Recently, my friend @samuraikrabbe wrote his first Steemit post, making him the second person I have successfully introduced to Steemit, the first one being @steving. I wish Steemit had a reeferral program. Anyways, in his introduction post, @samuraikrabbe mentioned that he was inspired to write because I had promised to write more myself, once he had started writing, a promise I'm happy to try to fulfill.
A fearful challenge
The adventure of which you're preparing to absorb started with a request made by one of my ancestors, expressing the desire to utilize my unexplored skills as a hedge trimmer to, well, trim the hedge.
Hesitation...
I'm sure that under different circumstances, where my genes would serve me with fearlessness when faced with difficult challenges requiring the use of sophisticated machinery, I would accept the challenge without making hesitant noises. The realization of the required use of a motorized hedge weapon, did, however repulse my interest, as using such a tool was not compliant with my inner risk-to-reward calculations, causing me to make those already mentioned hesitant noises.
A new hope...
Looking through the garage, I found some wooden pieces, witnessing the former glory of two kitchen chairs which my already introduced ancestor had hoped to once have repaired. As compensation for the not so trimmed hedge, I offered to repair the chairs.
Negotiations...
My suggestion was met with enthusiasm, but I was offered the surfacing of an even stronger enthusiasm if I would rather choose to repair the estate's old rocking chair.
The rocking chair...
The rocking chair in question had a back which it didn't have anymore, since the rails forming the back had had their mounting points broken.
The broken back...
The work of fixing the back of the chair had already been started, but at some point in history, the project had halted, leaving a back whose middle rails had had their bottom parts removed, the plan being to reshape the new bottoms of the now slightly shorter rails to fit in the holes in the seat.
Start cutting...
The side rails had not yet been shortened to accommodate the now shorter length of the middle rails, so I removed 2 cm from their top mounting points using a somewhat sharp saw.
Sanding and whittling...
Now that all the rails were of equal length, their ends had to be made slightly thinner. My initial plan was to sand down the edges until they were the correct size...
...but after consulting my brain, I found it much more efficient to whittle the end using a blunt knife.
Let's see if it fits...
With all the loose ends of the rails treated with the utmost precision by my experienced hands, it was time to test-mount the back to the rocking chair.
Hmm, it fits...
As you can imagine, I was quite nervous during those breathtaking moments before test-mounting the back to the chair. If one of the rails was too short, I would have to shorten all the other rails and repeat the process, potentially until the back was nothing but a bad memory. Luckily, everything worked out well, and the back mounted easily, without the need of depression.
Adding more sturdyness...
To make sure that the rocking chair's back would remain mounted, we decided to implement some extra mounting magic.
First, we drilled holes through the seat, underneath the larger holes in which the rails were mounted...
...the plan being that we could further secure the rails with screws from below...
...but then the drill bit got stuck...
We executed the same procedure to the top of the chair's back, making sure that the chair would support even the most entusiastic chair rocker.
Keeping niceness in mind
To make the screw heads less visible, we created what I believe is called a countersunk hole, allowing the screws to sit more flush with the surrounding surface. I retrospect, looking at the result, it's evident that this didn't help much, but it's the thought that counts, I guess.
Adding some glue and some screws...
Now that the chair was nearly finished, we applied some much needed wood glue.
We knew that the chair was old and had had a potentially traumatizing history of back breaking, so we made sure to grant it excessive amounts of glue.
The glue was reinforced with screws...
...which did not sit flush with their surrounding surfaces, giving the chair a retro-neo-industrial look.
Finished...
After entering the last screw, we kept wondering if our job was done. Had we fixed it, or was there more work to be done? Were we satisfied with the very evidently added screws, or was this a temporary solution? Should we paint it?
Thumbs up...
In the end, we decided to give the project a thumbs up, ignoring everything which could be improved upon.
The road ahead
After having admired the result of our intellect, for a few minutes, we came to the conclusion that we did not dare sit in our newly assembled chair. As of now, it serves as a decorative piece of furniture, until we get to paint it, at which point it will serve as an even more decorative furniture.
What about you?
I'm quite impressed if you've made it this far in this excessively long post, and if you did indeed read everything, you must be a rocking chair connoisseur, in which case I wonder:
-What is your favorite rocking chair brand?
-In what rocking chair store do you usually buy your rocking chairs?
-How many rocking chairs have you destroyed, and how many have you brought to life?
Make sure to let me know in the comments section;)
