350ppm

We have a problem: We're addicted to cheap fossil-derived energy. Unfortunately the amount of fossil fuel use since the industrial revolution has significantly increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
 --  James Hansen, NASA

The fossil fuel industry has proven reserves of gas coal and oil five-times what is safe to burn, but they still get tax breaks (AKA subsidies) in exploration efforts looking for more. I'm sure many of their other tax breaks have little to commend them and ought to be culled as well.

On top of the tax breaks, the fossil fuel industry gets to pollute without paying. All other companies and individuals have to safely deal with their hazardous by-products, from chemical waste to littering on the street.

Due to it's role in climate change, carbon dioxide is one of the most dangerous pollutants - but the industry is free to release it straight into the atmosphere, with deadly consequences rapidly approaching.

We need to push all governments to enact carbon taxes which make what is currently an external cost - destruction of the environment - into an internal one for these companies. France's carbon tax announcement looks to be the correct approach, with the revenue to be used in further reducing emissions.

When the alternative is severe damage to every aspect of human life (and if we really do nothing - the end of civilization), an increase in current energy cost is not a valid reason to stick with the status quo.

Naturally there is another component - consumer behaviour. We need to:

• Reduce our energy (and other resource) usage
• Choose zero/low carbon energy sources and resources
• Pressure financial and other businesses to divest fossil fuel investments
• Pressure government to enact carbon taxes and invest in zero/low alternatives

There's a lot of work to do but, if we decide to act, we can do it.

A bit of woodwork

My ~10 year old CRT TV died, so I caved and bought a LCD TV to replace it. Pleasingly, this let me put the new TV on the wall, removing clutter from my lounge, and prompted me to get a piece of furniture for the gap between the sofa and the wall.

Unable to find anything with the right dimensions and an acceptable configuration of drawers and shelves, I decided to make my own, as follows...

Total time from concept to completion: One month.

Which is nice.

Light Canvas - LEDs 6: Dim power

The previous post demo-ed all the LEDs roughly in place in the frame, running on the dimmer circuit - but not running bright enough. I've figured out (I think) the LEDs aren't getting enough power. Firstly I wanted to establish what is happening in the circuit:

• From it's specifications, the 2N222A transistor has a beta value of about 100
• The current applied to the transistor base (555 chip output current) measured at: 1.16mA
• Taking the above, 100*1.16mA = 0.116A
• This calculation is confirmed by the measured of current going through LEDs (via the transistor): 0.1A
• This 0.1A is a quarter of the current needed to fully light the LEDs - measuring the current when driving the LEDs directly from the power supply gave a reading of 0.39A (pretty close to the calculated value of 0.42A)
• The transistor's peak base current is 200mA, so the max emitter current (base current * beta value) should be 200ma*100 = 20A - considerably more than the 0.4A needed.
• It should be possible to get the 0.4A - I just need to figure out how to get more current into the base.

Answers on a postcard...

Light Canvas - LEDs 5: All the LEDs

Here are all the LEDs running - 12 panels, each with 5 LEDs. They're not fixed in place yet, just taped in the approximate location.

It turns out that the 555 dimmer circuit isn't quite right, as it seems that the LEDs aren't getting a large enough current - 0.16A, rather than 0.45A (when powering all the LEDs without the dimmer).

I guess it's something due to the transistor not putting/allowing enough current through...

Video:

Light Canvas - LEDs 4: Progress!

Having important things to do can be really motivating - for other projects. I've household repairs to organise, but can't figure out an elegant way for it to be done - so I'm ignoring that for the moment, and have made some progress on the Light Canvas :-)

Subsequent to my last post on this project, I satisfied myself that the circuit was ok, and ordered a bunch of components, and took the opportunity of a OxHack session to  breadboard the control circuit, which I did - except for the minor point that the circuit didn't actually work... Oh well, it was a nice event, and good to meet some more hackers and see what they were up to - I need to get along to more of that sort of thing!

Many months later, I've a working breadboard with the 555 astable circuit producing a pulse width modulation varied from 0-100% depending on a potentiometer. The 555 PWM doesn't have enough power to drive the LEDs directly, so it's used to control a transistor which effectively amplifies the power of the PWM enough for the LEDs. W00t!

This happened by:

1. Getting the 555 PWM working on a single LED directly,
2. then on a panel of 5 (on a breadboard) via the transistor, then (the next day),
3. making up 9 perfboard versions of the LED panel, powered via the LED.

Video evidence:

Next steps;

1. Convert the 555 circuit from breadboard to perfboard.
2. Modify the frame to house the circuit, controls, and wiring.
3. Modify the frame so the back can be attached, and hung on the wall.
4. Stretch the canvas onto the frame.
5. Install the electronics in the frame, and put it all together.
6. Put on wall and bask in its glow :-)

I really ought to...

I really ought to pimp Listing Ships a bit more, especially the EP we're putting out in a couple of weeks. I done a video for it and everything, innit. We've got a gig on Dec 9th as well...

For the record...

The Ribbon interface in MS Office pisses me off.

Light Canvas - LEDs 3: Circuit development

It's great what you can learn with some time and t'interweb - when finding time between band, family, and the rest of real life, that is...

This LED wizard (and generally informative site) helped me realise that "forward voltage" is the same as "voltage" as generally used, but relating to correctly wired in components, rather than what's coming out of the power source.

My previous tests were under-driving the LEDs not by current, but by voltage: A 12V source isn't enough to power four 3.3V LEDs - obviously 4x3.3 = 13.2V.

So, rather than four LEDs in series, I can have up to three. Three seems too few though, so after trying some different combinations, I've decided each column will have three 5mm in series, in parallel with two 3mm LEDs in series. This will add up to 420mA, which at 12V is 5.04W.

After a bit more reading I realised that just slinging a potentiometer between the power source and the LEDs wouldn't work (safely at least), as regular potentiometers won't handle power around 5 watts.

Some helpful people on the sci.electronics.basics Usenet group answered my query about what to use instead, and the consensus was to use pulse width modulation - a PWM circuit based on the 555 timer.

Although the intention with the light frame was to do something without that level of complication, it's just accelerating my schedule a bit, as PWM is something I know I'll need for other projects I have in mind.

Here's what I've got so far:

That schematic is missing quite a few important details - like values of the capacitors, diodes, and resistors surrounding the 555 chip. Oh, and there'll be 3 times the number of LEDs.

I've not yet learnt exactly why this circuit should work - specifically how the current flows around the diodes - but the basic principle is that the discrete components around the 555 tell it how long to turn pin 3 on for (the pulse width), with the variable resistor (R3) allowing manual modification of that duration.

Pin 3 goes to the base (B) of a high power resistor, telling it when to allow current to flow between its collector (C) and emitter (E) - acting as a switch between the power and the LEDs.

That gives us: a small (safe) current through the pot, making the 555 turn the transistor on & off, which varies the power going through the LEDs - controlling their brightness. Hurrah!

Now I need to satisfy myself that I understand all the circuit, and figure out the values for those discrete components to get the timing I want, then I can figure out a list of what I need to buy (AKA Bill Of Materials).

There's a possibility that I'll revisit the LED/resistor configuration to see if I can make it more efficient with a higher voltage source, but it's too late in the evening to think about that now :-)

Light Canvas - LEDs 2: Choosing and Testing

After shopping around a bit online, I bought 100 3mm and 100 5mm warm white diffuse LEDs - buying in bulk for this project and the next. As well as size, the two models differ in viewing/beam angle, and brightness. Two types to experiment with is manageable, and should let me play with brightness/diffusion.

One hundred pounds worth of LEDs don't come in a big box...





(I should've included something for scale in those pics. Nevermind.)

Once I had the frame put together, it occurred to me that three or four LEDs could be put serially in little columns on perfboard, each with their own resistor and connection to the power supply - something like the plan on the right.

Lets remove some unknowns: I want it bright, and nine columns of four LEDs should be pretty good, I reckon.

I've already got wires, resistors, and a breadboard so now I can do some testing.

For prototyping, I attached a couple of crocodile clips to a mains adaptor at it's lowest setting and ran that through a breadboard with one 5mm LED and the recommended resistor, to check that the basics were working, then bumped up the voltage to 12, as I plan to use in the final piece. That worked fine, so I put four LEDs in series and, using an online LED resistor calculator, found a (lower) value of resistor, accommodating the greater voltage drop caused by the additional LEDs (assuming a 2V drop per LED).

If I'm to learn anything here, I ought to figure the resistor stuff out myself, rather than using the online calculator.  For the moment though, I think I get the gist:

• Power source provides a electrical potential difference,
• generation of light by each LED is an electrical load, which uses some of that potential, hence
• voltage drop gives a lower effective voltage over the circuit, hence
• a lower value resistor is necessary.

I need to do some testing to see how this fits in with Ohms law so I understand it a bit better - but not right now, as there's more hands-on stuff first!

I was quite happy with the 5mm LEDs in a row of four, so did the same with the 3mm LEDs. Here's the breadboard:


...here it is lit up:


...with 80gsm paper as a diffuser:


...and with 160gsm card as a diffuser:


Of course, those pictures don't really convey the quality of the light - although they're HDR (taken with Bless N900) so they're not utterly terrible.

I'll need to play around a bit to see if I can/should use lower value resistors and get the LEDs brighter - they could take a higher current, but I need to verify that the voltages and currents used aren't going to be a fire risk, and look into whether higher current might give a significantly shorter LED lifespan - although this is probably a good point to find a canvas (or some similar looking material) to go on the front...

Light Canvas - LEDs 1: Known Unknowns

This is the more complicated part; or at least I have little idea what I'm doing when it comes to electronics. I know basic theory (e.g. Ohms law), and what various components do, but - so far - no practical experience beyond giving glowing red eyes to a toy raven.




The electronics for this shouldn't be too tricky though, as it's all simple analog circuits, with no digital components. The plan is to have:

1. A mains power source (I don't want the hassle and inefficiency of batteries), connected to an input socket in the frame, which itself connects to...
2. An on/off switch, which connects to...
3. A linear fader, to control brightness of...
4. A bunch of LEDs, set up to give an even glow through the canvas (some subtle pattern would be acceptable though).

So, onto the known unknowns:

• What voltage and amperage should the power source provide? It'll depend on the number and specification of LEDs  it'll be supplying - which I don't know yet. I'm thinking 12V is a fair place to start, and conveniently I've got a 3.5 - 12V adapter to prototype with.
• I've got a little toggle switch of the type I want to use, but don't know what power it's rated for.
• The fader could be a potentiometer - or might need to be something else, if the electrical load is too high for a pot. I bought a mixed bag of pots to play around with a while back, and it contained just one linear fader - hopefully it'll be suitable.
• LEDs - this is the biggest area of uncertainty. There are lots of LEDs with differering specifications available, and I don't know which type and how many I'm going to need for the canvas to glow like I want it to. Aspects to consider:
  
  • Brightness (enough to shine through the canvas)
  • Viewing angle (wider is better, as I want an even glow, not visible bright points)
  • Number of LEDs to use (more at lower brightness would give more even illumination)
  • Clear vs diffuse finish (at last, an easy one - diffuse)
    
  • Configuration - rows and columns, random distribution, or some other pattern?
  • How to choose and wire up the right combination of LEDs?
  • Cost - no need to start taking out loans for a hobby...

I think this a fair example of too many choices, not enough knowledge, so I decided that the only way to get started was to just buy some LEDs and fit everything else around that.

Time passing whilst I researched LEDs will be represented by this post ending, and a new one starting...

Light Canvas - Frame

I tend to think about all the different aspect of a project (in this case, frame, LEDs, canvas) at roughly the same time, gradually figuring out how each part will work, independently and together with the others. That would be an utter nightmare to write up though, so these posts will mainly focus on one aspect at a time. Let's start with the easy one: the frame

This is relatively simple - I know the dimensions of the canvas print (135x45cm), so I know I want my canvas to be 135x15cm.

I little research suggests that getting a pre-built frame this size will be difficult or expensive. To be honest, most of the research was watching YouTube videos on stretching canvases. Woodworking is kinda fun, so I elected to make this myself.

After a while trying to think of a way to add a bevel to regular planks (to make sure the canvas doesn't have lumps due to the frame, I realised I could simply use a simple beveled architrave.

The frame is simply two horizontal and two vertical pieces, glued and nailed together with mitre joints, plus vertical braces inside for strength.


Cutting a mitre joint with a plastic mitre box wasn't very accurate - I ended up sanding down the cuts, and hoping that glue would make up for where the surfaces didn't quite meet up.


Positioning the braces was one of those things where it was totally unclear how many were needed and how to space them, until the four frame pieces were laid out on the floor, at which point it was obvious that two braces at thirds of the width would be ideal. The braces are at the back of the frame, so the shouldn't stop light bouncing around the inside of the frame too much - I want the whole canvas to glow, rather than having several compartments. Here's all the pieces laid out (but not glued or nailed):


Also in that pic is a large piece of fibreboard from the Ikea clearance corner - thanks to H and Bic for letting me bring it back with us :-) This will be cut down to size, have the LEDs mounted on, and will be screwed onto the back of the frame.

In keeping with family tradition, my place is full of tools and materials in progress during all this:


Ideally I would've used some corner clamps to ensure that the frame was square when I glued the pieces together - but I don't have any, and the local DIY shop didn't have any. Instead, I lined up the pieces to a roofing square that I bought for the cupboard project, PVA glued them all, then nailed them all (with pre-drilled holes). The braces needed a bit of encouragement to keep them in the right place whilst waiting for the glue to cure.


Cut the fibreboard to size, and that's pretty much all the woodworking finished!



This is all about white light, so the frame gets painted with a matt white, to reflect as much light as possible, without specular highlights.


I'll need to make some modifications to fit electronics, but the frame is done for now.

Light Canvas

Another new project! This one started around October, and is a result of three different threads coming together:

1. I bought a canvas print for my bedroom, a rather nice false-coloured X-ray photo of flowers (probably based on Nick Veasly's work).

2. I need a decent bedside light to replace the rather inelegant broken anglepoise I use at the moment - and preferably something dimmable so I have the option to introduce myself to the day gently.
3. My guitar lights project (more on that later) has been stalled for around two years, and I could do with a simple LED project to learn and gain some experience with electronics.

The predominantly black canvas immediately suggested a short, wide white canvas emitting white light. I think it could look very cool, and give a nice diffuse light to the room through a rough canvas texture. Including a fader will allow me to control how bright it is.


The basic design is:

• A wooden frame the same width as the print, but a third of the height. I was vaguely thinking about the rule of thirds when I chose that height, but mainly it was a good fit for the space between the bedhead and print.
• White LEDs in the frame, with on/off and fader controls, and power supplied via an external switched adaptor (e.g. a typical wall-wart). The LEDs might need some sort of diffuser so the canvas emits light reasonably uniformly.
• A white canvas stretched over the frame. Obviously, this needs to be thin enough to let the LED light through, but be thick enough to be durable. It should have some texture, for the aesthetic.

From that design, there are a lot of details to work out, starting with:

• What LEDs do I need? How many? How should I arrange them? What rating power supply will they need? How do I wire it all up?
• Do I really want canvas - what other options are there?
• How do I get the frame? Buy pre-made or construct it myself?

Stay tuned for answers to all these questions and more...

You gets what you pays for

I bought three webcams matching one I already had, for a total of £16 off eBay.

The good new is they all work.

The bad news is that they can't all work at the same time, as they saturate the entire USB bandwidth.

I now know that cheap webcams send a raw stream of video frames over the wire, whereas more expensive ones compress it (with mjpeg or similar) before sending it over the wire. I now also need to buy more webcams - but more expensive ones.

Bugger.

Webcam videowall

So - a new project. Actually an old one (circa 2008) that I'm making a new start on - a webcam videowall:

When I saw Radiohead at Victoria Park as part of their In Rainbows tour, I was quite taken by their visual show - a big rig of LED columns, and video screens. "It'd be cool to do something like that for a Witches gig", I thought.

I'd messed around a bit with freej, and made some progress, but the interface was a bit of a hassle (or rather;I was too lazy to learn it), and I only had one webcam, so that stalled.


Fast-forward to a couple of weeks back, and using the magic of the GStreamer framework on Linux, a couple of cameras borrowed from work, and some essential help from the GStreamer mailing list, I can feed four webcams into one video stream, using this command:

gst-launch-0.10 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=30/1 ! alpha ! queue ! videomixer name=mix ! ffmpegcolorspace ! \
  xvimagesink sync=false \
  v4l2src device=/dev/video1 ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=30/1 ! alpha ! videobox left=-320 border-alpha=0 ! queue ! mix. \
  v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=30/1 ! alpha ! videobox top=-240 border-alpha=0 ! queue ! mix. \
  v4l2src device=/dev/video3 ! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240,framerate=30/1 ! alpha ! videobox left=-320 top=-240 border-alpha=0 ! queue ! mix.

All the programs needed to make this work are available through Ubuntu's package management, so it was dead easy to install.

The Scene:

The Stream:

The cameras producing the top two corners are much older than the bottom two, hence the poorer quality picture.

I found GStreamer to be a bit of a pain to get started with - it's easy to get something simple running by following examples in the documentation (like showing one webcam), but more complicated pipelines are tricky for the newbie as it can be hard to work out why a pipeline won't run.

Still, that's what learning is all about, and there is plenty of documentation, and a very helpful mailing list (thanks!) - it's just quite complex, so don't expect to pick it up straight away.

Next steps will involve looking at:

• Performance (some cameras are very laggy, which might be due to the cameras, or might be GStreamer - I don't know yet)
• Different layouts
• Filtering the videos to make them look more interesting.

Anyone Can make a music documentary - but it won't be cheap

How To Wake Up

Oxford is mostly known for the University, it's buildings, and Morse - but it has produced some important bands over the years, with probably Radiohead and Supergrass being the most widely known.

Anyone Can Play Guitar is Jon Spira's independent documentary film about 30 years of the Oxford music scene - bands who made it to international stardom, bands who didn't (and why), and the unique music community in Oxford that fostered them. The international impact of (at least) Radiohead warrants a look at Oxford's people, bands, scene - and how they faired with the music industry, so I hope you might see your way to help fund it!

I met Jon through my own small part in the scene, and know him as a scriptwriting teacher, short film and music video director, and owner of the late great Videosyncratic video rental shops - but more importantly here, as a passionate fan of music and film, and I can't imagine anyone better suited to a film about Oxford music than Jon.

Joy Through Work

Around May 2007 local venue The Zodiac closed, prior to AMG converting it into The Carling Academy. The demise of this key fixture of the scene was Jon's prompt to interview band members, film gigs, and collect as much other footage of the diverse bands as possible - so he could tell the story behind it all.

Three and a half years on, the film is yet to be released - even though the main content of the film (sound & video edit, narration) has been finished for a while - it still needs some capital to finish it:

• a cash injection of £10k for the sound mix and picture grade before it's actually a finished film, and
• about 30k to legally clear all of the music and footage.

(Initial quotes were £20k for the sound and picture, and up to £60k for music clearance - ouch! Happily, other work Jon completed since finishing putting the film together has attracted interest from people who then saw the film and wanted to help get it finished.)

Jon is pursuing crowdfunding at indiegogo (please visit and contribute some funds!) for the £10k to finish the film ($15k on indiegogo), and once that's done he'll have something he can actually sell to cover the £30k for clearances.

As usual for this sort of crowdfunding there's a range of funding options you can choose from; starting at a credit on the DVD for $15, up to $800 for Executive Producer credit, vip tickets to the premiere, a copy of the dvd, and a poster signed by Jon and some of the bands/artists featured.

Got It Made

Crowdfunding permitting, the film is approaching completion. I would like to have a closer look at the finances but if I spend much longer on it, this post will never be finished. I'll just quickly mention the some key aspects...

Funding

A rough breakdown:

• Jon and others' personal investment
  
• Camera, lights bursary from OFVM
• Sound mix - crowdfunding
  
• Picture grading - crowdfunding
• Rights clearance - to be funded via distribution rights

Of course, at an estimated £30,000 to £60,000, the big cost is music clearance, which has a whole mess of copyright issues to itself.

Not funding:

• UK Film council
  
• Screen South
  
• European arts funding
  

Jon's blog describes some of his less than satisfying experiences with funding of film and TV projects, and the UK Film Council, in particular.

Tango Borracho

To wrap up - I'm really looking forward to seeing the film (and gutted that I didn't see the OX4 preview as I was already busy), and you should support it. Shame I don't have a spare $800 lying around - it'd be nice to have an Executive Producer credit!

This post was all put together from chats with Jon, reading his blog, and general Oxford music stuff on the web. Anything wrong in it is probably due to me mis-remembering - or plain imagining - conversations. If you spot something wrong here, please let me know in the comments.

Finally - it's cheesy I know - but the headings are all names of tracks from some of my favorite Oxford bands; go and listen to some great music!

• How To Wake Up -From Light To Sound
  
• Joy Through Work - Borderville
• Got It Made - Family Machine
• Tango Borracho - Les Clochards

How to tell if your representative represents?

When I previously emailed my MP, I hoped that he would try to learn about the subject.

Today I received his response:

Dear Mr Balch

Thanks for the email.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills taking up your concerns.

I will also liaise with other MPs concerned about this,

Best wishes,

Yours sincerely

Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP

Now it may be that the Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP actually has tried to learn about the issues I raised, and has formed an opinion about them. You certainly can't tell from that letter though.

Hopefully I'm just being cynical and he actually is pursuing the issue...

This was very cool

Plaid + Southbank Gamelan Players

Just emailed to my MP...

Here's what I just emailed to my MP:

Dear Andrew Smith,

Following on from our contact in March this year regarding the Digital Economy Bill (now Act)[1], it transpires [2] that consumers - via ISPs - will be expected to prop up the business model [3] of a devious, manipulative, and profiteering music industry [4].

Asides from the insult to democracy that was this ridiculous Bill's journey to an Act [5], I find the plan of spending money on bureaucracy and lawyers for no public benefit utterly disgusting, and expect you to work toward the repeal of sections 11-18 of the DEA.

Unfortunately your previous responses have given me no confidence that you have any understanding of the damaging results the DEA will have for individuals [6] and the information economy - I hope that you will read the referenced articles, and further hope for an enlightened response...

Yours sincerely,
David Balch

References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010
[2] http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-sectors/docs/o/10-1131-online-copyright-infringement-government-response
[2] http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90729/uk-isps-unfair-consumers-must-pay-to-protect-entertainment-industry-profits/
[4] http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make?GT1=38002
[5] a shocking lack of understand was demonstrated. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-passes-third-readinging
[6] e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/12/digital-economy-bill-households-piracy

I heartily recommend everyone else do something similar with their MP.

Final finish

Everything thus far unpainted gets a coat, and the visible bits of the shelves get a second coat, and are left to dry.

A quick sand down the top and front (drawers and fascia), and then a second coat of paint for a smoother finish (apparently).

It might turn out that the insides of the drawers will need a second coat, or the commonly visible parts need a third - but I can always go back to it if that's the case. Probably not though.

So that's the cupboard done - de-shelved, re-shelved, and drawer-ed:

Of course, the cupboard is now mostly full with all the tools I bought in order to fit it out!

Job's a good'un :-)

Completing the chest

With the drawers in the framework, there are a few holes to fill - namely the top, and the gaps on either side of the drawers at the front. That involves getting more wood though, as I'm lacking single pieces big enough to cover the wider gap on the front right side. I figure I'll try and get a suitable off-cut from the DIY store,

The top might be filled with a piece of plywood from one of the old shelves, unfortunately it's not long enough to reach the front of the drawers - and (because the cupboard is not square) will need to be at an angle. The pic below shows the sheet of plywood square with the back and sides, but the front has a gap larger on the right than the left:

I have a couple of options here: either get a new piece of wood for the top, or fill some space at the back so the existing sheet can come forwards.

Whilst considering that, I drill, saw, file, and sand handles into the front of each drawer - just a beveled hole about the width of my hand. That's the last major cutting for the drawers, and by this point I'm a little bored, so they're probably a bit rougher than they should be. Never mind, the project is getting pretty close to completion - I can now do some finishing work: filling nail holes and gaps with wood filler, then painting using the same paint used on the cupboard (which was left over from the previous owner's DIY). It's beginning to look presentable.

A trip to my brother's to lend him a tent revealed that he had a load of offcuts from his shelving project (definitely a family trait). I found a suitable piece and nabbed it, and it took very little to cut them to site and nail them in place. With the completely flat front it looks ok - not neat enough for the modernist masterpiece I originally envisioned, but pretty fair.

I decide to go with re-using the materials I already have for the top, and with a bit of sawing and fiddling, it sits quite well:

Next up, final painting...