Tokyo – City of contrasts

Posted by jerry on January 29th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, Travel

Tokyo is a city of contrasts. From its mirrorshades skyscrapers to pockets of human-scale tradition, it is a city well worth visiting. Unless you are just passing through, it’s worth finding accommodation as close in to Tokyo city as possible. Narita, the international airport is 80km from the centre – 90 minutes by bus (which costs Y3000 – or around AUS$30.00 – or ten times that cost by taxi).

Tokyo

The city has slightly grubby lived-in feel to it, as though it experienced a massive building boom from the 1960s to the 1990s then stopped. But despite the deposits of air pollution fallout the city is amazingly tidy. There is virtually no litter on the street, no wrappers, no newspapers or advertising flyers blowing about the street corners. And this from a culture that triple wraps everything in beautiful packages.

On the drive from the airport you can see where the people live – in block after block of 1960s apartment buildings, part of the post-war expansion and building boom.

Tokyo

With a population of around 12 million you’d expect the place to be crowded. But aside from rush hour, this is a city geared up to move people quickly and efficiently.

For a start there are the freeways that criss-cross the city, sometimes on three levels at once.

Tokyo

With that and a very efficient subway and rail system, the place is for the most part surprisingly quiet. The streets are not crowded. The footpaths are not filled with people, and there is a surprising feeling of spaciousness in the heart of the city.

And amidst the wide main streets and impersonal tower blocks there are everywhere pockets of traditional narrow streets on very human scale.

Tokyo

Tokyo

At first glance this is a city obsessed with food. Every few metres sees another small noodle stall or coffee shop. And for the most part the prices are cheap and the food is prepared with care and hygene. Most surprising is the plethora of coffee and pastry shops – delicious French pastries and rich smooth creamy coffee. The coffee prices run from Y300-Y500 (AUS$3-5 – not much different from Australia). And not once did I find burnt coffee. This is an inviting city 🙂

You could pick the good noodle stalls – at lunchtime they had queues halfway up the street. For Y500 you can pick up a delicious and beautifully packaged lunch. And there are plenty of small parks and quiet places to eat.

Tokyo

Then there is the noise, or lack of it – yes even on the main streets it is quiet enough to hold a conversation in normal tones. I heard only one vehicle horn during my entire stay, and no-one except the odd tourist raises their voice. This is a place that seems to respect peace and calm in the midst of activity.

Tokyo

This is also a city that invites you to shop – but more on that tomorrow!

Cheers
Jerry

Bookcases in use

Posted by jerry on January 19th, 2007 — Posted in Journal

Another busy day – this time putting in the adjustable shelves in keeping with the books that are to inhabit these shelves for a while. Sharon has done a sterling job of putting the new sections in order and moving shelf-loads of books form the lounge to the new shelves. And the result? Here are the finished bookcases with the books in place

bookcases

bookcases

The library step-stool is now more useful than ever before. All that remains is to get all the books keyed into our space on LibraryThing!

Cheers
Jerry

Canberra bushfires – four years on

Posted by jerry on January 18th, 2007 — Posted in Journal

Yes it’s the 18th January today, and Sharon and I marked the occasion with a by-now traditional meal at our favourite Italian restaurant. It’s a good time to reflect, not only on our good fortune, but also to take stock of what we have achieved in the past year. We toast our survival of the Great Fire of Canberra with the hope that lessons will have been learnt for the future. And we reflect on what that terrible day taught us about ourselves.

Sharon has talked about her reflections in her blog – for myself, the lessons are similar – the importance of our relationships and our good health over any material possessions; that life can turn on a moment and on a breath of wind; And we also learned that in a catastrophic emergency, the Emergency Services can be overwhelmed – and that much depends on our own resourcefulness in the first hours and in the days that follow. We saved the house, but lost the garden – we were lucky. Most of all we were lucky to have each other, both very different, yet each with our own strengths.
We took the usual photos of the house and the garden to mark our continued progress – despite the continuing drought and ever-increasing water restrictions.

house

garden

Here’s what the place looked like 4 years ago

Built-in bookcases – putting it all together

Posted by jerry on January 18th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork

Well everything is together now – all that remains is to fit the adjutable shelves, and that will be done when we move the books in so we can gauge the spacing correctly 🙂

Here is a view of the tall end

bookcases

And here is the low end

bookcases

Note – the apparent dip is an artefact of the camera!

So how did I get it to this stage?  I had completed the cutting of the rosettes. I needed one long plank to cover the low bookcases – and this proved to be a bit of a challenge. I went to my local hardware store and they said they’re not doing 4 metre lengths of 190mm pine anymore! Apprently something to do with standardising all their lengths. The second one told me the same story, but did steer me to an old-fashioned timber supplier in Fyshwick called the Fyshwick timber co-op – next door to Office Express stationers on Canberra Avenue – for the locals. I drove up a laneway into a timber yard big enough for a semi-trailer (big truck) to do a U-turn in.

I wandered into a covered area which seemed to have dressed pine in, and presently, a bloke inquired if I needed any assistance. This was a local family-run business with real service. I told the guy what I was after and he scuttled away up a ladder and called out I think I’ve got some up here – this do?

He had selected an excellent grade dressed pine board 4.2 metres (16 1/2 feet)long. Mindful of my 3 metre van I asked if he could make one cut … er around 3810mm (just over 3.8 metres) that was the length I needed for the shelf. Sure enough he dragged out a couple of saw-horses and and tape measure. marked it off twice and scribed a line with his hand saw. then cut it perfectly square and to the size I needed.

With the back of the van tied down, but open I drove home to varnish and fit the board.

The carcasses were in place, so the next job was to bolt the whole lot together using four bolts for  each of the low shelves and eight for the tall ones. The bolt heads were countersunk by first starting the hole with a flat bit large enough to fit the bolt head, then drilled through for the bolt shaft. I used 40mm bolts.

bookcases

With all the units bolted together I then screwed the tall units to the wall through the architrave using 75mm screws. Now the whole thing was a rigid structure.

I then screwed the now varnished long board to the low units from below using 35mm screws – the right-angle drill attachment was very useful for the  narrow units!

Next came the long horizontal beading nailed in place with small bullet-head nails and nail-punched. This was followed by the rosette at the first join and then a short upright beading to the floor. Here is what the joins look like up close

bookcases

When it came to the tall units I cut the wide trim to size and shaped it for the architraves and with some tricky mitering managed to get it round the top.

The rosettes followed and then the beaded trim. The holes for the adjustable shelves are already drilled – you would have seen that in the earlier construction phase.

And that is about it 🙂  Built-in bookcases in a week.

bookcases

Cheers
Jerry

Cutting rosettes

Posted by jerry on January 16th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Woodwork

rosettes

With the final two bookcases in place and the shelves all cut to size the end is in sight – well kinda. As with any project in wood or textiles the finishing process and embellishments can take up nearly as much time – but then these are the really fun bits that will pull the whole project together.

bookcases

I wanted something with an architectural feel, but not crassly colonial in style.  But above all, I wanted to cover the joins between the individual units to pull it all together visually.

I planned from the outset that all the uprights would be bridged by 40mm beaded trims in Tasmanian oak. The the long low top of the shelves beneath the window should be edged the same way. And in keeping with the sense of scale, as well as something to rhyme with the previous built in bookcases in the adjoining room (yeah – we’re onto the second room now!).

But what to do about the junctions? I had used rosettes in the other room – commercially bought ones – and they look … well, being honest, they look okay. For now.  But they are expensive at around $10AUS and then you can’t get them smaller than 3 1/2 inches or about 60mm.

This time I would need at least a dozen so I started to look at buying a rosette cutter. Sure enough, with the summer sales in full swing I found one at Carbatec in Fyshwick – the industrial part of Canberra. I had a close look at the cutter head – a very substantial piece of metal, but great value at AUD42.00 plus the rosette blades at AUD22.00 each. I could see that there were several shapes  – but they were all at least 60mm wide. Looking closely at the profile I figured I could do something creative. So I spent some of my Christmas money and realised very quickly that I could not only make exactly what I wanted, but save a pile of money too!

The rosette cutter is not to be taken lightly. I was told in Carbatec that it was for use at SLOW speed in the bench drill only, and under no circumstances should it be used in a router. I could see why. The blade is a friction fit in the cutter head, and at high speed there is a clear danger of the blade coming loose. I read on a forum how someone had been killed by one of these blades – by using it in a router. So it was with some caution that I read the manual first – noting that it says in large threatening letters DO NOT USE IN A ROUTER – drill press or lathe only and then only at between 300-600rpm max.

I set the speed in the drill press, double checked that the blade was secure, installed it in the drill press chuck and then dressed up for combat – face shield, leather apron, dust mask – and gingerly turned the drill press on from the wall. Suddenly… nothing happened – except a nice whirring sound. No rattle, no vibration. It was time to test it on some timber.

Pine was … not brilliant. The coarse grain meant a lot of tearout. I tried increasing the speed to around 510rpm – better but still not what I was after. But I could see that with the right wood it would do okay. I went for some red maple trim leftover from a previous project – it’s light, soft, but close-grained.

And with some experimenting found the right feed rate to minimise any chatter and tearout.

rosette

The key to using this is to treat it gently and clamp everything down tight.

rosette

You’ll notice I used 40mm wide stock – hence the need for extra care to ensure a slow feed rate. I made sure it was well centred and clamped tight and found that the soft close-grained maple was ideal. But hang on, isn’t the cutter 60mm? And so my plan emerges.

rosette

Once I had a row of rosettes (I’m sure you can see why I didn’t cut the stock to size first), all I had to do was slice them off at 60mm lengths

rosette

which left me with a bunch of little boats. But with some judicious sanding I was able to keep the central feature, while shaping 40mm wide rosettes.

rosette

And I can still make 3 1/2inch rosettes with the same cutter, without modification.

Here they are varnished and ready to decorate the joins on the bookcases – once the varnish dries! And you can see the beaded trim that will go with them.

rosettes

With twelve completed the rosette cutter has already paid for itself twice over 🙂

Cheers
Jerry