A smaller collection?

You don't need a large collection of jewellery to have a handmade object to keep it in.


I have just completed some small boxes that are ideal for rings, cuff links or earrings.


The boxes are made from maple with an American walnut lid. Inside, the box is lined with green leather, and the fifteen small compartments are ideal for storing small items.


The lid of the box has a cool opening mechanism. Just push down on one end and it pops-up, and can then be lifted off.


Here are some pictures.

The boxes are made of maple and American walnut

Push down on one end of the box, and the lip will pop-up

The compartments are just right for storing smaller items

What with Fathers day coming up, this box would  make a good present for the man who has loads of cuff links (or anything else in fact).


These boxes can be purchased on-line from my pages on Seek & Adore.


To see more of my furniture, please check out my website.

A good place to arrange your collection

Remember a post a few weeks ago where I was talking about the jewellery cabinet I was making.  Good news, it is all finished and actually delivered to the clients.


Normally I take photographs of pieces in the workshop, but as you can imagine it is a bit of a kerfuffle.  The floors are dusty, the walls dusty, everything is dusty. So sweep up, let the dust settle, sweep up again and then unroll a white photographic backdrop. Umm. Dust on that now. And don't even talk about light set-up! So that is why for this piece I had a change of tactic. I had pictures taken for me by a photographer.

I really like the pictures and I think the show the piece off really well. So a thank-you to Peter Hughes for taking them.


At the moment I haven't added this piece to the gallery on my website, as the whole site is going through a bit of a rethink.  But once it is done, I am sure I will post an update on this blog!

Living in my 'fridge

I do other things than make furniture.

I like to make things, I always have done.  I used to be a computer programmer. That is making things, but something most people can't see - only use.

One thing I like to make is bread.  Why?  I like to know what is in it. All I put in my bread is flour, water, salt and some kind of yeast. No bread improvers. No chemicals and additives that get 'destroyed' during the baking so they are not listed in the ingredients. Just flour, water, salt and some kind of yeast.

My yeast, or rather sourdough leaven lives in my 'fridge. It isn't that old. I only started it on 29th December 2011.  I remember its birthday. All the leaven is really is a living culture of yeast. People have these cultures that are many many years old. And I am talking 30, 40, 50 years old.

When I make sourdough, I use this leaven instead of dried yeast.  It takes a bit more work, but not that much more, but the bread does really taste good.

To start the process going, a couple of days before I want to bake (normally baking day is Saturday), I take the leaven out of the 'fridge and let it warm up for a few hours. This is what it looks like:

The leaven lives in a clip lid box in the 'fridge

Bit scary, isn't it?  Don't worry it is fine. It has a fermentation/sour/beer smell. This is normal, and is what adds flavour to the bread. I can't just use the leaven as is, it needs to be fed a couple of times to get it nice and active. It eats flour and water. So I mix up a 2:3 flour/water mix and feed it. Probably a couple of times over a 24 hour period.

Once the leaven is nice and active, I can start to make the sourdough. The first stage is to make something called a sponge. Basically it is a flour and water mix to which a ladle full of leaven is added. This sponge is then left ferment overnight, while the leaven can go back in the 'fridge till next time.

This is the sponge after an overnight ferment.

The 'sponge' after fermenting overnight

It has a very light and bubbly texture and smells very beer like. Reminds me of being a kid (probably about 12 years old) and when I got into home beer making. Now that is another story.....

Anyway. Back to the bread.  I take the sponge and then mix it with the rest of the flour and some salt. I may sometimes add a tablespoon of oil. Sometimes I don't. I then shove all this in my mixer and give it a right good ten mins of kneading. Yes, I know I could do it by hand. But I don't as I have a nice mixer, so I use that.

A KitchenAid mixer. What a gadget!

After the kneading process, I end up with a firm dough that is not wet or sticky.

The mixed dough hanging on the mixer dough hook

Now I have to play the game of letting the dough rest for an hour or so, and then shaping it into a tight ball. I will do this four or five times. During this time, the yeast will convert the flour proteins into gluten, and by making the dough into a tight ball, the gluten strands are being pulled and stretched. This has the effect of giving the dough strength and helps keep the dough in shape.

A shaped ball of dough

After this repetitive ball making process, the dough can then be shaped into the final shape for baking. It can be a stubby cylinder, a ball, turned into rolls or even a baguette. Toppings can be added, for example oats, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds or just a dusting of flour. Then once again the dough is left for an hour or so for final proving.

Then madness. It all happens so quick. Slash the top of the bread to release some of that tension built by the gluten, spray with water to help form the crust, transfer the bread onto a hot pizza stone, put in an oven set to the highest temperature possible and pour a good slosh of boiling water into a tray placed at the bottom of the oven. Close the oven door. Stand back, relax and enjoy the smell of the bread cooking.

After ten mins, the oven can be turned down a bit and the bread baked for another 30 - 40 mins, until the crust is firm, has a nice colour and the bread sounds hollow when tapped.

The finished bread.

And there is the final bread. The one on the left is the sourdough, while the one on the right is made with dried yeast. Both use the same amount of wholemeal flour, same amount of water and the same amount of salt. Both went in the oven at the same time and were cooked for the same amount of time. But for some reason, the sourdough always comes out with a much darker crust.

Both taste great though.

Next time, back to woodwork!

Making of a jewellery cabinet

Remember I was talking in my last post about a project I was making, then came along the cold weather and put a halt to it.....

...let me pick it up from when it got warmer and I had finished the little jewellery boxes.

So this cabinet is based on an existing piece of mine - the drinks cabinet I made last year. The couple I am making the jewellery cabinet for saw the drinks cabinet on my stand in a show. They wondered if I could make another, but this one with drawers. Of course I can.

Building the carcass followed the technique of I used for the drinks cabinet (read  my blog from early last year to find out how).

This cabinet has drawers, and drawers always mean loads and loads of bits of wood. Twelve drawers with two sides, a front and two backs (yes, too backs). Add a few spares and you have a right good pile of wood!

Normally when I am making a piece of furniture that has drawers, machining the wood up for them is one of the first tasks I do.  Wood for drawers needs to be dry and stable. By machining the wood as early as possible, allows it to dry and move. Then it can be machined down to final dimensions when you are ready to make the drawers. Doing this gives a fighting chance of getting good stable components.

So I wave a magic wand....and 'hey presto!', here is a set of drawers.

The drawers 'hang' in the cabinet on runners that are fixed to the sides of the cabinet. A slot is made in the drawer side that fits snug to the runner.

As this cabinet will be used to store jewellery, nine of the twelve drawers will have drop-in lattice dividers in which the jewellery will be stored. The dividers are sized depending what will be stored in the drawers. So small dividers for rings, larger one for larger items! You get the idea.

I will tell you about the dividers in the next blog post.

For more information about me and my furniture, please visit my website.

Warm at last...

...but for how long?


Nice that the last week has brought in some warm weather, but it might not last long as a cold snap maybe on its way in.


I hope it won't be as cold as it was last month. Cold weather does cause problems in woodwork. As does hot weather. Why? Glue.


There is a working range of temperature for glue. Outside the range and it won't cure correctly, and cause a weak join.


The lower limit for the glue I use is about 8c.  Now, I don't work in a workshop that is that cold, as we have a big industrial heater. But the area where the veneer press is unheated, and during the last cold snap, it was hovering around 8c. No good for veneering then.


Now the project I am working on is a cabinet that has 12 drawers, and will be used for storing jewellery. I was starting the project when the cold snap hit. And yes, the first thing I needed to to was veneering. Damn. I didn't want to risk it as not only does the air temperature needs to be above 8c, but everything involved in the process (materials, glue, veneer press) must also be above this limit.


I started the project and then had to put it on hold till the cold weather passed!


So rather than twiddle my thumbs, I decided to make a few boxes, as all the work for them could be done in the nice warm heated area of the workshop.


Here are some pictures of the three boxes I made. They are similar to ones I have made and sold in the past. These have different handles and little feet.

These boxes are actually for sale on a website called 'Seek & Adore'. Here are my pages on the site where you can see other items I have on sale.

Repeat....repeat....repeat....again

So all that batch work I was talking about in my last post (which was a while back)...


...here is the 'Airfix kit of parts' I first made.  It took a while as there were 416 individual pieces.

Looking at the picture, it is not clear if I was making a Lancaster or a Spitfire. Neither. The answer is trays with little sub divisions....like this finished one.

I was actually making a batch of 30! 

So making a big batch like that does show that some tasks are quicker, for example when wood is machined in bulk. But some tasks take just as long, for example when a tray is glued up (there is a slight speed gain, as after making about five trays, the best order and method is found).


So there you go.


Time and motion studies.


Yawn.

Repeat....repeat....repeat....

Here is an interesting thing. If you make lots of an object in one go, how much quicker overall is it compared to just making one.

Batch work, that is what it is.

I am making thirty identical objects at the moment. They are trays, about 330mm square, and each tray has eight little compartments. So by making a batch, certain ‘set up times’ will be split across the thirty.  Let me give you an example, not connected to what I am currently making, but still a good example.

Suppose I need to shape a piece of wood that will be the back leg of a chair. Look at a dinning chair you have at home.  It will probably be curved somewhere so the back leans from the seat.  You get the idea.  Now I need to make a jig or two that holds the wood while it is being shaped. It might take two hours to make these two jigs, but to actually use them to shape the wood may only take a couple of minutes. If I were making just the one chair, then in total, it has taken two hours four minutes (two hours for the jig, and two legs at 2 minutes each) to shape the two back legs, or 62 minutes each. If I was making a batch of ten chairs, then it would equate to two hours forty minutes (two hours to make the jig, and twenty legs at 2 minutes each), or 8 minutes per leg.  You can see the time saving.

It is not all time savings though. Some tasks don’t save time no matter how many you do, as there is no set up time. For example, when you hand sand the sharp edge off a piece of wood and give it a little curve. This can only be done at a certain speed, no matter how many you do. Maybe if you do loads, you get slower as your arm starts to ache!

Anyway, I am keeping times of each task I perform in making the trays to see where the time savings are.

 It will make interesting analysis.

To some people.