{"id":654,"date":"2017-07-23T16:07:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T16:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2017-07-23T16:58:50","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T16:58:50","slug":"big-update-more-boxes-more-shirts-and-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"Big update: More boxes, more shirts, and beer!"},"content":{"rendered":"
It's been a good while since I've set aside time to scratch out an update, but not for lack of activity. Rather than split all the projects across several posts, I'm opting for one big one! On the woodworking side, I pulled two boxes together: one to house the awkwardly large Planechase planes, and a tea-box as a mother's day gift.<\/div>\n
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While planning out the Planechase box, I stuck to the philosophy that each new project needs to have at least one element I haven't wrestled with before. This time: hinges, felt lining, and one-piece box construction! For materials I went with a plank of bubinga that I picked up a few weeks ago, with curly maple and blue paua shell for the inlays. The lid and bottom were attached with rabbets and the corners 45-degree mitered. A small riser was added to the dice-holding compartment to make it easier to get at them.<\/div>\n
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\"Just
Just after sawing the lid off<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Chaos
Chaos symbol in curly maple inlay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"The
The planeswalker symbol in curly maple inlay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Loaded
Loaded with all the sleeved planes and dice!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Planechase
Planechase anthology symbol inlaid in blue paua shell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
It was my sister's idea to whip up something together for mother's day, and we hit upon the idea of a tea box. She provided the graphics for the lid, helped select materials, and provided plenty of encouragement. Ribbon sapele and bird's-eye maple were picked for the box and top\/bottom respectively. For the joinery I decided to make it as fancy as possible, and ended up building a dead-simple box-joint jig for the table saw. After a few tests, I was able to make nice tight-fitting box joints in the fancy wood! The patterns were laser'd on, and a small inlay of niove was glued in. <\/div>\n
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\"The
The finger joint jig ready to go<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Practice
Practice joints looking almost right<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"First
First attempt at a magnetic closure<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Ribbon
Ribbon sapele showing off the finger joints<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Lid
Lid with noive inlay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
While digging through my closet I came across an early attempt at a megaman shirt and decided that it'd make a good target for a re-do. I hunted down a suitable graphic and went through what, at this point, is a tried and true process. I'm much happier with the result!<\/div>\n
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\"Megaman
Megaman shirt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Lastly, I got bit by the home-brew bug a week or two ago! I dug out and inventoried my equipment, and picked up an ingredient kit at the local brew shop. When thinking about the trajectory, I realized I don't really have a group of thirsty grad-student friends to conscript for bottling day any more, so I took the next logical step: a kegging setup! <\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
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\"Fridge
Fridge keg!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With that set up, current dispensing sparkling water, we got started on the brewing. A scotch ale was the order of the month. The brewing was briefly put on hold while the fittings on our new kettle got a few wraps of plumbers tape, but after that there were no issues during the boiling, cooling, or moving it to the sanitized carboy. A couple days after pitching the yeast, some drama struck! <\/div>\n
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\"Post-geyser
Post-geyser solution<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The fermentation was a bit over-zealous! We quickly ran out for some 1\/2\" tubing, and fitted it as a blow-off tube, the far end submerged in dilute sanitizer. By the next evening it was done pushing out krausen, and has settled into a slow and study bubbling. In retrospect, a fairly surgery brew in a smaller-sized carboy; I should've expected this and fitted the tube right off the bat, but learning is fine too.  Bottling went smoothly, with half going into about 20 bottles, the rest going into the keg.<\/div>\n
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\"20
20 bottles of tasty scotch ale!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It's been a good while since I've set aside time to scratch out an update, but not for lack of activity. Rather than split all the projects across several posts, I'm opting for one big one! On the woodworking side, I pulled two boxes together: one to house the awkwardly large Planechase planes, and a … Continue reading Big update: More boxes, more shirts, and beer!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,96,105,99,11,98],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3y4AW-ay","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alexander-miles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}