After lunch, we decided that we might as well start cutting the chackram. It was going to be tricky: there are several sections in which the chackam blades have whorls and wierdness, which we wounldn´t be able to completely cut with the saw.
So we quickly got started. Needless to say, I´m kinda scared of saws.
My father was mainly here in this part of the process to help me cut. I was (and still am, somewhat) scared of saws--not just because if something went wrong, it could cut my finger off: no, what really worried me was the fact that
I could essentially ruin what we´d been drawing the whole morning, as well as damage the wood.
My Dad started the cutting. But in the end, I joined too. It´s actually quite fun, once you get past the initial fear of killing your future chackram by accident.
Smiiiiile! I´ve got a saw and I don´t really know how to use it!! Well, maybe you should run.......
We ended up cutting both giant wheels, since setting up the tools again later would have been quite a hassle.
They look, amazingly, like tabletops. wierd, spiky tabletops that´ll poke you in the stomach as soon as you try to lean forward to eat your spoonful of soup.
When we looked at the watch, we realized it was only 18:20!! We still had over two hours or time left before our neighbors could actually start complaining about the noise in the garden. What to do, what to do.....???
START SANDING, BABY!!!
Gosh, but how I do love sanding machines. Nice, pretty, efficient electrical ones. You get stuff done "over 9,000!!" times faster than with manual sanding....and the end result usually looks better too. Not that you don´t have to manually sand sometimes, but I definitely didn´t want to be sanding (p= 2πr times two) 628cm worth of wood by hand. Just thinking about it makes me dizzy. I finished one in about an hour and a bit ( had to sand both sides of the "table" to make the "blade"), so I decided to finish the other one up before 20:30 as well. In the end, I finished at 21 on the dot, but most of the neighbors were still at the pool, so I´m guessing that the noise wasn´t particularly bothersome. Or maybe it was--but they were feeling guilty about their loud parties/shrieking children/both and decided to let me make a racket for once.
Safety is important. The goggles were a given--my glasses don´t protect me from flying dust much better than...well....not wearing them. By the middle of the first wheel, I realized the vast quantity of sawdust I was inhaling. Luckily, I had a mask to wear. yay for being able to breathe!!
Sorry for the wobbly picture. my grandma took it. It´s the two "finished" wheels; now the only cuttting left to do is the center. We decided to leave that for after sanding due to the fact that the electric sander sends a lot of vibrations thorugh the wood--and the wood could split/snap/whatever if it´s subjected to too much (and weakened by having a hole through its center).
Yeah, I look horrible. But I wear those clothes on purpose, because if they die, I won´t regret tossing them. That´s why they´re "work-clothes"! An old too-short spaghetti strap and some gym shorts from when I was in middle school.
