Ponies and Snakes 2026

I've been working on a lot of different projects over the past six weeks or so, but nothing that has reached what you might call reporting status. Until this Sunday, which was the Bay Area Mustang Association's most recent edition of the annual Ponies and Snakes car show. Putting on the show is a lot of work - it really does take village - and BAMA stepped up again. One of the best features of the showground is all the trees and the shade they provide; unfortunately this has a negative impact on the quality of the photos.

Penelope Penis

Back when I was in grad school, I was between leases for a month or so one summer, and I was living in a friend-of-a-friend's spare room. It was very convenient for me because it was just a few blocks from the previous gaff and I moved everything I owned in a couple of trips with a mate's sedan. It worked out ok for Penelope too, because she was a teacher and the wedge I forked over funded her summer vacation.

It was a pretty little house, two-up, two-down separated by a narrow staircase, with a kitchen and bathroom at the rear of the ground floor. Very similar to the house in this post actually. The dining room was my favorite spot because it caught the late morning sun and was painted in some beautiful 70's-style colors. I only lived there for a few weeks, but I managed to keep up my tradition of locking myself out of every house I've ever lived in at least once. This time around it was right before I was supposed to leave for a trip to Amsterdam and ended up inconveniencing quite a few people. It's no coincidence that where I live now has a keypad entry. 

The first week I lived there Penelope was away on the vacation I mentioned I funded. I cooked some fish either the second or third night and it was a bit of a disaster. In fact, the house still stank of fish when Penelope came back. The night before she returned, I went back to my old place a few blocks away where my friends/former housemates were still living. I'd only been gone a week, so it felt just like any other Friday evening which, in those days, meant sinking a few cans, messing around on the playstation and hot knifing in the kitchen until at least 2:00 am. The only difference was I had to stagger a few hundred yards to bed afterwards instead of just crawling up the stairs.

I was fast asleep at whatever time Penelope got back from her trip, and I wasn't on hand to help with her suitcases or to explain away the ungodly fish smell. Or the ding in the living room wall that appeared the morning after I moved my desk in. I didn't even leave a "welcome home" post-it note on the stairs. She clunked around downstairs for a bit, and when that didn't work, she dragged her suitcases up and down the stairs a couple of times. At least that was what it sounded like. Whatever it was, I did the right thing and got up to say "Hi" and we had an awkward conversation which ended with Penelope leaving to buy air freshener and groceries, and me returning to bed. I think she was expecting me to have stocked the fridge, but I was surviving on a diet of bran flakes, baked potatoes, canned tuna and instant coffee at the time, none of which took her fancy. She definitely wasn't planning on the smell that was hanging about the whole plaice (!)

When I got back up it was mid-afternoon, the fridge was full of fruit and veg, the smell of fish had been replaced with a sort of plastic coconut odor and Penelope was lying on the couch watching TV. I sat down in my dressing gown on the only other seat, which was a flimsy deckchair thing, and tried to feign interest in whatever she was watching. Penelope was concerned that I hadn't had anything to eat yet, so I fixed up some bran flakes and milk and ate them in front of the telly. She was also exceedingly put out by fact I had been lying in bed until the afternoon and didn't seem swayed by my explanation that I had been up late. I think I was about twenty-seven at the time, so it was a while since anyone had commented on my bedtime; I tried to remember that she was a teacher and was probably used to laying down the rules etc. 

At some point that afternoon I got a call from my buddy Cuthbert Oceans inviting me to ride over to Birmingham and visit Kevin "yes Kev" Bartholomew's new apartment for the evening. Penelope actually went to primary school with Kev, so I suggested she might tag along, but she rejected the opportunity. Kev's new pad was anything but impressive; it was a tiny old-fashioned hovel to put it politely, but Kev, Cuthbert, our friend Pork Shoulder and myself sat around chatting on the uncomfortable orange couch until the small hours nevertheless. While driving back down the A45 in Cuthbert's late 80's VW Polo Coupe, we all ruled out Kev's place as a potential crash-over spot. We figured one of the three of us would just have to move over to Brum. In the end the other two both did and I moved to Berkeley. Incidentally, the car we travelled in inspired me to buy my first car, a VW Golf mark I, not that much later. I would have bought Cuthbert's car except he wouldn't sell it to me, even for the thousand quid I offered him. I had the last laugh though because six months later the thing fell to pieces and he had to pay to scrap it.

Penelope had long since turned in when I got back from Kev's. The next afternoon she reminded me, over my bran flakes and the EastEnders omnibus edition, that the next day was Monday with a capital M and that I had better get an early or at least earlier night. I did mention that her house was located twenty minutes from campus and that I was confident I could make it there by my usual 10:30. In fact in my lab when we would leave at night people would say "see you at coffee tomorrow," since the group always met for coffee in the same place every day. Besides, anyone who's anyone knows you can't do serious science first thing in the morning. I did my best to be still in bed every time Penelope left for work all the time I lived there, just in the hope that she would find it annoying. 

One day, towards the end of my stay, I was around in the morning when the mail dropped through the letterbox. None of it was for me - how could it be - but I managed to find the energy to bend down, pick the envelopes off the mat and put them down somewhere more suitable. My landlord's name wasn't really Penelope, but what is true is that her last name began with "P" and it was one letter away from "penis." The reason for mentioning this is that one of the letters was actually addressed to "Real Name Penis"! Could this be a mistake, or a deliberate error? Who cares; it was hilarious either way. I never mentioned this to Penelope - it never really came up (intended) - but I did share it with all our mutual friends. In our social group she was known as Penelope Penis after that.

Cabinet Saw Room Refinements Part 2

The real focus of this post is the cabinets I mentioned a few weeks ago. But before that, I have some insulating to do. For some context, the exterior deck/garage ceiling also extends over a small section of the cabinet saw room. I had a lot of small pieces of OSB sheathing left over from insulating the garage ceiling, so I bought some more insulation material and got stuck in.

I'm covering up several electrical junction boxes, so I was sure to mark the appropriate panels with red tape. This way I'll know which panels to remove if I ever need to get at any of the electrical.

All done. I'm not looking to add structural support to this area, so I was able to make use of a lot of what would otherwise have been scrap OSB sheathing.

Put the lights back:

Now onto the real business. This is how the table saw room looks after I installed a timber shelf/platform and wall-panel over the somewhat uneven concrete.

Fast forward to the weekend just gone and I picked up some 3/4" Baltic birch plywood on the way home from work. This is expensive material but is also extremely flat and well known for its easy machinability and screw holding strength that’s superior to other plywood options. These qualities mean it is dense material, but that is not a problem for this particular project. You can learn all about Baltic birch plywood here.

 

I spent a couple of hours building my prototype cabinet, and checked that it would fit and look ok.

There is a gap of about 3/4" between the top of the cabinet and the floor joists, in case I want to finish the ceiling in this area, although I think that's unlikely.

Time to go into production! I need a total of eight (8) cabinets, so seven (7) more to make. The plywood sheets are actually too heavy to lift on my own, so the first step is to cut a strip 30-1/4 inches wide off each board using the "track saw."

This piece can then be trimmed to precisely 30 inches wide with the table saw. 

I can just about lift the leftover two-thirds of a panel on my own, and pass it twice through the table saw, so that after almost 45 minutes of hard manual labor, I ended up with a pile of 30" x 48" panels.

The top, bottom and both side panels are all the same size: (30" x 11-7/8"), which means I can cut four, enough for one cabinet, from a 30" x 48" panel, without any waste. 

I've always hated sanding, but it's a necessary evil...

Sanded side panels (14): 

I'm joining the panels with pocket screws. Apart from being quick and cheap, I can take the cabinets apart later if I ever need or want to:

Sanded top and bottom panels with pocket holes bored (14): 

I modified an earlier jig to work with 3/4" plywood:

Assembly is of the "build two halves and then connect" variety. Since all the panels are the same size, I don't have to worry about orientation.  

I checked every cabinet for square before installing the pocket screws.

The inset back panel measures exactly 30" x 28-9/16" because the plywood is actually 23/32" thick instead of the advertised 3/4."

The strength in the cabinets comes from the thickness of the plywood and the excessive number of pocket hole screws which secure the back panel: 

Peg holes were drilled with the Kreg™ jig. I bored three sets of peg holes because most of the shelves will not be the full depth of the cabinets.

I'm assembling the cabinets in batches of two or three because they take up a lot of space in my workshop.

I'm installing the cabinets in the cabinet saw room in two banks of four, starting at the workshop side. I placed and leveled the far-left cabinet first and then aligned the other cabinets with that one.

I used the laser level to help me get the cabinets lined up perfectly.

I left some 3/8-inch gaps between pairs of cabinets to allow the power cords to pass through.

The first three cabinets were straightforward but then I ran into the heating duct... 

I could work around the duct, but instead I am going to redirect it. The first step is to cut out the 90-degree bend:

The old piece is on the right. I will be replacing it with the smaller piece on the left.

I'm installing ducting which consists of a flexible plastic-wrapped core that is sleeved with fiberglass and aluminum foil.

Connection #1: flexible duct to 45-degree elbow with foil tape:

Connection #2: 45-degree elbow to area below vent with A LOT of foil tape:

Connection #3: flexible duct to rigid duct followed by placement of fourth cabinet:

The end cabinets were secured to the base panel/shelf...

...and all cabinets were secured to the floor joists and to each other. I didn't buy any of the brackets for this project, I just used up whatever I had in the shop because ultimately none of them will be visible.

Section one complete. I'll be calling these cabinets the "Left Bank" for identification within the (future) lighting system.

It makes sense (to me) to start installing the right bank at the point where the older part of the building meets the area below the deck, since there is a difference in the height of the ceiling, and then work right to left. 

Two down, two more to go....

After placing and securing all four of the "Right Bank" cabinets, I have a gap at the center:

This is useful since I can still access the 220 Volt outlet for the cabinet saw, but the real purpose of this space is to house the lighting control module and a couple of other things.

I installed a two-inch-wide strip of plywood below the cabinets to cover the imperfect transition to the mounting panel and then I fixed several outlet banks at intervals along the wall.

All cabinets and electrical secured:

I made some shelves from the leftover plywood.

I will be making doors for at least two of the cabinets which will be used for storage. I want to make something a bit more interesting that a plywood door, so I am looking for ideas at the moment. The other cabinets will be used to display some of my collections and will have either glass or polycarbonate panels at the front.

To be continued....