5/5-7/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped to visit Bill Odgers and from there I stopped and visited with Uncle Charles. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:45. After moving in, I raised the flag, split some wood, started a fire, had lunch and a nap. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in a phone call.

On Wednesday I cut the loft fascia board for the run from Grid C2 to D2. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the extra 3/4" for the projection of the miter so the board was 3/4" too short. At least I was smart enough not to cut it again to try to fix it. After a little muttering about how I could be so stupid, I decided to use the board anyway and insert a patch on the inside corner at the Grid D2 end.

There was a little serendipity in my mistake, however. The remnant left over turned out to be exactly the right size to mate with the first board at the Grid C2 corner. If it were 3/4" shorter, it wouldn't have worked. So I proceeded to shape the remnant so that it would fit over the main loft beam and I nailed a long shim to the edge of it that stuck out in order to fill the space and mate with the Grid C2 RPSL. I will varnish that shim and the beam below it later.

I was very happy with how it worked out. That corner will be very visible because it is right in front of your face as you go up the stairs. Nobody except people who read this will ever notice the patch on the other end.

After lunch and a nap, I carefully measured and cut the board for above the entry room door. I made sure to allow for the miter on this one. Unfortunately, I figured for two miters, where I should have figured only for one. The parallelogram geometry tripped me up again. And again I went into a short rage because of my stupidity. And this time, the remnant was made too short for use as the last long piece of fascia. It could have used another 3/4" to fit better to the log wall.

But again, I decided to use the piece in spite of it being too short because the left side of it fit so beautifully at the corner mating with the first board. That was because there is a dark streak in the center of the board which continues across the joint because they came from the same board and that joint was where they met in the original board. The patching against the log wall would be acceptable because it won't be too noticeable, or so I told myself. So I cut 3/4" off the first board to make it fit and suspended the two boards into position with rope slings.

On Thursday morning after breakfast, I started by splitting a bunch of firewood and then building a fire in the wood stove.

Then I scribed a pattern on heavy paper to capture the contour of how the right end of the second board needed to be coped in order to mate with the log wall. Since the board was too short, it wouldn't reach all the way to the chinking, but that is the price for my stupidity.

I tried to be extra careful in my scribing and in my measurements given the number of errors I have been making. I made a scribe by taping a pencil to a shim perpendicular to the shim's axis. Then I drew a bunch of horizontal parallel lines on the paper to be used to keep the shim horizontal as I scribed. I had thought of taping a beeping level to the shim to keep it horizontal but I couldn't lay my hands on the level. I figured the horizontal lines would do the same trick, which they did. I also made careful marks on each end of the paper at the exact height of the loft subfloor surface. That way I would be able to register the template on the board correctly before transferring the pattern.

After taping the paper to the wall and establishing my reference marks, I carefully scribed the pattern by keeping the end of the shim in contact with the log wall, the shim horizontal, and the pencil pressing against the paper making the line. It seemed to work very well.

So I removed the paper and cut along the line with a scissors. With the template made, I took it back up on the ladder and tried the fit. The fit against the log wall was fine, but my reference marks showed that it was too low. When the scribed contour was mated with the log wall, the reference marks were below the subfloor surface about a quarter of an inch.

After thinking about why, it dawned on me that my pencil was taped to the top of the shim so the point did not line up with the axis of the shim. That made sense, so I simply needed to adjust my reference marks. I placed the template back in position and established new reference marks.

Having confidence that my measurements were now correct, I brashly taped the template to the end of the board in the exact position, both for length and for the reference marks. I was also clever enough to realize that the reference marks didn't go exactly at the top of the board because the board needs to stick up above the subfloor surface 3/8" to cover the flooring and leave a short reveal. So I left that amount of board above the reference marks and taped the template in place.

Using a pencil, I traced the line on the board from the template and then proceeded to cut the line with my trusty saber saw.

Eager to see how it fit and looked, I made a sling and suspended the board from the guard rail so that it dangled near its final position. But, alas, when I tested the fit against the log wall, I was dismayed to discover that I should have subtracted that offset to the reference marks instead of adding it. The coping was 3/4" too high so that the board mated with the log wall about 3/4" too low. Now I was really angry with myself and even let go with a verbal outburst, which fortunately nobody but I heard.

Rather than make any more mistakes, I left the boards dangling against the wall and went to work putting away tools, sweeping up chips, and dismantling the varnishing rack. I pulled all the rebar pins out of the rack, boxed them up, and stored them away.

Then, as I was getting ready to leave, and after having thought about all my mistakes and problems, I decided to glue back in place the circular piece that I had cut out of the end of the board. That way I could re-do the cut next week and the patch for the error would already be in place. That would be easier than trying to make a plug to fit after the new cut was made. I was happy with how the glued piece blended right back in leaving only a hairline mark which, again, won't be noticed by many people. With that faint hint of redemption, I left for home at 12:45.