I have made an update to the gallery on my website to include the pictures of the cherry tallboy.
Go have a look and you can see what it really looks like.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Friday, 27 March 2009
A couple of pints please
I came in on Monday morning and checked the kiln to see how much water had come out of the wood over the weekend. I was really surprised, as there was half a bucket, which was about a couple of pints.
I checked the moisture content of the wood, and it has dropped down to about 11%. This is a good enough level to allow me to start to machine the wood up closer to its final thickness, and then putting it back in the kiln to dry out a bit more.
The long and short of it is, that by Wednesday I was ready to take the wood to the final dimension and actually start to make the table!
For the last few days I have been doing the joints in the table that actually hold it all together. As there are thirty-six components in the table (excluding the pieces that make up there drawers, and that is another thirty-two), I guess you can see why I am still doing them today!
I checked the moisture content of the wood, and it has dropped down to about 11%. This is a good enough level to allow me to start to machine the wood up closer to its final thickness, and then putting it back in the kiln to dry out a bit more.
The long and short of it is, that by Wednesday I was ready to take the wood to the final dimension and actually start to make the table!
For the last few days I have been doing the joints in the table that actually hold it all together. As there are thirty-six components in the table (excluding the pieces that make up there drawers, and that is another thirty-two), I guess you can see why I am still doing them today!
Friday, 20 March 2009
A delivery of wood
I had a delivery of Ash turn up today. It is for a Hall table and a matching wall mirror.
It was sent to me from the merchant who is just outside Bristol. The lorry that delivered it was big enough to move a couple of households. The wood itself was all packed up safe on a pallet.
Unfortunately, the lorry driver dumped the wood off in front of the building before I could get down to him. Sadly where he put the wood was the other side of the building to where the lift is. Guess who had to move it all round the building to the lift…..
Being English timber, the wood normally arrives waney-edged with the bark left on. I could feel that the wood was still a bit damp, as it is air-dried timber. Wet wood is no good for making furniture, so I need to dry it out a bit. Here is my plan of attack.
The first stage is work out the best way to get the components from the wood – keep wastage low, get the best grain pattern etc. I know all the dimensions of the components, so it just means looking at all the wood and making a judgement call.
Next stage is to rip off any bit of bark, sap etc, as there is no point in keeping them on the wood. There is a big bag of firewood in the workshop now up for grabs!
As the wood is still damp, about 14% moisture content, and needs ideally to be at about 10%, the final stage of my plan is to put the wood in our kiln for a couple of days. Now this isn’t the sort of kiln most people think of – the sort used by potters for firing pots. This kiln is rather less violent and doesn’t require loads of heat! Basically the kiln we use for drying wood is a big box made from chipboard. Inside the box you place the wood to be dried. Here is the clever bit. Also in the box is a dehumidifier. Nothing special, just like the ones that can be purchased at local DIY superstores.
Once the kiln is sealed up, the dehumidifier will suck all the moisture out of the air, which causes moisture in the wood to replace that lost in the air. Hence the wood gets dry.
I will leave it running over the weekend and check on Monday to see how much moisture the wood has lost.
It was sent to me from the merchant who is just outside Bristol. The lorry that delivered it was big enough to move a couple of households. The wood itself was all packed up safe on a pallet.
Unfortunately, the lorry driver dumped the wood off in front of the building before I could get down to him. Sadly where he put the wood was the other side of the building to where the lift is. Guess who had to move it all round the building to the lift…..
Being English timber, the wood normally arrives waney-edged with the bark left on. I could feel that the wood was still a bit damp, as it is air-dried timber. Wet wood is no good for making furniture, so I need to dry it out a bit. Here is my plan of attack.
The first stage is work out the best way to get the components from the wood – keep wastage low, get the best grain pattern etc. I know all the dimensions of the components, so it just means looking at all the wood and making a judgement call.
Next stage is to rip off any bit of bark, sap etc, as there is no point in keeping them on the wood. There is a big bag of firewood in the workshop now up for grabs!
As the wood is still damp, about 14% moisture content, and needs ideally to be at about 10%, the final stage of my plan is to put the wood in our kiln for a couple of days. Now this isn’t the sort of kiln most people think of – the sort used by potters for firing pots. This kiln is rather less violent and doesn’t require loads of heat! Basically the kiln we use for drying wood is a big box made from chipboard. Inside the box you place the wood to be dried. Here is the clever bit. Also in the box is a dehumidifier. Nothing special, just like the ones that can be purchased at local DIY superstores.
Once the kiln is sealed up, the dehumidifier will suck all the moisture out of the air, which causes moisture in the wood to replace that lost in the air. Hence the wood gets dry.
I will leave it running over the weekend and check on Monday to see how much moisture the wood has lost.
Friday, 13 March 2009
You can hear a pin drop
You could hear a pin drop? In other words it has all been very quite here on my blog for a while.
It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy though. Sit back and I will tell you what has been going on.
So in my last post, I was talking about making the handles for my tallboy. So by using some card, I came up with a shape that was happy with. Next I had to make the actual handles out of wood.
Cutting a long story short, I did that and put them onto the drawer fronts. But I wasn’t too happy with them. I still liked the idea, but there was something just not right with them. I have a picture here of the tallboy with the handles on the drawer fronts.
You can see what I mean…it just isn’t right for the piece.
I needed a rethink. Rather than worrying about it, I just put some blankets over the tallboy and forgot about it. Let ideas run around in the back of my mind for a while, and get on with making something else.
I have always wanted to make something that is coopered, i.e. similar to the construction of a barrel, but without actually making a barrel!
James Krenov is always making cabinets with coopered doors, and as I am a bit of a fan of his, then I thought that I will have a go.
I had some American cherry left over from making the drawers in the tallboy, so I decided I would use that. Also I wanted to cut some dovetails on my Woodrat, and that lead to the design of having the carcass sides dovetailed together.
Inside the cabinet I wanted to put a couple of drawers. I managed to get some off cuts of rippled sycamore veneer, so the drawer fronts would be made of that. The white colour of the drawer fronts would contrast the rich red colour of the cherry.
Anyway, if you want to see some picture of it, you can check out the cabinet on my gallery pages.
After making the cabinet, I knew the solution to the tallboy problem. I should have stuck with my initial idea of routing a handle into the drawer fronts rather than changing my mind half way through and wanting to make an applied handle.
What I came up with was to route an elliptical handle in the drawer fronts. The down side was that I will need to make another set of seven fronts!!
A trip to the veneer merchant and a nice bundle of cherry veneer under my arm (and somehow a new mobile phone – I am easily side tracked) and I could then get to work making the final set of fronts get getting the project finished.
Well here it is. The completed tallboy with the new drawer fronts.
At least I am now happy with it.
It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy though. Sit back and I will tell you what has been going on.
So in my last post, I was talking about making the handles for my tallboy. So by using some card, I came up with a shape that was happy with. Next I had to make the actual handles out of wood.
Cutting a long story short, I did that and put them onto the drawer fronts. But I wasn’t too happy with them. I still liked the idea, but there was something just not right with them. I have a picture here of the tallboy with the handles on the drawer fronts.
You can see what I mean…it just isn’t right for the piece.
I needed a rethink. Rather than worrying about it, I just put some blankets over the tallboy and forgot about it. Let ideas run around in the back of my mind for a while, and get on with making something else.
I have always wanted to make something that is coopered, i.e. similar to the construction of a barrel, but without actually making a barrel!
James Krenov is always making cabinets with coopered doors, and as I am a bit of a fan of his, then I thought that I will have a go.
I had some American cherry left over from making the drawers in the tallboy, so I decided I would use that. Also I wanted to cut some dovetails on my Woodrat, and that lead to the design of having the carcass sides dovetailed together.
Inside the cabinet I wanted to put a couple of drawers. I managed to get some off cuts of rippled sycamore veneer, so the drawer fronts would be made of that. The white colour of the drawer fronts would contrast the rich red colour of the cherry.
Anyway, if you want to see some picture of it, you can check out the cabinet on my gallery pages.
After making the cabinet, I knew the solution to the tallboy problem. I should have stuck with my initial idea of routing a handle into the drawer fronts rather than changing my mind half way through and wanting to make an applied handle.
What I came up with was to route an elliptical handle in the drawer fronts. The down side was that I will need to make another set of seven fronts!!
A trip to the veneer merchant and a nice bundle of cherry veneer under my arm (and somehow a new mobile phone – I am easily side tracked) and I could then get to work making the final set of fronts get getting the project finished.
Well here it is. The completed tallboy with the new drawer fronts.
At least I am now happy with it.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Cabinet handle design
I had an idea for the handles.
I wanted some sort of long handle that runs from top to bottom of my cabinet. I then came up with the idea of having two handles on each drawer front.
Then came the idea of having the handles curved running from the bottom most drawer and merging into one on the top most drawer.
I wasn't sure, so I cut out the shape that I wanted and using double sided sticky tape (in the best Blue Peter fashion) stuck the cardboard handle shapes to the drawer fronts, as you can see in the picture.
I wanted some sort of long handle that runs from top to bottom of my cabinet. I then came up with the idea of having two handles on each drawer front.
Then came the idea of having the handles curved running from the bottom most drawer and merging into one on the top most drawer.
I wasn't sure, so I cut out the shape that I wanted and using double sided sticky tape (in the best Blue Peter fashion) stuck the cardboard handle shapes to the drawer fronts, as you can see in the picture.
It is well worth checking something like this first, as the is lots of work involved actually making the real handles from wood!
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
No polo neck jumpers
I have now broken up for a few days over Christmas, but will be back in the workshop next week.
For the last couple of days I have been putting coats of oil on the carcass. This involves sanding it down, hoover off the dust, apply the oil, lets it dry over night. Then repeat the process. It takes time to get a nice smooth finish, but it is worth doing it correctly as a poor finish can let down a finished piece.
Here is a picture of the tall boy with the drawers and top fitted.
I will be working on the handles next...but I need to get my head round how I am going to make them yet. That is something to do over the next few days in between a mince pie or two.
Have a good Christmas everybody!
For the last couple of days I have been putting coats of oil on the carcass. This involves sanding it down, hoover off the dust, apply the oil, lets it dry over night. Then repeat the process. It takes time to get a nice smooth finish, but it is worth doing it correctly as a poor finish can let down a finished piece.
Here is a picture of the tall boy with the drawers and top fitted.
I will be working on the handles next...but I need to get my head round how I am going to make them yet. That is something to do over the next few days in between a mince pie or two.
Have a good Christmas everybody!
Monday, 22 December 2008
21 days later
For the last few weeks I have been making the drawers for my cabinet.
When I was training, we were told to allow three days per drawer, so with the seven drawers I am making gives a total of 21 days. No wonder it seems like I have been making them forever!
Let me tell you why making a drawer takes so long, and I am sure you are thinking ‘it is only an open top box’.
Well, you are correct, as a drawer is basically and open top box. But it has to be a box that is square, stable, fit into a hole, and have dovetail joints to make life fun. Each drawer I am making has twelve separate components, giving an overall total of 84 components – and that excludes the frames the drawers run on (an extra 48 components if you are interested).
The sides of the drawer must be made from timber that is dry and stable. Ideally it should be made from wood that is quarter sawn as it is very stable and does not move significantly, but finding good quality wood sawn this way is very hard. I have made my drawer sides from American cherry as it come shipped very dry, and the way I have cut it gives me sides that are near enough quarter sawn.
The joints on drawers are traditionally done as dovetails as these are very strong and resist the forces put on a drawer each time it is open. A jig can be purchased to machine cut the joints, but on my drawers they are all hand cut – you get a much more elegant joint if they are hand cut.
For the drawer bottoms, I am using Cedar of Lebanon. This is a traditional wood for drawer bottoms as it has a wonderful smell that is supposed to keep at bay any insect attack. I do personally love the aroma you get when a cedar-bottomed drawer is opened.
But that still doesn’t really say why it will take about 21 days to make the drawers…just believe me, it does!
When I was training, we were told to allow three days per drawer, so with the seven drawers I am making gives a total of 21 days. No wonder it seems like I have been making them forever!
Let me tell you why making a drawer takes so long, and I am sure you are thinking ‘it is only an open top box’.
Well, you are correct, as a drawer is basically and open top box. But it has to be a box that is square, stable, fit into a hole, and have dovetail joints to make life fun. Each drawer I am making has twelve separate components, giving an overall total of 84 components – and that excludes the frames the drawers run on (an extra 48 components if you are interested).
The sides of the drawer must be made from timber that is dry and stable. Ideally it should be made from wood that is quarter sawn as it is very stable and does not move significantly, but finding good quality wood sawn this way is very hard. I have made my drawer sides from American cherry as it come shipped very dry, and the way I have cut it gives me sides that are near enough quarter sawn.
The joints on drawers are traditionally done as dovetails as these are very strong and resist the forces put on a drawer each time it is open. A jig can be purchased to machine cut the joints, but on my drawers they are all hand cut – you get a much more elegant joint if they are hand cut.
For the drawer bottoms, I am using Cedar of Lebanon. This is a traditional wood for drawer bottoms as it has a wonderful smell that is supposed to keep at bay any insect attack. I do personally love the aroma you get when a cedar-bottomed drawer is opened.
But that still doesn’t really say why it will take about 21 days to make the drawers…just believe me, it does!
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