Floating by

The Silver Vixen was spending the day looking after baby Ellie at Urban-Cub's while she got her hair done. Cousteau-Cub stayed put with the Gorse Fox. Cousteau-Cub had a quiet day with her yoga, catching up on admin, and enjoying some old Pointless episodes (she hadn't seen Pointless before!).

The Gorse Fox retired to the workshop. There was a floating shelf to work on. He started by milling the dovetails on the spars and fixing them in place (having cut them to length). Then it was time to get the bandsaw out and change the blade. He had found the instructions, but it was still a bit fiddly. The new blade makes such a difference - slicing through off-cuts so much easier than the old blade.

Next on the agenda was trip to Wickes to get the mdd for the top and bottom of the shelf. The Gorse Fox explained to the assistant that one trip is never enough and headed home with his purchases. First he built a tracking jig for the circular saw, then started on the front and sides of the shelf. Measure twice and cut once is the woodworker's maxim. The Gorse Fox followed this to the nth degree. It would, however, have helped if he had red the correct measurement from his cutlets. So it was that he trimmed the wood to 54mm instead of 56mm. This exhausted his supply. In turn, this triggered the predicted return trip to Wickes.

Everything went smoothly from then on. The sleeve is now complete and the Gorse Fox is waiting for the glue to set up overnight.