Right Angles to Serpentarium

(The explanation of the shooting board from a couple days ago, with apologies to Catie for messing with her title)

Some months ago, drdorothy and thingmaker3 began gutting their house, and many things had to be stored.  We had room, so we stored some.  Boxes.  Furniture.  Buckets of rocks.  And snakes.  

This was fine because, a couple of months earlier, Shannon had given into her growing interest in cornsnakes, and purchased Simbi, who lives in a very nice vivarium in the library.  That being so, we moved drdorothy’s crowd in there…which precipitated an immediate movement into more snakes.

And more.  Shannon’s now, I think, outnumber drdorothy’s.  Our library doubles as a serpentarium, which is a nice word to know, if nothing else.

In the beginning of the library’s career, we made bookshelves.  The first turned out well, much better than pressboard.  Attractive, sturdy, nice to touch.  The second one was nearly professional grade.  So we thought we’d give furniture making a shot through the house, since we’d end up with exactly what we wanted, made of just the right materials, finished to suit us, for much cheaper than cheap furniture would cost.

The thing is, the jump from bookshelves to, say, a dvd cupboard with inset lighting, drawers and doors, and elaborate carving is a rather big jump.  To leverage our chances of success without raising our chances of frustrated destructiveness, we’re looking for smaller jumps.  The snake vivariums are using up the ugly metal shelving we have been using, so it is time for a larger shelf space.

Since it’s in the library, it may as well match the wooden file cabinet and the shelving that already exists.  The snake rack is, essentially, a tinkertoy structure made of 1×2 and 1×3 poplar, with thin shelving laid over the skeleton for snakes to rest on.  The problem with that is that the joinery of the wood becomes the only thing one sees of the rack, so it’s good to get it right, and since crooked joins in the wood will cause gently twisted framework, it’s even more good to get it right.

Hence the creation of the shooting board, which permits one to make reproduceable planings of cut wood.

I shall illuminate the furniture making process as events occur.

Crossposted from Epinepherine & Sophistry

7 thoughts on “Right Angles to Serpentarium”

  1. Cool!

    Weird request: If you do post pictures, and you should, can you put them behind a cut? I know it’s insane, but snakes can sometimes give me the willies, especially if I don’t expect pictures of them. (I had to drop someone from my lj friends list once because her user icon creeped me out too much.) I realize that it’s mostly insane, but I regularly have nightmares about being attacked by snakes, so don’t need to feed my inner phobia. 🙂

    (I guess it’s a pretty common phobia. Stupid media. I probably picked it up from one too many scary movies when young – heck, possibly Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

    Oh and hey, I’m going to be in Portland for a conference in a couple of weeks! No idea how busy I’ll be in the evening, but I’m probably free for dinner on Sunday, the 20th, or possibly lunch on Friday the 25th after the conference is out but before I drive home. I’m just saying.

    1. Would you like crash space? We won’t make you sleep with the snakes….

      Dinner is certainly on, or lunch, or whatever fits your schedule best.

  2. Re: “Some months ago, drdorothy and thingmaker3 began gutting their house, and many things had to be stored. We had room, so we stored some. Boxes. Furniture. Buckets of rocks. And snakes.”

    And I hope you have some idea how very, very grateful we are! I do miss seeing my slithery babies, as you know. They are just so calming to look at and to hold, usually. Bu they couldn’t have survived the now-nearly-finished remodel (even if the remodel could have been accomplished somehow, working around them — which would have been impossible. And we would probably never be able to sell the house if they were here. I am very grateful that you and Shannon volunteered to take them in, and that you both are taking such good care of them.

    Here’s to selling fast and well, and finding a very good piece of land we can afford, and cobbing wisely and well, and having a new home for them and us!

    Thank you, Scott and Shannon…

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