Sunday, September 15, 2013

Unshown

A friend from work lent me his nail gun. 

I don't know much about nail guns, and I certainly didn't know that you have to plug in the air compressor that very noisily gets up to 150 PSI (the cats didn't like that part one bit) and then you fiddle with the knob such that when you pull the trigger, the nails go all the way in.

Powerful stuff.

I don't understand all those movies in which the heroine is chased into an abandoned building site by the crazed killer, and she runs until she's cornered and you're sure she's out of options but the movie still has at least half an hour to go and then she discovers a nail gun and shoots him with it like seventy-three times but on account of he's crazy (and this is, after all, fiction) and there's at least half an hour to go, he doesn't actually get dead from all these nails but does bleed a lot - anyway, I don't understand those things because the thing I have in my living-room is nothing like those things.

Not that it couldn't hurt someone, but (a) it needs electricity, (b) it's loud - you can't exactly sneak up on someone and (c) you have to press really hard against the thing you're trying to nail so that the whats-what retracts and the trigger gets enabled which once again interferes with the whole element of surprise thing and I don't think that even a crazed killer would hold still for a nail gun being pressed quite hard against his delicate (or even indelicate) bits so that the heroine could put two-inch nails into him. At least not more than once, I imagine.

Anyway, I had my way with the nail gun, and all those long, thin, oddly-shaped pieces of wood that I've been mitering and measuring and painting are now safely attached to the place where the wall and the floor meet, but there are no pictures because it would be dull.

And when I ran out of things to nail in the room with the new floor, I wandered around the house until I found more things that needed nailing (thanks to the ex who was famously good at starting things and famously dreadful at finishing them) and I had my way with those things too and I'm happy to say that the TV room in the basement is much improved (though it still needs More Effort).

And then I did a little beading.
I needed to make something quick to hang from these cool ear wires that I had to make. I really should always just make my own; these are so much more interesting than the ones I buy and even better, I know for sure that these are solid brass, not just brass-plated (which I suspect of the ones I buy but can't be sure).
 Then I did this. I'm wearing it right now. I don't think I can bear to part with it to tell the truth because the colours are so much more delicious in Real Life.
Then I made the middle part of the necklace above, but I may need to cut it up because the colours are ugly together and the copper bail thing really didn't work out well at all.

Then I made more and different noise with the tile saw I borrowed from another work colleague. (Turns out there are advantages to working in a male-dominated environment). This must have been the economy model compared to the one I rented when I was cutting tiles for me floor, because it didn't make cuts as clean and smooth as the other monster. Still, it successfully cut some tiles into coaster-sized pieces but I have to confess, excited as I was at the time by the possibilities of all that left-over tile, I'm pretty much over it.

I'll make a coaster for Mike (who lent me the nail gun) because I said I would and I'll make a trivet because I already started it and I may even make the box-thing that I want to use as a planter to see if gel super-glue really does glue ceramic tile, but honestly my heart's not in it.

I'd rather bead or knit or spin or sew (I need really nice fabric for curtains for my bedroom because after twelve years of hating the hideous lacy disgusting nylon things that were there when I moved it, I just can't stand it any longer and I'm ready to do something about it) or make body butter or maybe even that bath-mat I started for my daughter.
And then I worked on the instructions for Tuesday's class and then I watched Breaking Bad which OMG was pretty exciting.

1 comment:

Tanya said...

I would not be able to part with the flower necklace either. The colors are such fun and the center has be swooning.