Pictures this if you will - Eli standing in a large ware house at 12 midnight covered in saw dust 3 hours away from home on a Friday night dreaming of poker chips.
I've been deployed for 6 weeks to this place for various training but during off time I'm able to utilize some of the tools in our shop and have been building a chip case for a friend. We finished clean up early in the day and everyone else went home but they left me a truck and I've been working to get the final pieces cut out so I can glue them up later at home. Finally around
midnight I get the last bit done and load up the truck. After following a logging truck for an hour and going by the base to get my own vehicle I get home around
4am. I had only gotten 2 hours sleep the night before due to various shenanigans and heavy drinking with the other guys at work but I have to be up in 3 hours to have breakfast with a friend so I'm thinking about a shower and unloading the car vs. sleep; besides, the wife is asleep and mentioned she had a cold earlier on the phone so I'm probably not getting any right now anyway...
Ok, I get the truck unloaded and set my bag of laundry down as I come through the door; huh? What? I think I see a package sitting on the floor!
Sure as sh!t there they are, my first batch of ASM's ... Screw the shower, screw sleep, I grab up the box and head to the kitchen to tear this sucker open..
Nice! They sent me a free copy of Bluff Magazine and the chips are all perfect!
Its made of solid hard maple with a mahogany bottom and rose wood slip feathers. I was lucky when I bought the wood, the maple has a lot of good figure (flame) in it and even a little Birds Eye so I think it will look nice. I plan on finishing it with some Danish oil and then buffing it with wax; should make all the details pop...
As I said, the box is still just in pieces... Obviously the "box" it self is assembled and glued but the trays are still just rough cut and need sanding. The only thing really left is to cut out the handles with a scroll saw and put the rose wood splines into the joints of the upper tray then glue it all together.
