on the glue and clamped it for an hour.

Finally, I hit the bottom with my belt sander to make the bottom flush with the sides and applied 2 coats (so far... more to come tomorrow) of my home mixed shellac in a 3 pound cut. I brought it inside to hopefully harden completely before tomorrow morning so I can smooth the finish with some 400 grit paper and apply 2 more coats.

While I was sitting in my chair holding it and admiring (we all do that right? I'm not crazy? Hello? Anybody?), I realized I had made it too big for Q-tips. I'd have to have a full package in there all the time. Ugh. So I set it on my purpleheart and maple side table (noticing a trend?) and picked up a Lee Valley catalog to let my mind wander for a few minutes.

My 4 year old daughter came up and dropped a remote in it. "Nice, Daddy! A new remote holder!" She ran off to do whatever 4 year old girls do when they run off.

I, on the other hand, was stunned. Why the !@#%@$^# hadn't I thought of that? The wife had been kvetching about the remotes for months. Somehow she thought getting Dish would mean only one remote.

I know, I know. What can I say? Don't your wives hate the remotes too?

Anyway, it now has a permanent place in the living room on my maple and purpleheart side table. At least it matches.

And I still have an ugly light blue plastic drinking cup in my bathroom. But now its mate has come down to hold Neosporin tubes.

Why can't she just stay out of the Guy's bathroom?