Some Setbacks and First Friday Oakland

The hope was to finish a futon and a table yesterday, giving me a sort of living room to use- and finally a place to sit. I know its self inflicted, but when you're limited to standing and lying down it can be a bit trying. I may have to break down and buy a desk chair- unlikely that I could build a replica Aeron Chair at this point anyway.

So I sketched out the shape of the runners (the slots that the futon's rods will slide in) onto a piece of plywood. I got out my protractor, and my circle stencil, and my compass. I know I could have printed it out and just traced it- but it felt great just drawing it that way. And I drew the shape from memory, which was also cool.





I then set up my drill with a spade bit to get out those circular parts, and began to try to remove the rest of the stuff with a saber saw (saws-all). This proved to be far to coarse, and my edges got all ratty. I needed a handheld jig saw, and didn't have one.



Then I thought I'd check the concept of what I had done against the pattern with my wood rods I had purchased the previous day. I expected that something sold as a "1 inch full round" would be one inch in diameter. This was not so.



This meant my sketch and pattern would have to be adjusted to accommodate the new size rod, so rather than do that right away, I went over to work on my table. I set all the points in place, flipped it over, put it down, and poppoppop- three of the nuts pulled free of the glue holding them in place. It turns out the frame structure is strong enough to hold up a table- the glue, however is not. I think I'll be solving this issue by stealing Jon's idea of putting some aluminum tubing directly vertically under the contact points to help it stay up. It feels like cheating, but it should still look mostly the same.

The rest of my design day was spent sketching out the side panels of the futon- I've decided that the final design will celebrate the shape of the runners- form follows function, right? I have a few ideas on how to do that, and I just now need to choose which one is best.

But the weekend is here, and so it's time to have some fun.

Paul and his Co-worker Jason invited me out to First Friday Oakland- a big block party where everyone gathers to celebrate the openings of the new art exhibits in the galleries along Broadway. We stopped at a few of the places- balked at the sheer expense of the artwork, but mostly drank the cheap beer, at some hippie street food, and talked to people along the way. There was also this cool group that did a bunch of cool stuff with bicycles, like this double-old-timey-bicycle contraption which they wouldn't let me drive:



Then we headed off to this great bar on Telegraph called Uptown. We spent the remainder of the night there, meeting cool people, talking about ice hockey (who are the Washington Capitals? ...wow...) and drinking beers. It was a great time, and it was awesome to finally get out and meet some people! Today I'm gonna go into SF and take a look around with my friends from college Zac and Jess. Hooray for weekends!