What Is Your Battle Cry?

Zang! Who is that, skulking amidst the wasteland! It is Kira_the_White, hands clutching a sharpened screwdriver! He bellows thunderously: "I'm going to punch you harder than God thought possible, and throw you out the airplane door!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

Please forgive me…

 

Please forgive me

for forgetting

Forgetting you

forgetting me

please, forgive me

 

Please forgive me

for forgetting

forgetting the snow and winter’s kiss

forgetting the freedom and the bliss

please forgive me

 

Please forgive me

for forgetting

forgetting the call and the creed

forgetting the act and the deed

please forgive me

 

I was the Snow White Wolf

Free in winters embrace and heart

I kissed the Earth, made love to the wind and was never lost.

I was the Snow White Wolf

 

But I’d forgotten myself.

 

Please forgive me

Oh White Wolf of those Frosty clear dreams

for forgetting you

for losing myself in this flesh and world

Please forgive me

 

For I shall not forget myself again.

Welcome back once again, after my short break I've resumed work on the Sister's Cathedral. First I purchased some simple all purpose wood glue. ($6.43)This should be the only bottle I'll need to buy for the construction of this project, but it can be use in multiple ways, more on that later. Be sure that you get wood glue that is easy to clean up and can be sanded.

    First, I laid out the window pieces and made sure they were clean and dry (i.e. I wiped each with a dry, clean rag.) This ensures that the glue will adhere to only the wood. Then I spread it over the back three pieces and spread it out with my finger. This helps prevent the glue from oozing out and mucking up the sides. I stacked the pieces and then clamped them in place, wiped off the excess with a rag and then did the hardest thing I've had to in this project. I put it aside and left it alone for an hour. While the bottle said it only takes 30 minutes to set I figured that the extra time wouldn't hurt, especially in light of the 95 degree heat and humidity. Also it was about this time that I discovered a slight problem.

    I'd been using some cheap plastic clamps and the springs warped the plastic and this they didn't want to clamp exactly how I wanted. Over all not a big deal as it was easily dealt with once I found it, but it does prove an important point; you get what you pay for. This doesn't mean you need to always find the most expensive thing you can, but it does pay to shop around and pay a little more for a quality product.

    While I waited for the windows to setup, I cut the peaked roof pieces for the two towers. I took extra steps during this to collect as much of the resulting sawdust as I possibly could. More than the purposes of keeping my work area clean and being as 'Green-minded', sawdust can practically be reused, not only for flocking in the final stages of building this play-field, but when mixed with wood glue, it makes a damn good patching putty that matches the wood with out additional dyes or cost. As for the scrap, I'll be using those as supports for the angled roof that sits atop the Cathedral.

    Once the windows were set up I set about sanding down the sides to try and get them as reasonably flush as I can. I considered using a hand planer set as thin as I can set it, but I've no real idea how well it'll work with the MDF, as it's a composite material and not a solid chunk of wood. That, and...I don't currently own a hand planner. Sanding with a 40 grit paper worked pretty well for the most part, but it does take a considerable amount of elbow grease and time. The good news is that I did provide me with more sawdust and a good work out.

Tip: Making Wood Patch/ Putty.
    This is a pretty simple mixture. Pour some of our wood glue into a container you don't give a damn about, I used a clay pigeon (don't ask) then add a few pinches of your sawdust and stir still you get a mixture about the consistency of warm peanut butter. Then spread over the area you need to patch. Smooth and wipe away your excess. There is no need to make a big fuss if you get some of the putty on a clean area, just sand it away after it’s been allowed to setup, or better yet, cure for at least a night.

    So, after cleaning up and storing all my extra sawdust in a covered plastic container, I called it a night.

Expenses to date

Elmer's Wood Glue	$6.43
Remaining Budget	$32.57

    In other News...
     I finished last term with strait A's, and found out that i made the President's list and have been invited to a special lunch. I'm pretty proud of myself, but it's hasn't gone to my head.

Thanks for reading and we'll see you next time.

Current Mood: pleased

Yeah I did nothing towards the project today. I spent the day helping mom and moving rocks, lots of rocks. I'll do something tomorrow.
For now, I'll just share Iroh's lullaby as it's stuck in my head.

Leaves from the vine,
Falling so slowly,
Like fragile tiny shells,
Drifting in the cold.

Little solider boy,
Come marching home
Brave solider boy
Come marching home.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Iroh's Lullaby

    It's day three of the build and have to confess that what i did get done really doesn't look like much to some people, But these are the same people that are baffled as to why anyone would want to build this thing from scratch and not simply find a kit or pre-built that was "close enough". Thankfully I'm not one of those people. Moving along...

    Today I sat and sanded the hell out of the cut arches. It can be a long and rather tedious task, but I'm one who believes that the passion and devotion to my craft will read in the final product. So i sat outside Universe Games and sanded myself a lap-full of dust. It was nice, and i kept getting people passing and asking me what i was doing. Overall, aside form the sweltering heat, it was a good day.
   
    Tomorrow I'm gonna try to get my hands on some simple wood clamps and even out all the window pieces so that they'll look like one nice unit when i glue 'em together.

    Now it's time for a confession or two. So as i proudly laid out all the pieces today i realized that somewhere along the line I'd forgotten on of the landings for the main stairs leading up to the door. While I searched and organized the pieces i DID have, i came across an 1/2"x4"x8" block that i measured out and couldn't find a home for. I still haven't figured out what the hell i did there, or why, but i did figure that i could cut the stray block to fit around the main towers, and use the resulting scrap to fill in the missing inch on either side of the step. with some good sanding and painting, no one should be able to tell that anything was ever amiss.

Expences to Date

Sanding Sponge	$4.49
Total	$4.82
Remaining Budget	$39.00

   For those of you who are following along, I do realize that those numbers don't quite add up right, that leads us to to day's salute. Special thanks and salute to ACE Hardware @ 54th and Penn, for you help and 12 cents.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Pandora Radio

    Welcome back for Day 2 of Operation: Raising the Faith.

    Today i went and got the two boards cut. Doug was the one who did all the actual cutting, though i did offer to help. every thing came out beautiful so I'm still pretty happy. Though i did run into one issue; I forgot to include two 3"x15" sections, though they were easily cut from what i thought was gonna be a wonderful clean piece of scrap that I could work with latter. No real big issue though, thanks to my planning and preproduction work.



    At the end of that I was left with three nice piles...
the 1/2" pieces,                                     the 1/4" pieces,                                     and the scrap.

   
    With all the strait cuts done on a table saw or a skill saw, it was time to do the arch work for the windows and the main door. My original idea was to simply use carbon paper and transfer the already measured arches from the full scale drawing. This didn't work out so well for me. In fact, it kinda pissed me off, so i just hand drew the arches on the boards before handing them over to Doug. He then clamped the required amount together, drilled pilot holes and used a jig saw to cut each out. Each of the layers came out wonderfully and i managed to save most of the scrap for latter additions. It's a personal goal of mine to produce as little waste from this project as possible.


    I end this day one step closer to building this chapel and managed to finish with no surprise expenses and premo cut pieces. Tomorrow, I plan on cleaning, shaping, and fitting the pieces as well as discussing the paint scheme with my buddy Dave, who's running the army that this field is being built for. So all in all, even with the bad weather and few stumbles, today was a great day. One that i can't fairly close with out a special thanks and salute to Doug for all his help.
See ya tomorrow,
Chris

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Pandora Radio

Late Night Update:
    Hey, It's a little after 1am and i just finished the physical layout on the 1/4" and the 1/2" boards. It took me a while to actually get everything fitted as i had to account for the 1/8" cut lines that weren't included on the paper lay outs. Still, Everything fits with a fair amount of extra left over, especially on the 1/2" board, which really makes me happy.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Pandora Radio

Welcome Back,
   Chris here with a new project and a new project journal. Here I will be making record of progress through this project including break down of my process, materials,  expenses, and some personal thoughts as i go.

Operation: Raising the Faith
Outline: Build a Cathedral play-field  for The Sisters of Battle (Warhammer 40k), complete with cathedral facade, fountain, and field.
Build Material: MDF Hardboard
Budget: $80

Day -1 In the Beginning...
    Last night Dave and i got the green light to build and the budget for this project from Angelo. So today i went out to Home Depot and purchased the hardware. This required four 1/2"x2'x4' MDF boards, and one 1/4"x2'x4' MDF board, and one 1" diameter hardwood dowel.
     Of course the first hiccup reared it's head. As i was loading the boards into my truck the last two boards fell and wedged themselves in the lumber cart. The damage is minor and superficial, so I'm still pretty happy.  The last thing i plan to do today is draw out the pieces and the cut lines (about 1/8"). Tomorrow I'll be cutting one of the 1/2" and the one 1/.4" boards into the 43 pieces.

Today's Expenses

1/4"x2'x4' MDF Hardboard x1	$4.46
1/2"x2'x4' MDF Hardboard x4 ($6.65 ea.)	$26.24
1'x48' Hardwood Dowel	$3.26
Total	$36.96
Remaining Budget	43.70

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Pandora Radio

Add some color and here we are for the night

Step 2 for me is shadows and highlights for the main figures in the piece and enforcing a focal point. I work in Photoshop SC2, but I'll really only go into the technical if somebody asks. so here it is.