Sunshine and Showers

First things first, we needed to clear out the remnants of still-assembled set from our storage container. This was mainly the tops of the pagodas from The Mikado. After dodging the rain all morning, we decided we'd done about as much as we could.

So, after a trip to the pub for lunch, we tidied up back at the container, grabbed a few useful tools, and returned to my back yard to begin experimenting with power tools.

After some considerable time working out how to set up a router to cut dovetail joints, we finally made the tongue part of the joint. It's going to need some more work to get these made efficently - I'm planning on making a jig for turning these out very quickly. Here's a picture of james finishing the first part off with a hand saw:

The groove part of the joint (socket, notch, I'm not sure of the correct terminology here) was trickier to make. The first attempt was a bit of a mess, and makes a fairly loose joint. But it holds together, without glue or screws, which is impressive for a first attempt. Only 80 or so left to make.

I'll be describing in more detail how the pieces all fit together as we go along. For now, here's a nice 3D rendering of what the finished framing should look like: