Willows and Water

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2008

Monet's Water Lilly Garden

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2008

Le Chateau De St. Germain De Livet

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2008

Ancient Dovecote on a Normandy Farm

I thought I would treat you all to a deep visual drink of cool and tranquil waters from Normandy, France. I took these photos in June of 2007.

Record breaking heat here in Seattle today. I am very happy that my workshop is somewhat cave like, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Despite temperatures in the city of over 100 degrees my workshop maxed out at 72 with no air conditioning. I will be camping here tonight, too hot where my sleeping quarters are.

Today I started setting up my new workshop assistant, a tabletop sized CNC router. I feel like I am living in the future with robotic versus human assistants.

I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow when I get it up and running and cut/carve from a few of the sample programs it came with. The first useful thing I plan to set it to making is a custom fence I have designed for the Harbor Freight Mini Miter Saw. I am hoping my assistant will save me a lot of time with making jigs and also eliminate the need for many of the router jigs I often create for dollhouse and birdhouse building. What it can never do is create a hand crafted look so there are limits to its uses. A routed edge will never look like a hand carved edge but it can rough out the edge for me to finish detailing. It can't make worn and weathered looking carving or timbers but it can rough out some types of carvings and cut some types of shapes for me. It can do a good job of carving out brick mortar lines but it can't fill them or texture the bricks. Most unfortunately it can't lay individual shingles on a roof but it can rough out clay barrel roof tile shapes and help make masters for molds.

*Please note that all images are copyrighted. These are my personal photographs that I took and they may not be used without my written permission*