9/13-15/19 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Friday through Sunday.

On the way I stopped and visited with Earl and Dana. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:20. The weather was nice and cool and cloudy. I brought my gear up to the cabin, hoisted the flag, and had my lunch. Then I went into the woods and happily found that the ram pump was still running.

Next, I took a nice nap. When I got up, I went down to the truck and carried some lumber up to the cabin in two trips. I had brought a 16-foot 2x6 and a 12-foot 2x4 with me for use in the loft stair rails. I won't be needing it for a while, but I wanted to get it up to the cabin before it snows.

On Saturday, I sanded both newel posts so that they are ready to be varnished. I brought them inside to minimize the UV damage until they are varnished. Then I used my high-speed DeWalt orbital sander with 60-grit paper to round one end of the tread blank. Working down Doug fir end grain is not easy, but it goes pretty well with that sander as long as I keep it revved up near the max. At one point I hit my finger with it and it instantly removed a patch of skin. I got a lot more careful after that.

I got the end of the tread acceptably smooth, round, and square with the tread surface before I quit for lunch and a nap. When I got up, I smoothed and rounded the other end of the tread and then brought the tread blank inside, also to protect it from UV.

On Sunday it was raining in the morning when I got up and it continued to rain all day. I brought the tread blank back out onto the porch and used the DeWalt planer to plane down the round (bottom) surface of the blank so it was ready for varnish. Then I used a hammer and a 3/4" chisel to chamfer the round edges on the bottom of the tread to match the motif of the rest of the treads.

Next I cleaned up the chip mess on the porch and swept it clean. Then I mounted the tread in the notch-sawing jig that I had dug out of storage. The jig and the tread were mounted on top of one of the big sawhorses.

Then I spent a considerable amount of time measuring and marking the tread for the notch. When I was happy with the mark-up, I got a saw out and started cutting the first kerfs for the notch. I left for home at 12:50 reasonably happy with the little progress that I made for the week.