An hour at Lowes, from Nick

My hour at Lowes…
This is going to be simple. The web site shows this nice 12” bearing and 18” piece of wood:

Build a Lazy Susan in 10 mins. The basis of this swift. Head to lumber. I find the round “Table Top” as shown on the web site. It’s about 2” thick and weighs about 15 lbs. Way too heavy duty for this project (and would have cost $100 to ship via freight). Crap, that’s the smallest round piece of wood they have.

Look around. Time to find some other wood. Oak? Nah, too heavy and EXPENSIVE!!! Pine? Ick, The thing I hate about pine is you can never find a piece that is not warped. And for some reason I don’t think it would do your yarns justice. What’s this.. Poplar… It has a nice greenish hue and looks soft and subtle (because it is). Also the pieces are “straight as a board”. This is going to work great! And they have a 12” x 24” piece. I can make that work with the 12” Lazy Susan bearing somehow. Pick it up and go find the bearing.
Find the round bearing shown on the site. Look at it over the wood. FRICK! The bearing is larger than the wood… Either the bearing is lager than 12” or the wood is not 12” wide. But in my mind I’m sold on using this wood. Go back to lumber. 12” is the widest piece of Poplar they sell. FRICK! There is some pine “butcher board” that is interesting. Nah, I can’t have knots touching your yarn. OK, back to hardware. What else do they have? A square 6” bearing. That’s not going to work. With the arms of the swift extended a 6” square platform won’t be stable enough. Unless… I used that bearing with a piece of wood on top and bottom. That will work! But how am I going to screw this thing to both pieces of wood since it’s going to be sandwiched between them? Think, Think, Think, Got it! I know how to do it. This will work, be VERY stable and look great (since I can use the Poplar). Back to Lumber. No Poplar dowels for the pegs, Oak will have to do…

Back to hardware, a few screw packets. Whew, done, I’m outta here…