Should You Be Building Fixed Cabinets or Better Yet, Building Furniture?

Condominium project
using plywood base material
mirrors will be attached to walls
© R. Mark Sink

Should You Be Building Fixed Cabinets or Better Yet, Building Furniture?

By R. Mark Sink

Many woodworking manufacturers provide warranties with their cabinets, however, those warranties are void if the controlled environment is not maintained. In other words, material such as that of composites which already use large amounts of chemicals in their manufacturing processes, are more subject to dimensional alterations, and if allowed to remain in an uncontrolled environment.

This is the same for wood products that are strictly original wood in relation to their moisture content. Movement occurs when material begins to bow, or twist in nature. Plywood[1] in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets will also, depending on the nature of the material and the environment, begin to bow as the moisture begins to evaporate out from the material, similarly as material beckons to retract in size. Warping greater than 1/4 inch in 8 feet should not be used. Although suppliers who purchase material across the U.S. will have those material delivered often on trucks with exposed beds to the environment. These materials must be stacked flat and remain in that state strapped if possible. However, this does not ensure the material will maintain its integrity. Often, when straps are removed, the truth is quickly revealed, and the stresses allowed.

Built in controlled
environment
© R. Mark Sink

Manufactures can only maintain a warranty if the environment is also maintained rightly so, environmental conditions vary widely over the U.S. and in places such as Florida which is both fairly dry in the winter causing material to rapidly retract, and extremely moist a major portion of the year causing expansion. Crossing over these changes in an exposed environment is not recommended.

A cabinet maker in Florida who builds cabinets outdoors, and later plans to install them inside a controlled environment must do so within a short window of time, say no more than 30 days while building the cabinets inside a controlled environment increases the chances that the material will acclimate to a condition that maintains the integrity of the construction. Cabinets can be built perfectly square, and later if the environment is not controlled, said cabinets may not even resemble original construction and abruptly change in nature.

Generally, the rapid manufacturing nature of the material used is a detriment to relying on its integrity. Having built cabinets for many years, and having done so in an extreme environment, this has always been a challenge, and requires the ability to work in a similar environment to the type of conditions that Florida homes maintain, that of constant reduction in temperature, and a fairly stable environment.

This certainly beckons the question of quality conditions over a longer span of time in relation to the nature of the material used, and how that has changed. The assumption that layering was stronger than solid wood began in the 19th Century, and has carried forward. This misconception is rather about the idea of the plane, as it would seem, to make trees flat adds to their susceptibility to environmental impact. By structurally altering the idea, a sales tool is created. Originally, cabinets were made using joinery of material that was made in a manner where its integrity was most usable, and often made into rough planks which then can be planned smooth for use.

It may have also been thought that by using these new-fangled materials that it was less of a burden on the sustainibility of trees and their natural production, however, this is adding massive amounts of chemicals to not only our homes, but to the overall environment. This requires even more chemicals to maintain the homes from termites who love plywood and prefer this layering theology. Some prevention can be maintained using plywood material by completely encapsulating the material with various sealers which create a boundary from the environment. although, if these sealers are placed over material that has not had time to acclimate to an environment that will remain within a window of exposure, the likelihood of movement is increased.

Standard practice is to bring plywood material into a controlled environment while cutting, and maintaining storage of new cabinets within this same type of environment where installation will occur.

America's Idea of Fixed Value

In the home market of America, it is assumed that homes are valued (appraised) on their true nature, but I would recommend some critical thinking is required. When cabinetry is thought attached to a home, it is also thought to increase its value, however, this may be more illusion. An example would be the fact that storage is the actual function, and that this storage is also part of the perception of value that is created. Again, value is made subjective for the same reasons as dimensional alterations are going from one environment to the next.

The idea of the wardrobe transforms
to becomes the entertainment center
© R. Mark Sink

The fixing of value is moving, and we generally may not realize these simple truths. Real value is determined by a community that nurtures sustainability as the necessary storage. All other types of storage are aesthetic which transform value in an area where none exists. It is literally just a "sense of perception," alone that may drive decision making.

Our abilities to enjoy art around us are clouded by the creations which alter perception and often remove our ability to think clearly about our real environment, and our earth conscious demeanor.

The idea of storage may have begun with the concept of the wardrobe[2], which in essence is both carrying ideas of the clothes closet, and the cabinet itself, which originally was a stand-alone product, not necessarily attached to a home or wall, but completely capable of integration.

Capable of integration does not necessarily make it so, but it does prove analogical to the "sense of perception," mentioned above. And, it would now seem to be far from aesthetic, rather critical to remain in art form, such as euthenics, where it is perceived that control of the environment is maintainable.

Our living conditions are certainly critical, and today exposure to unnatural contamination, reduction in the inertial frame of survival to fair and balanced human function, and the continued use of force that pervades the consumption of more and more goods that are fixed by illusion, does not maintain a sustainable environment. We are promoting the idea that an alternative environment can be created without integration with our mother earth.

Historically, goods were formed by reverting the wardrobe into a commode[3] described in the 18th Century. This is taking the idea of the wardrobe and building a base for it, which in itself allows easier movement of the commodity. It is thought that the relationship between the base and the above section is called "common." This may have more to do with permeation and mutation which rests upon the minister.

The idea of the commode is still workable today and highly recommended as this is basically furniture that can remain attached to the owner rather than the fabrication of permission and the mocking of horticulture that has generally resulted in unsuitability.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plywood#History

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardrobe

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commode

Contact Randy for ideas on how to build your own furniture or have unique and challenging problems solved in relation to your projects.

The Place You Must Always Remember to Forget - Nuclear Waste the film.

The Place You Must Always Remember to Forget - Nuclear Waste the film.
Sept 15, 2012 | MrJmccammon

Editor's note: This unique and interesting documentary is focused on one little country called Finland and what they are doing with nuclear waste. It presents a quagmire in our thinking about the extraordinary time and the effort in which man goes to in his form of logic.

Clever solution to stop the TSA from stealing valuable electronics out of your carry-on bag

Clever solution to stop the TSA from stealing valuable electronics out of your carry-on bag
Jan 8, 2013 | TheHealthRanger

Missing data on Earth's magnetic field is in the oven

A hand-drawn picture of an earth oven,
used too by the Maori. Credit: Wikipedia

Missing data on Earth's magnetic field is in the oven
Dec 9, 2012 | Nancy Owano | Phys.org

(Phys.org)—A New Zealand research team hopes to retrieve missing parts of a puzzle about the Earth's magnetic field and changes to it over time. Grabbing their attention are the stones that line Maori steam ovens. They want to learn more about how those ovens may give them missing data about the magnetic field. The idea is that the cooking process generates so much heat that the magnetic minerals in these stones will realign themselves with the current field direction. Examining the stones may explain more about the Earth's magnetic behavior. The archaeological search in New Zealand is out to find sites containing the old "hangi" ovens.

Radiocarbon analysis of the charcoal left from the firewood used to light the oven may provide the date recovered with the stones. Dr. Gillian Turner of Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, recently discussed her project at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting. She told BBC News, "We have very good palaeomagnetic data from across the world recording field strength and direction - especially in the Northern Hemisphere." Nonetheless, the southwest Pacific is a gap that makes the global models incomplete. That is why she and her team are out looking for "good, high-resolved data from our part of the world."

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To define changing directions and intensities, mathematical models require data from many points of the Earth's surface. Scientists focusing on the magnetic field do so for fundamental reasons. "We use the magnetic field to navigate and it protects us from the solar wind. We still don't understand the origin of the field, but the geological record tells us that it changes its intensity on relatively short timescales and sometimes dramatically reverses its direction," she has written.

The first settlers on New Zealand were the Maori. They used steam ovens for cooking, in the form of placing hot stones, food and layers of fern fronds soaked in water into pits in the ground, then covered with soil, for several hours of cooking. They chose the stones carefully, including andesite boulders, considered ideal because fire could not crack or shatter them. Dr. Turner said they were also ideal for research purposes because they behave better magnetically.

She said by putting thermocouples in the stones the team found that the temperature got as high as 1,100C. "At that temperature, rock-forming minerals start to become plastic if not melt." A compass on top of the cooled hangi stones established that a re-magnetization had taken place.

Her team is also looking at other potential sources of information including volcanic rocks and lake sediments. Once the project is complete, Dr Turner hopes the research will help scientists to understand how the earth's magnetic field might change in the future.

More information: www.royalsociety.org.nz/2011/10/06/turner/

© 2012 Phys.org

DNA is directly photographed for the first time

DNA is directly photographed for the first time
Nov 30, 2012 | Eli MacKinnon

Italian physics professor Enzo Di Fabrizio captures twisted ladder that props up life

© Enzo Di Fabrizio
DNA's double-helix structure is on display for the first time in this
electron microscope photograph of a small bundle of DNA strands.

Fifty-nine years after James Watson and Francis Crick deduced the double-helix structure of DNA, a scientist has captured the first direct photograph of the twisted ladder that props up life.

Enzo Di Fabrizio, a physics professor at Magna Graecia University in Catanzaro, Italy, snapped the picture using an electron microscope.

Previously, scientists had only seen DNA's structure indirectly. The double-corkscrew form was first discovered using a technique called X-ray crystallography, in which a material's shape is reconstructed based on how X-rays bounce after they collide with it.

© Enzo Di Fabrizio
A bundle of DNA is supported by two silicon pillars.

But Di Fabrizio and his colleagues developed a plan to bring DNA out of hiding. They built a nanoscopic landscape of extremely water-repellant silicon pillars. When they added a solution that contained strands of DNA into this scene, the water quickly evaporated and left behind cords of bare DNA that stretched like tightropes between the tiny mesas.

They then shone beams of electrons through holes in the silicon bed, and captured high-resolution images of the illuminated molecules.

Di Fabrizio's images actually show a thread of several interwoven DNA molecules, as opposed to just two coupled strands. This is because the energy of the electrons used would be enough to destroy an isolated double helix, or a single strand from a double helix.

But with the use of more sensitive equipment and lower energy electrons, Di Fabrizio thinks that snapshots of individual double helices will soon be possible, New Scientist reports.

Molecules of DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, store the genetic instructions that govern all living organisms' growth and function.

Di Fabrizio's innovation will allow scientists to vividly observe interactions between DNA and some of life's other essential ingredients, such as RNA (r ibonucleic acid ). The results of Di Fabrizio's work were published in the journal NanoLetters.

The Visionary of 1934: The scientist whose 'televised book' foretold the world wide web seven decades ago

© Wikipedia
Father of the net? Paul Otlet,
a Belgian scientist, may have
foretold the internet in 1934

June 8, 2012: The Visionary of 1934: The scientist whose 'televised book' foretold the world wide web seven decades ago - Daily Mail Reporter

 A scientist in the 1930s may have been decades ahead of his time when he suggested combining a telephone connection with a TV screen.

While many have difficulty remembering the world without the internet, it was nothing more than imagination in 1934, when Paul Otlet described what would become the information superhighway.

TechNewsDaily reported that during a discussion of the world wide web's past, present and future at the World Science Festival in New York City on Saturday, Otlet's name came up.

Otlet, a Belgian scientist and author who is already regarded as the father of information science, was on to something when he published his Treaties on Documentation.

Decades before the iPad, the Kindle, or even the computer screen, Otlet was devising a plan to combine television with the phone to send and spread information from published works.

© alvaro19mad/Youtube
Technology: Otlet's vision involved
combining the television and
the telephone to send
and receive information

In his Treaties on Documentation, Otlet referenced what would become the computer when he wrote: 'Here the workspace is no longer cluttered with any books.

'In their place, a screen and a telephone within reach... From there the page to be read in order to know the answer to the question asked by telephone is made to appear on the screen.'

He went on to suggest that dividing a computer screen could show multiple books at once, a possible reference to opening a few browser windows or tabs at once.

He called his vision 'the televised book.'

© alvaro19mad/Youtube
File sharing: Otlet's idea even
involved what may be
considered audio and video data

More than 30 years later, Otlet's writings were first put into practice.

Also appearing at the World Science Festival discussion was Vinton Cerf, who was at the forefront of the world wide web when it was a military project in the 1960s.

The notion of the 'internet' was set in place when ARPANet was used to send a message between two computers set up side-by-side at 10.30pm on October 29, 1969 at UCLA.

It was sent by UCLA student programmer Charley Kline and supervised by Prof Leonard Kleinrock.

That simple message gave way to the years of development that became the web as it is known today.

Watch video here:

Wood How To: Standing Desk Reader

© R. Mark Sink

Wood How To: Standing Desk Reader by R. Mark Sink

The more or less famous idea of the standing desk is rooted in the notion of reading, from the Latin lectus, meaning "lectern," which comes from the root of law and defined as a "reading desk." The substance of the reading desk is also addressed in the English language and defined as a "wooden platform," meaning "pulpit," from the Latin pulpitum, leaving the notion of softness as with spruce, aspen, or pine, used in paper making. All these encompass the idea of an elevated platform in which our world's readers suffice as necessary.

The standing desk reader in which I have built was designed to replace an older 30 minute creation from the past which had been used many years. Specifically, I wanted to address the tilting function and allow for the top to swing up to a much steeper angle so that the standing desk reader would also serve as a table reader which would easily allow someone who is sitting in a chair to capability use the standing reader near the office computer desk. This is great because if you are studying the dictionary or possibly the constitution, you can easily flip the pages next to you while also capably typing on a keyboard without being uncomfortable in the process.

© R. Mark Sink

Here at right you can see the standing desk reader can be used for any type of book or magazine display which would accompany any type of research one might be in progress of doing. In this particular design, the height of the reader is 34 inches from the floor. The back edge is 38 inches which equates to an 18 degree cut for use as a reader while one is standing. The depth and width are 12 and 19 inches respectively. With that said, the plinths were added to the legs to increase stability. One may increase stability further by closing in the back side which in effect adds more weight and design capability. One shelf is at the height of 7 inches and the second at 25 inches.

In construction, the design is the same as that of the standing desk design kit that was previously built. The legs are 3/4 inch material in Honduras mahogany. These are scraps left from previous projects. These are ripped at 2 inches wide and two pieces are glued together to make the legs while the shelves are butted up to the outside piece, and the inside vertical pieces are set between the shelves. This provides the strength necessary for the table to be structurally sound, and hold square.

These are built on a flat work table same as the floor, another type of standing desk. If you intend to build one similar to this one, remember that carpeting affects stability and children should be made aware this type of furniture may tip over if bumped into. With this piece, the back side was finished the same as front basically as the table will be used in a manner that leaves it exposed.

It could also be noted that if you decide to build one, you could use solid material to do so, although you would have to join up the top piece as this is 14 1/4 inches wide by 20 1/4 inches long with a 3/8 inch thick piece of mahogany glued to the edge. The front piece was made wider and rounded down to the surface at each side. This allowed for the stop to be at exactly 90 degrees.

© R. Mark Sink

You can make up the bridge pieces any size you desire which sit at the top of each side. I again used scrap pieces I found laying around but left a space at the back edge where another piece of wood could be attached underneath the back edge. (see photo left) Here, a light was attached to the table which has a long adjustable arm.

You'll also notice that the board that is stored inside the top is now flush with the back edge. This is the third position which works off to one side and is optional. The entire standing desk reader is mahogany and stained the traditional color of intense dark red.

One thing that stands out about these designs is the amount of material needed is lessened by creating the lectern or leg notion but you will find out of your geometry is working when you begin to construct the parts into a standing unit. The most critical area of construction is divided into two parts. The first part is joining the legs with the bottom shelf and tying the bridge at the top. I divide this up, squaring the legs with the bottom shelf (without the added pieces inside on the legs above) by adding the top back piece in and squaring up the whole unit to set dry overnight. The next day with the unit standing square, all the additional pieces are added to add more strength to the squaring done the day before. By the time these pieces are finally in place, the piece has become a stable and square unit. If this process is not handled well, your standing desk will likely not sit well or actually be out of square. To prevent these failures, use a framing square extensively making sure that when pieces dry, they are also square and 90 degrees as appropriate.

© R. Mark Sink

I'd really like to build more of these of various designs based on some of these concepts of reduced material although when we start getting into fabrications of various compounds the weight drastically increases. This standing desk reader easily weighs less than 50 pounds and these designs offer the reader ways to address their ability to activate their desires.

If you would like me to build a standing desk reader, lectern or pulpit design, please contact me at avatarone(at)fastmail.us. We can create the standing desk as you had imagined it for your space through any elaboration possible.

Be sure and check out  the standing desk design kit as this serves as another example of this power of communion. Both these designs used a top that is adjustable in some manner. With this particular design, two brass hinges are on each side under the front edge which allows the top to swing to a vertical position and books or other items can be stored inside the top.

To remove the bottom shelf would require the piece be made horizontally more square to account for the stability. This piece weighs just enough to become fairly stable while only addressing 12 inches of depth. Again, contact me for your preferences and we can determine cost and find a shipper if necessary.

Stunning image of smallest possible five-ringed structure

View larger image  © phys.org
Olympicene radical AFM Laplace filtered.
The black bar corresponds to 0.5 nm.
Credit: IBM Research - Zurich, University
of Warwick, Royal Society of Chemistry

Stunning image of smallest possible five-ringed structure - Phys.org

Scientists have created and imaged the smallest possible five-ringed structure – about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair – and you'll probably recognise its shape.

A collaboration between the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the University of Warwick and IBM Research – Zurich has allowed the scientists to bring a single molecule to life in a picture, using a combination of clever synthetic chemistry and state-of-the-art imaging techniques.

The scientists decided to make and visualise olympicene whose five-ringed structure was entered on ChemSpider, the RSC's free online chemical database of over 26 million records two years ago.

"When doodling in a planning meeting, it occurred to me that a molecular structure with three hexagonal rings above two others would make for an interesting synthetic challenge," said Professor Graham Richards CBE, RSC Council member.

"I wondered: could someone actually make it, and produce an image of the actual molecule?"

Chemists at the University of Warwick, Dr David Fox and Anish Mistry, used some clever synthetic organic chemistry – the modern molecule designer's toolbox – to build olympicene.

"Alongside the scientific challenge involved in creating olympicene in a laboratory, there's some serious practical reasons for working with molecules like this," said Dr Fox.



"The compound is related to single-layer graphite, also known as graphene, and is one of a number of related compounds which potentially have interesting electronic and optical properties.

Continue reading..

Thinking Outside the Box: Chair Seat

Thinking Outside the Box: Chair Seat - R. Mark Sink

Building a chair seat is quite simple and provides a place for safekeeping items out of sight while also standing 18 inches high which equals the standard chair seat height. You have four fairly equal sides and a bottom filler. The four legs are joined from eight pieces in this case cut at a 45 degree angle. Four small pieces are filled under the base so that the legs appear as engaging the box.

The lid has a extra layer on the bottom which inlays the top opening. (See left) A flat horizontal border is applied to the top edge revealed upon the legs. Between the legs, additional trim can be added.

Here is one that I have made that is distressed with an enamel base coat (electric pink mix) with enamel forest green blended on the outside. I don't recommend these types of paints but have paints that I am trying to use up as versus wasting them. Be careful working with oil base paints as the fumes are horrible.

Add this to your storage ideas. I seem to build a lot of these so I will be sure and post a picture of the next one. Having stored various material for smaller projects, this is a way to utilize mother nature in a respectable way versus what normally is thrown away. The legs are cut offs from beaded material shown at left up close. Warning: If kept dry and glue is used in construction chair seat may last a lifetime.