Something I never realized about moving to Rwanda was the length of the day. EVERY day is 12 hours long. The sun rises around 6am and sets around 6pm. That may sound like a long day when comparing it to a Colorado winter day. But a summer day in Colorado begins around 5:30 am and ends well after 8:30pm.
Combining the short days with the relatively limited number of familiar activities available here in Rwanda, you have a good recipe for cabin fever.
Proverbs 16:27 says "Idle hands are the devil's workshop, idle lips are his mouthpiece." I never realized that was an actual "Proverb". I always just thought it was a "proverb", if you get what I'm saying. A few months after we arrived I was going a little stir crazy so Katie encouraged me to start woodworking. I'm not even sure why. I think it had something to do with an outdoor dining table that she wanted, but that we couldn't afford.
I have always loved building things and working with my hands. It is one of the many traits that was passed to be from my dad, and one that I am very grateful for. There is something incredibly rewarding about a day of manual labor, working with you hands to create something. I would be lying if I said I have never contemplated quitting engineering and taking up a trade like welding or carpentry. Thats a topic for another day, but suffice it to say that I realize my skill as an engineer is a talent from the Lord and to walk away at this point would be the same as burying it in the ground instead of investing it.
Anyways, back on topic, WOODWORKING. I knew very little about woodworking 7 months ago. I had built things out of wood, but I wasn't really woodworking. I didn't know what a mortice and tenon, dovetail, or dado was. The only time I had ever used a chisel was to (poorly) install a door strike. I thought that the only way to attach two pieces of wood together was with screw or a nail. I have learned a ton thanks to the wealth of information also known as the internet (specifically youtube). I just wish I had paid more attention and asked more questions when I would " have to be" Mr. Doug Sander's or Mr. James Andrew's helper for the day. I could have learned so much more from those men.
OK, less talk more photos. Here are some photos and descriptions of some of the things I have made over the past 7 months. Enjoy. PS. You may have to click on some of the photos to see the details.
You have seen this photo before, but my workbench was my first project to undertake.
Since Rwanda is a mostly cash based economy, I made us a budget box to put our cash in at the beginning of every month (Dave Ramsey style minus the envelopes). It is a little comical to see this guy at the beginning of the month, especially since the largest bill in Rwanda is a 5000 Rwandan Fracs note (the equivalent of $6.50 USD).
Here is our outdoor dining table. We enjoy weekend breakfasts and dinners in the cool evenings. If I did it again, I would do it very differently, but I learned a ton while working on this project.
Rwandans use 2 spices in everyday cooking, Salt and MSG. Needless to saw we were in need of some storage space for our spices. So I built us a simple spice rack.
I had really neat looking piece of African mahogany (which is as common as pine here) that I wanted to use. So I build Katie a small box to put a necklace in that she was wanting from a local jewelry maker.
I learned a two lessons while building this one. 1. If you want to put something inside a box, it is best to know how big that something is before you build the box. 2. My wife likes really big necklaces. Who ever heard of a necklace not fitting into a 3inch x 3inch x 2inch box.
I have really gotten into building my own tools here. Partially out of necessity since very few tools are available here and those that are, are complete crap from China. Left to Right: A hack saw blade in a very crude bow saw frame, a bench hook, a panel gauge, a rabbet plane, a cutting gauge, a router plane, and a jointer's mallet.
I forgot to take a close up of the jointer's mallet, but essentially it is just a big hammer used to pound chisels without destroying them with a metal hammer.
A bench hook is just that. It hooks on the front of the bench and provides a backing to saw against with a handsaw.
A router plane is used to clean out the bottom of a groove (dado) in order to make the groove a uniform depth and distance from the surface of the wood. I made this one out of a 6inch piece of black walnut thanks to Jan Sesler and an allen wrench with a bevel ground and polished into the shorter leg.
A panel gauge is used to draw a line parallel to reference edge of a board. You extend the arm with the pencil to set the desired distance from the fence and tighten it in place with a small wedge. Then you butt the fence of the panel gauge against the edge of the board and draw a line. This is used to mark the width of boards before I cut them to size with a handsaw since dimensional lumber (2x4, 1x10 etc.) is non-existent in Rwanda.
The cutting gauge is a very similar concept just smaller than the panel gauge. And instead of having a pencil, it has a small knife edge that I ground down and sharpened from a bent masonry drill bit. The knife blade is held in with a small wedge. The arm slides in and out to set the distance and again a small wedge holds it in place.
Last but not lease is the rabbet plane. Don't ask me why they call it a rabbet, I have no idea. But a rabbet is a groove along the edge of a board. These are used to recess the bottoms of boxes (like the necklace box) or the backs of cabinets. I made the rabbet place from a busted chisel (again crap tools from China) and a scrap piece of african mahogany. One neat thing about the rabbet plane is it creates the cute little curly shavings.
Well, thats what I have been up to. If you made it all the way to the end of the blog, thanks for sticking through all the woodworking terminology. If you ignored the text and just enjoyed the pictures, no hard feelings. Katie zones out when I start talking about woodworking too.
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