Blog #4

 


This week, we completed the initial construction of our picnic table, a picture of which is attached in this blog post. On Friday, 5/28, we deconstructed the table and transported the parts to my house, where we will quickly reconstruct the table and begin to work on a second project that we are still researching and deciding on.

While the fact that we need to come up with an additional carpentry project shows that we adapted very well and worked efficiently as a group, building the picnic table was no easy task. One aspect of table construction that we underestimated was balancing out two objects on opposite sides. For example, we needed to build seat supports for our picnic table on opposite sides of the legs. It took us multiple hours to balance out the two seat supports because we needed to make constant adjustments so that the supports were symmetrical both horizontally and vertically. Even if we seemed to align the two pieces perfectly according to our tape measures, there still seemed to be slight imperfections. Eventually, with the help of the instructors at the facility, we realized that minor differences were contributing to our problems.

For one, the angles of our legs were half of a degree off. While I assumed that this difference would make no real change to the final construction of our table, the hours spent adjusting our seat supports disagree. Additionally, the ground we were working on was slightly uneven, only worsening our problems. We finally solved our problem when we used a saw to shave down some pieces to adjust for the imperfections our table had, and we eventually were able to see the project through.

The entire ordeal of building the table, while educational and entertaining, definitely made me gain more respect for carpenters. Like us, they need to worry about minute length and angle differences, but with much higher stakes and in significantly less time.

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