more projects

Georgia's desk

Brandon and Tim's boxes

Steve with his hall table

So. Yesterday was the last day of class. I learned SO much! Not just the nuts and bolts like dovetails and mortise/tenon joints but also how to use and be confident that I'm safely using a machine. How to slow down (ok that one I'm still working on). The joys of handwork and the speed of machine work. A new kind of community. I didn't think I'd ever want to come home but now that we are done I'm ready. Not really looking forward to the drive back across the country by myself but I've got two and a half great books on cd

(the second half of A Confederacy of Dunces, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, as well as The Pillars of the Earth). So wish me luck and I'll post when I can if I have anything to report!

last few moments of class

here we are on our last day (just missing Devon who had to go home to rescue a tree house !?)

Lucas' chess board!

close up of one of my panels

these panels will eventually become the back to a bench

other people's projects

This is Steve Hall's chair mock up a few days ago.....

...and today!



















this is James' gun cabinet.  It will soon have veneered doors















this is Tim Rousseau's tool cabinet - I'd love to make one just like it.  See the snow in the window?  We had a fun snowball fight after our visit with him!

A visit to Tim Rousseau's workshop

His woodpile and Big bandsaw

His lathe

A really cool chair he designed and built

This is Brian Reid, instructor/mentor to the Fellowship program. He's giving us a demo on his version of marquetry which is much more like quilting. Demands less perfection. Sloppy Good he calls it

project updates

Here is the lid to the box getting its trim/veneer applied. You can never use too much carpenters tape!

Here's the box - the leaf is made of walnut veneer that I cut on the bandsaw (as opposed to commercial veneer which is much thinner)

And the lid insides detail. I actually made some purpleheart plywood! Tiny sheets perfect for this purpose (findings)

And here's the hexagonal box I tried to make. It's not perfectly hexagonal. But really close. It will likely just get an ash top and bottom, nothing fancy.

Jan 14, 2011

This is the snow I've been waiting for!  (the last batch all melted!)

and here's the finished product...

So here's the finished leaf. Close up you might see that there's mahogany and walnut pieces that make up the image. It looks kinda 3D doesn't it? Now if this were a real piece and not just a demo, it would get sanded a bunch til it's perfectly flat and smooth, but not so much that you sand through the wood ! and then applied to the surface of your new cabinet.

Last week we had some demos on steam bending and laminate bending. With laminate bending, you take several thin layers (1/8 - 1/4 ") and glue them one on top of the other. You would lay that on top of some form you want it to be molded to - say a curved form to make a chair leg or seat. Then you put that in a very large vacuum bag and seal it. When you start the compressor, it sucks the air out and creates enough pressure in there to make the laminates suck down onto the form and mold itself to it. Pretty fascinating and exciting. You let it dry for a long while and when you pull it out you have bent wood - legs or whatever.

The steam bending you would do with regular old boards that have preferably been air dried, as opposed to kiln dried. This here is a piece of cherry, 42'' long and 5'' high. I cut kerfs into it across the grain to help with the bending, as 90 degrees is a lot to ask of a board. I also shaved the outside area near the kerfs, to ease up the tension on the outside fibers. I had made a block form to bend this piece around but found my calculating was off, so it was of no use.

We rigged up a long skinny box: about 7 feet long, 8'' wide, 6'' tall that has been used for steaming for years. The box is fed steam by a turkey bath/basting pot with the lid soldered on. This pot is then fed water by a bucket with the hose attached to it. Naturally the gihugic propane tank is just outside the door. Anyway, you let the board steam for over an hour - we let it sit for almost two since cherry is really hard and finicky. Once you pull it out, you immediately start to bend it slowly but firmly. Well, mine cracked. Mostly right at the corners although one was crooked. So I think the kerf was not shaped quite right, nor was it deep enough and maybe not wide enough.

I tried again with ash this afternoon with no better luck. I might try it again tomorrow...or I might just try the veneering and move on...

learning to do marquetry and steaming

This is Craig Stevens teaching us to do marquetry. He makes his own veneer in sheets of wood that he cuts to 5/64th of an inch. He readily admits he can't really see that number or line on the ruler, but nonetheless he always cuts his veneers to that thickness.

His saw is a jeweler's saw, size 2. He also admits he can't see the teeth on this blade, but he can feel them so he knows which way to use it.

So you draw a picture on the background piece of wood and tape the inside colored piece of wood under it. Then at an 8 degree angle, you cut both the background and the inside and it makes a double bevel so the inside piece will fit snugly into the background piece and then be trapped once the veneer is glued to whatever board the body of the piece will be.


The little stand is called a donkey and adjusts to 8 degrees or flat. Through years of trial and error and then perfection, he found this to be the perfect angle for his veneer of 5/64ths.

Close up of the wood - you can see just a little of the figure of a leaf in the photo.

More of the leaf - you can just see on either side of the dark line where some mahogany has been inlaid.

Jan 8, 2011

A Purple Heart 12/30/2010

Here is the inside of the top drawer - how cute is that?
It is a little purple heart, made of purple heart wood.  After I'm done finishing the drawer, I will glue it into the little  heart I carved out of the front piece.

















Here is the finishing area.












...and  a close up of that purple heart.













And here is the snow I've been waiting for!  This started to fall on the afternoon Joanna and I arrived here in Maine, December 26th.