What's the buzz?

So in my last post, I was talking about a black and white chest of drawers that I was making. Yep, done that now! And also I have made the following items:

• Two bathroom cabinets


• Four jewellery boxes from oak and sycamore


• A shelf unit for a computer room


• The carcass of an AV cabinet


• Twenty two drawers made from cedar


• Nine dovetailed pencil boxes


• Three book cases

And at the moment I am alternating between making a sideboard and a blanket chest. So I have been busy.

Today I have been spraying some of the sideboard door. The sideboard is completely black, and having sprayed 35 big panels black, the spray room is now black. And sometime, like yesterday, I seem to get as much black over myself as over what I am spraying. Don't ask how or why, but yesterday I did manage to spill 1/2 litre of the lacquer, all over the spray room table, floor, my measuring scales and myself. Although there was lots of black running everywhere, the air was a dark shade of blue!

While I am waiting for coats of lacquer to dry, I swap between projects. So today not only have I been shaping the legs of the blacket chest, I have also been making some 3d CAD models of a drinks cabinet I want to make for early next year.

I plan to make the cabinet from oak (the light brown in the model) and wenge (the dark brown in the model). As it is a drinks cabinet, the top most shelf will be used to hang wine glasses from, while the other shelf used to store spirits and mixers. I can't decide yet if I should made something for the bottom shelf area for storing wine bottles lying down.

I am still around...don't worry.

Bad bad bad bad. Has it really been over two months since I did my last update? Bad bad bad bad. I will do more updates - yes I know I have said it before, but I will now aim to do one at the end of each week.

Anyway, in those two months I have not just been sitting down enjoying the sun that seems to come to us late spring/early summer. I have actually been doing some work.

First of all, I have finished my hall table, but to be honest, I haven't done the mirror yet. I do have the mirror glass (it is all wrapped up in the workshop with 'danger' signs stuck to it) but have been side tracked by other things.

So what else have I been doing? Well, when I ordered the wood for my hall table, I made sure I had enough to make a small sideboard. This is made frame and panel construction, the frame being from the ash, while the panels made from something called olive ash - it just has more colour than ash and can look a bit like olive wood. I have nearly finished this project, I only have the handles to make and then I can move onto the 'finishing' of it. This will be new, as I normally use oil as a finish, but for this project I have decided to use a spray finish which will be something new for me to learn. Lots of furniture made in the workshop is spray finished, and it is a very useful skill to have.

Also since my last post, I have given my website a complete revamp. I have changed the look and feel. Go have a look, and while you are there you can have a look at the hall table too!