Derrevo_______________

En Cerisier

2011-12-28T11:39:00.000-08:00

En Cerisier
Cherry, Spalted Maple
18, 28, 6
Shellac, Wax.

Happy holidays everyone and happy new year!

Winter Is Coming

2011-12-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

Even though it's still a balmy +10C here, the temperature is slowly dropping. How long does it take to get used to a new shop? A few months it seems, getting to know your neighbors, the sketchy kids that like to hang around at night. All part of being in an industrial area! Anyways my mahogany box kinda went on the back burner for a while and is still simmering on low. I actually did get a commission for a wall cabinet. The design has of course been done to death, just a bow front wall cabinet with some glass. Im still waiting on the glass and some finishing touches to do here and there. But she's pretty much done!

Got a new toy too. Still figuring out how to use it, but its proved to be very useful thus far. For once i know exactly what to build next. Re-visiting that oval table i made last year. I enjoyed making it but i really effed up the leg joinery. After drawing, thinking, re-drawing and thinking some more, i THINK i figured out the leg joinery once and for all. in this version i get to keep a rounded top ring but still have the sliding dovetail joinery work out. i'm working on a test corner first before i start messing with templates and stuff.

Bendy

2011-11-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well it's been somewhat busy here even though it doesnt feel like it. I started on the drawer for my lil box cabinet deal but wasnt liking the lay out...so time to start something new!

I did finish that table for a friend. It came out well and im sure he'll enjoy it for a while heh.

didnt like the layout/screw up the layout(cut right through the back pins when cutting the drawer bottom groove DOH!)

sooo i started a new project! A good 'ol bow front showcase wall cabinet.

Im really happy with the grain graphics i found. found, since you cannot cut into a bent laminated door rail to get the halo effect, one must find it in the plank first.

Bridal joints. I love the look of this joint, especially when it comes out tight! I actually used a caliper to check the fit of these, worked GREAT!

Routing or the flats. Clark Kellogg actually came up with this version of the jig. Instead of clamping the rail to a mating curved block, you dowel in rotating blocks, so that even if the curves differ from one another(which they will), the blocks just rotate accordingly and dont distort the rail. it worked awesomely! Now getting the rabbets in the vertical members to line up...ehhh im gonna have to do some scraping there.

Some sanding and pre-finishing and you have yourself a glued up door!

Summers Over Or How I Learned To Love Winter And Get More Projects Done

2011-09-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Summer's over already? I think I can tell from the 10C on the thermometer and the nasty nasty cold I caught.

Well before I got sick i managed to get some more work done on my little box thingy. Pre-finishing with shellac, I went back to the ultra thin mix and wow. I'm super impressed with the results.

Glossssssy! Too bad I dented the top somehow =(.

Nothing new here, just dowels and glueing up.

Ive also been working on a friends...not sure what to call it, but it's for a rack unit, there will be a bunch of holes drilled into it for knobs and such. Should look pretty sweet, I'e already made a few others for him and they all turned out great!

Heres where I got up to this week, mocked up the base and made an awful looking door template. I'm not sure if i should add some kind flare to the base, a lil curve or something instead of just flat and square.

And lastly, a friend of mine needed a 3 legged corner desk. It's ridiculously tall(42 inches) because he insists on using a bar stool for a chair...it's nothing fancy, helping a friend out and it's a bit of money for me ;)

Could have been an SOB and just doweled it but whats the use of building something geared towards failure and never getting another job again? Right!?

OK one last thing. I love spicy food, who doesn't. I bought a Habanero pepper plant for like 3 bucks at home depot and planted it. What i didnt realize was that these things are really REALLY spicy, and i have like 30 of them. I'm in the process of jaring them in some oil and very slowly giving them away/eating them over the next year or so. I cut one up for a pot of chilli, but forgot to wear gloves. The NEXT day i rubbed my eyes and holy moly, I thought my eyes were going to fry right in their sockets. Respect the pepper.

Updates Updates

2011-09-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Due to some unpleasantness with the power company...I didn't have power for a few days...so i took a vacation.
After the move, it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. getting comfortable with the new building, making friends with my neighbors...that sorta thing. Back to building as well!

Some news i do want to share is that im planning a gallery show sometime in the spring, probably May in good 'ol Montreal, featuring myself and a few other artists i've gotten to know. So stay tuned for updates for anyone reading this in the Montreal area!

I guess it's time for some shameless self promoting now! I know i've been bad at keeping this thing updated, but i do every once in a while. For near daily updates as to what im up to, check out my twitter handle @NGBfurniture . I've also decided to bring back the "Journal" section of my website, so short and sweet updates, probably when i complete a new piece or something...

And of course, whats today without a facebook page...

Well i suppose thats it for now!

Been Workin', Honest!

2011-08-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

1" Coopering plane

Oval cabinet mock-up V.1.0

Tabletop cabinet mock-up

Santos Mahogany for tabletop cabinet

Pierced carving maybe?

Doweling things

Crazy ellipse cutting router trammel

More Like A Shop Now!

2011-07-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Some more pictures of my "progress". Seems to be taking longer than it should. Oh well! I did get a new plane made out of Shedua! CELEBRATION.

More Stuff Getting Done

2011-06-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Stereo system was number one. I'll eventually make an Ipod stand out of rosewood so i can play Angry Birds in style.

Simple as dirt outfeed table

Stone bath and a HUGE slab of granite i got from an awesome buddy.

Shedua that i cut up for a new plane. Dust collection still isnt up but maybe one day! Router table and assembly table and i guess i'll be done! woo!

Painting, The Joy

2011-06-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

my new middle name is overwhelmed. Electrical work took a few days to do, then it was off to paint and scrape peeling paint off the ceiling. Turns out my shop used to be a grow-op, neat-o! Dust collection would be the next order of business, then a whole mess of shop furniture then...only then real furniture hopefully.

Is there a such thing as a shop thats too big? I mean, look how small and lonely my bench is!

New Space

2011-05-26T06:09:00.001-07:00

Well here's the reason for the lack of updates:

No I didn't get robbed, I'm moving my shop to a more affordable space and closer to home to boot....and no more co-op. I'm gonna be solo in this 901 squarefoot room. I figure it'll take me about a month or so to get the shop to where I want it to be...aka building assembly tables, sharpening stations, clamp racks, ducting. So stay tuned!

Stay Gold

2011-04-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

Stay Gold

Red Oak, European Beech, Spanish Cedar, Bocote pulls

Shellac, Wax

L 27 1/2", W 9 1/4", D 6 1/4"

Done

2011-04-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

Back Panel

2011-04-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Another lazy post. Back panel and some drawer. Im cheating with the drawer here, veneering on a piece on the front to "make" half blind dovetails. I also cut the joint on the tablesaw. Felt a little dirty doing it, but if I didnt tell you, would you even notice the difference?

Change Of Heart

2011-03-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, I guess im back. Mess of pictures of a wall cabinet I'm building. The picture of the partition glued in, with the blue tape covering the front edge is the most recent picture. I can't seem to get the pictures where I want to place them, so enjoy the mess!

Breaking Up...

2011-02-20T18:49:00.001-08:00

Alright blogspot, you've been great to me these past few years...made some friends...showed off my work, got a lot of questions answered.....

But babe...i think we have to move on. It's not me, it's you. I need something more professional to give to potential clients, and print on my business cards...a blog is cool, dont get me wrong. But http://www.ngbfurniture.com/ is waayyyy more professional sounding than your URL...

Alright humans, i'll be disowning this blog from here on out. To see what i'm up to in the shop(or studio if y'all wanna get your art on) please head to my website/online portfolio, which i slapped on right ^ there. Head to the "Studio Notes" section and im pretty sure comments can be posted, so please, keep on posting those comments!!

Thanks to whoever has read this blog, posted, or even if you hated my stuff and thought i was a hack! Just makes me work harder and get better at what i do! Now it's wine time!

=)

HALT! Hammerzeit!

2011-02-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Things have been super slow in the shop in the past few weeks due to me showing my student the ropes. Not to say things havent changed in the shop...
I had a very "AWWWWE" moment when the plane my student made her first super duper gossamer shaving with a plane she made! It somehow works better than mine...somehow..

Im showing her coopering, doweling and dovetails, we'll somehow get everything done for next week..

As you all know, i have a love/HATEHATEHATE relationship with my steel city bandsaw. I hate how it sucks and dies every now and then and love...cause im forced to love it for i have no other bandsa....

Oh hey Laguna, sup? =)

Monster isnt the word. 4.5 HP, 16"(smaller than the steel city) but man oh man does this thing ever CUT. I was re-sawing some 11" wide red oak for a wall cabinet and it was kinda like slicing through butter. The guides really freaked me out at first, yes they do spark quite a bit. It kinda stopped after a while, but it did sorta make me hesitant of buying the saw. Now this thing was caked in dust, as were the lower guides and there is no fire, no burning smell, no black soot, no nothing. Obviously Laguna wouldn't be able to sell a bandsaw that started fires....right? But what a saw...a carbide re-saw blade is in the works, now that'll be something....

Since i have a student 4 maybe 5 days a week for 3 weeks i havent been able to work on the drawers for that night table. Just paring the dovetails here and there. But i did get them done.

Honestly, i think i could have done a better job. Maybe not when i was cutting them, but after i cut these...

Yeah, my student wanted a crash course in dovetailing, so i grabbed some poplar and about 15-20 minutes later i had these. I even tried flaring the joint and yeah...I was shocked. I think these are my best dovetails to date. I know I know...poplar, but still. I'll try some half-blinds in maple just to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

AND last but not least, here's a mock up for a little wall cabinet im going to put together in red oak. I decided to put one drawer in the middle space and maybe one inside one of the doors. Im really excited to get started on it, kind of feels like when i first started woodworking. I feel energized and raring to make dust again!

I Got To 3rd Base Man

2011-01-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome, welcome! Really trying to keep this thing updated lately but meh! Things have been slow and about to get slower. Im taking on a student for 3 whole weeks at the beginning of Febuary! Now she(oh yes, she) isnt allowed to touch my projects, so im basically taking the 3 weeks off and showing her what i've learned up to now, which ain't much but hell it's something!

Night table? Oh yes, theres the drawer partition being glued in. With the infamous "let-go" planed into it, which is a fancy way of saying i tapered the partition so the space is wider in the back. Will i get let-go this time? Hope so!

As with all things veneer, there is a lot, and i meant A LOT of waiting around time. So i like making a plane or two while i wait. Here is a new coopering plane, with a 1 1/4" blade. Which will help me in that crazy Art-Deco cabinet i sketched out/mocked up/forgot about and few posts ago.

Now here's something i havent tried before, which was suggest by the world famous Clark Kellogg. Making a template of the drawer fit before you cut up your drawer parts. I've always made my front and backs the same length, well apparently if you build the taper into the drawer aka make the front SLIGHTLY shorter than the back(using the template), you just plane the glue off the dovetails and your drawer should...SHOULD swoosh in and you got yourself that "let-go" fit.

Now onto my Nicholas Nelson style wood movement rant. F*^K!!!!!!!! Who knew quarter sawn maple could cup 1/8th of an inch over night? I sure didnt...

dovetails are next, then......it's either a lamp, a chair or a V-door wall cabinet...oh yeahhh.

Bad Blogger

2011-01-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

Yeah yeah I know...honestly I dont have any excuses...oh wait I do! THE HOLIDAYS!

One good reason I haven't really documented this build is because it's pretty much EXACTLY the same as the Retro hall table, just with flat panels instead of curvy ones.

Below is the doweling/top notching jig that i've made about 3-4 times now. I've done this kinda top a few times now and i like it, very danish and easy to do...just takes some time making a template. I start off by cutting/ fitting a piece of MDF for the middle. Making sure it fits snuggly between the legs. Then i dowel on those 2 "wings" on the front, outside of their fit, and just shoot them until they both fit perfectly. I then work on the back one, once done you have the 8 points of contact that fit perfectly, you then use a router with a template bit to route the notches into the top...yeah well i still ended up with ONE gap gah.

The top while i still was gluing on the edge banding. Nice ash, nice and straight...only the first few sheets of veneer looked like this.

Notching jig about to do it's job. I first hack off the majority of the waste with a handsaw of course. You can also see the dowel holes.

All thats left is some pre-finishing and im onto the drawers. Nice STRAIGHT, FLAT drawers.

Whats next? Well besides finally marketing my stuff via a website and visiting some galleries around town(which i should get on but it's freaking cold lately...grr montreal winters.), im very sick of veneer work. The waiting, the gluing, the rigidness.

Solid wood, old school Krenov, wall cabinet. A nice break, a pretty simple "can do" project. My next nose bleeder project will either be that super art deco cabinet with the extreme radiused corners OR a small oval cabinet on stand....stay tuned. I'll get back into posting more often, i promise.

Shake That Ash

2010-12-06T15:44:00.001-08:00

Here we go, back at it!

I did refine the legs a lil more after i took this picture. The legs are once again going from flat to round towards the bottom, im really liking this kinda leg...maybe its time for a lathe?

Oiling oiling. Funny how yellow ash turns after an oiling.

On to some fun news. I may have a commission for a rather large Cigar box. Dovetails were out of the question due to time and cost. So im making a "Ferrazzutti box", which is just a veneered box. I'm complicating the build slightly by using bake-ins, as he did not.

Kind of a boring post sorry, but it's been gray and snowy lately. This post reflects my enthusiasm for the winter season.

Working...Sort of

2010-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Been a while from my one post a week blogging updates! What have i been up to you may ask? Not too much honestly! That hall table really burnt me out good, so i decided to lay low(sleep) for about 2 weeks and slowly, very slowly, get back into the woodworking gear.

My biggest problem? What do i make next! Trying to reinvent the wheel, sketching out ghastly forms that just go no where. I did however come up with 2 designs im pretty excited about.

One is this circular cabinet i saw someone make at CR a while back, i deemed it just too much of a brain melter for now, that and i cant really figure out how to put it together just yet. The second drawing is one of those..."humm cabinet with super duper extreme radiused corners" ideas. Spur of the moment, pencil to paper, seeing what comes out.

I kinda looked at it and thought, hum wow this could actually be cool. So i went ahead and mock-ed it up:

Am i happy with it? No. Does it look like a bridge troll? Yes. I could either do a few things...

1) Get rid of the drawers
2) Elongate the cabinet
3) Kill it with fire
4) I donno*shrugs*

As you can tell from my wonderful sharpie marks, im hinging the doors behind the radius, im just worried that if i make the cabinet longer, the hinges wont be able to hold up the doors and they'll just shear off. Now i guess i could add another partition into the middle to break up the doors into 3 instead of 2 huge ones. But do i really want to make another hall table? *sigh* not really. The one factor thats kinda forcing me into the corner are the drawers. i want them to be flat, so start after the radius, thats about 5 inches in from each side already, now i dont want little tiny useless drawers, i want nice wide useful drawers, like 9 inches each or something...so thats 28 inches so far, which is what i believe the cabinet is at now and it looks like a bridge troll.

So time to cut up the mock up and try something else.

While i rack my brain im making mi madre a second night table to match the one i made about 2-3 years ago. Needless to say i know what im doing a little more than i did back then.

Until next time

Retro

2010-10-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

About 5 months of work and heres what i got to show.

Retro
Materials:Walnut veneered over Poplar substrates, Maple interior
Finish: oil, shellac, wax
38"h, 32"w, 12"d

....."Needs More Wax!"

2010-10-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

A wise woodworker once told me, "the last 10% takes 90% of the time". How true it is. All the edges that need softening, finishing, waxing, making sure your reveals are consistent.

Before all that i had to hit drawer fitting bootcamp. The words of Cody came to mind, "I never made a drawer that fit", now im not saying he's a hack, FAR from it, it's just that if you've ever had to fit a drawer...you'd know what that phrase means. There is a FINE line between a drawer that fits and a "loose tooth" fit. Theres also a finer line between a "good fit" and a "drawer that only works half of the year". A drawer should slide in and out like a piston, but not such a piston that it locks up whenever it rains!

Look at me, it almost seems like i know what im talking about...

Word on the street is that one should fit a drawer from the BACK of the cabinet or whatever. Well that would work if i could GET to the back, but i cant since the back is a mortised-in apron.

So i had to fit them in from the front. I just worked on a the back half of the drawer, got that to fit into the pocket and then just slowly work to the front until the whole drawer just swooshed in. Pistons they are not. Loose teeth neither, just working drawers that do bind up slightly at the end of their run like a real piece of Krenov.

Also got the drawer bottoms in. I used some Soft Maple for the bottoms cause thats all i had lying around that would match. Also notice the middle runner in the middle drawer. The theory behind that is a drawer that is wider than it is deep tends to bind. Well the jury is still out if it does anything or not, but it looks cool!

All thats really left is to finish the drawer bottoms, some final sanding and oiling the fronts.

Tailin' Away

2010-10-04T19:12:00.001-07:00

TAILS!
Here are the router jigs i used to shape the end grain, nice and simple. Just clamp and route.

To get the shoulder line as tight as i could, i set my marking gauge to to depth of the pins. But instead of scoring the whole curve, i just made a tick at either end then positioned the drawer front right on those ticks. I then used a knife to mark the ends of the pins, so instead of having a continuous scribe mark, i just had it where the pins landed.

Sawing the tails. I went between that japanese saw pictured and the 5$ wonder saw, the zona. I picked the zona simply because it's so awesome just for 5 bucks!

I used a curved chopping block for a while, but i was never happy with the results. By the way i only had 6 sets to cut but i think i ended up doing something like 13. I just used my straight chopping block and adjusted it for each knife line. Just gotta trust your lines and dont spaz out when positioning the block!

about 3 weeks later. All the half blinds are cut and starting to work on the throughs. Lets hope i didnt make the drawer too small for the opening now...

Dial D for Dovetails!

2010-09-23T17:26:00.001-07:00

Alright so after a month of practicing, this is what i came up with.

So after taking a deep breath, i started cutting up the for real drawer fronts.

I started off by cutting my drawer fronts about a 1/4 over sized, planed one side to fit the drawer pocket, then i cut my the other side, making the drawer front 1/8th too big for the pocket.
Next time i think i'll make it a 1/16 over, but i didnt feel comfortable getting THAT close right off the bat.

SHAPING TIME!

Then i started hogging out some of the inside of the drawer front with my coopering plane.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the jigs in action, but here they are. one for each side, a right and a left. Very simple but they work! Theres a part 2 to the jigs where i'll show in my tails post.

To not blow my scribe line on the pins, i routed a piece of maple in my jigs as well.

Pretty much summed up the last 2 days for me.

The pins, nice and clean.

2 days later all the pins are chopped. I forgot just how hard maple is...sheesh

I kinda made a boo-boo by fitting/thicknessing my sides AFTER i cut my pins(yeah dont do this), but i checked with my story sticks and i didnt blow the drawer fit =)...but im extremely close hah!

Tails are coming up next, im hoping it wont take too long and that i dont blow any of the tails, but then again i made my drawer sides ridiculously longer than they need to be.

Curved Dovetails....A Test Of Sanity

2010-09-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Drawers....I had 3 options when it came to cutting the dovetails for the drawers.

Option 1) Curve the outside, leave the inside flat and straight. To me this isnt want i want at all. Cause when one would pull the drawer out and look at the half blind dovetails, the base line of the inside wouldnt related to the curve of the outside at all.

Option 2) Curve the outside, and cut the tail board at an angle to sorta follow the curve of the outside. This is a good option cause its not too difficult to do, you're still basing the joinery off of straight lines, just off of 90 degrees.

Option 3) Curve the back of the drawer the same as the front. This would look the best and really be a WOW effect. Problem being there are no longer any straight lines in the joinery and it'll take about 4 times as long to do the joints.

Im taking option 3 cause im insane and i really want the challenge.

Problem: THEYRE REALLY REALLY HARD!

Ive been struggling to find a way to cut these joints first off and...and how to make it repeatable for the 6 half blind dovetails i have to cut on a curve.

Here's a picture showing the relationship of the curves to where they're going to sit, or in other words, which lines are the same and which ones arent.

This was my 5th set of practice sets, i was pretty happy with them. BUT it took about 2-3 hours to shape the inside of the drawer and the end grain of the tail board and make sure that they matched.

Problem with this was it took a damn long time for shaping, imagine doing 6 of these? Yikes.

Here's what i just did tonight and it only took about 5 minutes. Here's a hint, i didnt do it by hand.

What i did was came up with a pair of perfectly mating templates, i screwed one of the templates to a block of wood and clamped on the drawer front to it. I used a flush trim bit to route the curve into the inside of the drawer.

I then Use the other template to route the curve onto the end grain of the tail board. Guess what, they fit pretty damn well together and took all of a few minutes to do.

Now there is still a lot of hand work involved, because im going to have to shape the middle of the drawer to the curve as well, but im not cutting any joints in the middle of the drawer...so it doesnt really matter if its a perfect curve or not!

Is this cheating? I dont think it is. I use a table saw to cross cut my boards, is that cheating? No, So this isnt either, It just gets me from point A to point B quicker and more accurately, so i have more time and a lot more energy to concentrate on cutting the dovetails. I'll put the tail board on the end grain of the pin board and knife the base of the tails that way. After the pins are cut, i'll place the pin board on top, look into the joint to see that the ends of the pins are nice and tight along the tail board, trace the pins with a pencil and knife the inside of the pins using a knife, giving me my base line on my tail board.

Now i also flush trimmed my chopping block with the same template as i used with the tail board, so those curves are the same...and since i used mating templates for both routing operations, the chopping block curve SHOULD be the same one as i routed into the drawer front face. If not, i could shift the block a little bit for each tail, just so that im RIGHT on my knife mark.

Will this work? I'll try it out tomorrow and see, but it makes sense to me.

I know some of you will call me a cheater. And if someone can shape all these curves to match by hand, then great, you're that much better than me with a hand plane. But i just dont think it's worth all the sweat and tears when a router will do just as good a joint in a fraction of the time.

Cue fortune cookie.

Glued Up Table...Now What?

2010-09-08T16:37:00.001-07:00

Alrighty, moving right along...

With the top template, i used a flush trim bit to get the notches cut out. But before all that, i drilled my dowel holes into the top. You can sorta see them plugged into the holes.

It was a TIGHT fit!

Then on to my favorite: pre-finishing.

In the meanwhile i re-sawed up all the parts for the drawers, Walnut for the fronts, Hard Maple for the sides and backs, Soft(some of yous call it red)Maple for the bottoms. I managed to get a piece super long so i'll get the grain running from drawer to drawer, cool!!

Fast forward a week and time to glue the top in..then the drawer partitions. WORD OF WARNING: make sure your thumb is not in the path of you mallet as you bash the partitions home...ouch..

Well that means the table part is done done done! i'm pretty happy with how it turned out so far, im REALLY happy with the finish, it feels like velvet, 5 coats of oil and some wax with steel wool inbetween each coat, really does it!

Now i've got the drawers to do and a dilemma...i was really set on doing curved dovetails...BUT

THEYRE REALLY REALLY HARD. i've cut 2 sets now and ive been pretty disappointed with each set. Just reminding my readers that i have SIX curved half-blind dovetails to cut. That is a lot of room for error. I'm really thinking of just shaping the front and just slanting the back at and angle to follow the curve.

I KNOW, it's really cheating and kinda whimping it out, but i have to decide weather first of all: is it REALLY worth it? I mean, if i get it done, then awesome, it'll look super cool no doubt about it. BUT theyre really hard to do cleanly without any gaps. Is it woth taking an extra week or two on the dovetails....or just slant the back so it kinda follows the curve, but is straight.

What do you guys think? Should i just stop being a baby and get these curved dovetails done? Or just slightly cheapen it up and do a canted back?

*sigh*

2010-09-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, moving right along...

With the top template, i used a flush trim bit to get the notches cut out. But before all that, i drilled my dowel holes into the top. You can sorta see them plugged into the holes.

It was a TIGHT fit!

Then on to my favorite: pre-finishing.

Fast forward a week and time to glue the top in..then the drawer partitions. WORD OF WARNING: make sure your thumb is not in the path of you mallet as you bash the partitions home...ouch..

Now i've got the drawers to do and a dilemma...i was really set on doing curved dovetails...BUT

What do you guys think? Should i just stop being a baby and get these curved dovetails done? Or just slightly cheapen it up and do a canted back?

*sigh*

A Veneerin'

2010-08-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Alrighty! things have been kind of slow, but the end is getting closer. The finished panels and legs, man oh man is it ever velvety.

Taking a risk, at least at the time i thought it was a big risk, with the veneer for the top. as you can see it's pretty much ALL sap in the middle, but hey i think it'll look pretty good and i didnt have enough wood left for more veneer...so..

I think it'll look super good as a top even with all that sap, theres enough chocolaty walnut on the ends to bring it together with the rest of the table.

Gluing on the pencil roll on the back, Yes there sure are a lot of details going on in this piece arent there?

As you can notice i didnt just route the coves on the pecil roll "square", i cut angles on the edges and routed the coves on that angle, to further continue the curve of the legs into the edge banding of the top.

My notch routing/doweling template for the top, hopefully i didnt mess up and cut the spline for the pencil too deep so that it'll be exposed, im sure i didnt but hey who knows!

Gluin' It Together

2010-08-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

Well my bandsaw finally bit the dust, well the motor did. It took 3 years but i finally killed it. I did get a new motor for it free of charge since it was still under warranty, but still. i bought the machine years ago not knowing how often id be running to my bandsaw for EVERYTHING. So im selling it off and getting myself a saw that'll hopefully last me the rest of my life, a 20" agazzani. Time to put away the toys!

Back to the table! After 5 coats of oil and some wax, it was time to put socks on the legs and glue it together. The results of pre-finishing are unmatched, but you gotta be EXTRA careful with the clamps, making sure not to ding up the parts.

The glue up was of cause done in a few stages. First i glued the front legs onto the side panels, then the back legs to the back apron.

Then glued the sides of the web-frame to the side aprons with the back put on dry, to keep things square-ish.

Then the final glue-up, which was by far the scariest thing ever. I had to glue both sides to the back WITH the back of the web-frame, all in one glue up! nothing really lock-ed up on me, but it was a close one.

Now i get to begin working on the top and drawer partitions. The end is nearing, i can see the light...

Nick Nelson Made Me Do It!

2010-08-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, Not so much has happened since my last post and not much will happen after this post either!

Got the webframe in and the dowels cut in the front rail and the grooves for the splines in the frame. DONE>

Ahhhh....giving the piece some life now. The grain came out a little too loud for the top curve, but it's growing on me. I was expecting it to just be a subtle lil curve, but oh well!

Spokeshave time, i was going for a Ruhlmann-esque leg. From Pretty flat on the top transitioning into totally round on the bottom. This leg is far from done though, i like to keep checking against the aprons and what not, just to make sure i havent gone too far!

Now for whatever reason, my round bottom spokeshave chatters LIKE HELL. to the point of me wanting to toss it out the window. Lucky for me i have a bunch of "junky" planes lying around so that i can turn them into rocker bottom planes, which i did. No chatter and a super clean cut!

So this is where I'm up to now, need some more spokeshaving and fairing, but once that's done, it's time to oil the pieces for a week, then glue it together..

One word, or a few, about this project, from my prospective. I've been shaping the legs for a week, WOAH just shaping legs for a whole week? Yeah thats something new for me, really SLOWING down and getting things right from the start. I'd usually get impatient(still will), but I have to learn when to really hold back the reigns and just keep shaping the legs til they are perfection. Keep oiling for a week til the finish is perfect, keep hand planing till the surface is truly flat.

This project for me is feeling different for me. I usually have good feelings about my projects but then become disappointed with them a few weeks later. Im not feeling that one with this one, i hope this to be my best yet, because im putting so much more of myself into this one....on to oiling for a week now..

In the meantime i'll be making a few planes and practicing dovetails. Now not just regular old dovetails. I really kinda wish i wasnt saying this, but the idea has really grown on me and after really thinking/ bugging Nick Nelson about how he cut his curved dovetails...im going to be cutting dovetails with a curved shoulder line for the drawers. oh noes.

Fittin' a Framin'

2010-07-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

Table still kinda looks the same, but it got a frame under it now!

First i made sure all the legs/panels were flush to each other and that all the joints fit nicely.
Then i cut a series of grooves around the aprons which will keep everything in line when i glue in the frame.

Then i clamped up the table and threw on a clamp on the front and "adjusted" the squareness. Of course i made sure the joints were square without any clamping pressure!

I then fit a piece of ply-wood to act as a joinery template for the frame, which in hindsight i could have maybe done away with...but then again it was super easy to layout the joinery and cut the parts to length...

Parts cut and mortised. I made a teeny tiny haunched M&T joint in the front since i'll have 2 dowels pinning the frame into the front legs...i didnt want any joinery to get cut into and messing up my shizz.

Now the part i was DREADING all week! i made the frame about 1/16th too wide to plane into place. i sharpened up my block plane, set it up for whisper cuts and went to work, checking every swipe...until it went FVVOOMP and slid into place with a bit of a vacuum.

The resulting fit, MAYBE a lil tiny gap in the back left corner, but i can live with that.

I also left myself some room in fitting the front rail. i want to have it nice and crisply inline with the leg. But that...is for another day.

OH YEAH! How did i make over sized dowels? I got a drill bit about 1/64th bigger, drilled into a piece of metal and hammered square stock through the hole! Well " hammered", brutally forced in. Kinda like that toy for children...where the shapes fit into their proper holes? Well, i showed it who was boss!

Spooky Smoke

2010-07-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ok moving right along! As you can see, i'm rough trimming the panels and cutting the sheets of veneer to the exact size. i do this because i drill lil bamboo dowels through the veneer into the panel so nothing slips around in the veneer press. Just MAKE SURE you're drilling into the waste area of the panel!!!

Now as we all know perfection is always the aim but never the result. I made the panels too thick. i guess i forgot to factor in the little rails i was gluing onto them..anyways i had to slice my finished panels in half, joint off material, then glue them back together. Before i cut them open i drilled more bamboo dowels into the panels so that i could line them back together when i was gluing them together again.

Now for the little rail. i set my router table fence so that i would get a little 1/16th step off the panel and have a little baby cove. I then cut the cove in half at a slight angle to continue the curve of the panel. Devil is in the details.

Then it was time to square up the panel and route my tenons and dowels.

***BIG LESSON AHEAD***

NEVER use a 4 flute end mill to drill dowel holes, NEVER..
Well unless you want white smoke and a hole that's too big for a dowel as a result.

***END OF BIG LESSON***

SO yeah, i got the tenons to fit fine, but i now need to "make" dowels...out of square material. i foresee a mess.

And with the dry fit, this is as far as i've gotten so far...up next as usual is fixing mistakes!

Some Progress, Some Bad Welds, Mostly Waiting

2010-07-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

38 hours into the hall table build and...well it still don't look like much. I've only gotten as far as crossbonding (crossbanding? whatever!) commercial veneer over my poplar substrates. I'll go into detail over how im building these aprons and why i'm bothering to do it this way. Pictured below is the aprons, minus the commercial veneer.

38 hours in and thats all i have to show? Well making the substrates took a goddamn long time, making lumber core(what it's really called) takes a LONG time. First one would start off with poplar or soft maple, i chose poplar cause its the cheapest and a joke to work. You then cut strips no thicker than 3/4" to reduce movement. Then glue that whole mess back together again.

Now crosscut to rough length, get the ends as square as you can. I like to get them perfect cause it means i'll have less work to do later...in theory at least.

What the ends look like. You sorta have to place the staves so that the grain fights each other to stay flat and not move. and i was very surprised how stable this kinda work is, which is very stable!

Now planing end grain sucks, i also plan on using tenons and long grain gluing surfaces in attaching these suckers to the legs. So im capping the end grain off with more poplar, i only need 1/4" but i glued on way more cause i like using 1/8" bamboo skewers when veneering so that the sheet wont slip around on the panel while in the press....which would make me cry and cuddle up into a fetal position on the floor.

Now the "fun" part. No seriously shaping these with a hand plane was a super nice break from all the gluing and machine work. It's also been forever since i've actually shaped wood with a handplane! Of course i let my bandsaw take care of most of the waste.

Now with the surfaces shaped and smooth, i glued commercial poplar veneer 90 degrees to the grain of the poplar. Doing this really locks in any movement in the apron and making it uber stable.

While waiting for glue to dry, i tried my luck with something i THINK is called "drift sawing". You could also say "tipping the grain" or whatever. Now i would rather have to not do this, cause it's pretty wasteful, but in the words of Machiavelli, "the ends justify the means". Walnut planks/trees are on the narrow side, with very little rift sawn material off to the sides. Cause that is what i would do firstly, just saw out the straight lines of 8/4 wood. Not so with the wood i got.

So what is one to do? You manipulate the wood to MAKE rift sawn 2 by 2's. I got some 12/4 walnut, made a paper template of a 2x2 square, traced it on the endgrain so that i would have grain from corner to corner and sawed it out on the bandsaw.

Below is a piece with straight grain on 2 sides but flat sawn on the other 2 sides. This graphic is just unacceptable for this kind of work, it looks like a mess to begin with, and it'll look worse once i cut curves into it.

The resulting pile of beautiful rift sawn legs....and the pile of ghastly waste.

Now the next step is cutting some walnut veneer....with my new woodmaster CT ass kicking carbide blade, right? Wrong..I stuck the blade on and well...this happened.

I thought it was something wrong with the upper and lower wheel alignment. So with the best shop helper ever(my mom), we took the saw pretty much apart looking for something loose or about to fly off and kill me. Nothing. Put on my old 1/2" wide blade and everything was fine.

SO...the blade is being sent back for a replacement and i HOPE the new one wont be doing this either....if it does *gulp*..

Better Update

2010-06-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Im really excited about 2 things i tried out this weekend.

one. mocked up my hall table

two. made a compound curved panel...well making...

First the Table. In walnut. You know what you picture a piece in your mind, and you just KNOW it HAS to be a certain tone. I cannot picture this table in anything else besides walnut. It'll look proud and serious...and chocolaty.

But as usual i never make it easy for myself. The sides/back and drawer fronts will not bow out, but be barreled. Not a lot...maybe 1/2" but it'll be there.

Now keep in mind i haven't figured out what im doing with the legs at the moment, so i'll fool around with those next.

I first made a very crude sketch, got my dimensions, then made a 1/4 scale model. Once that looked right, i moved onto a very ghetto full scale mock-up. This is the first time i really took a mock up seriously. and i will put more work into it, so i dont end up with surprises.

when i mocked it up in full scale, it just looked and felt so RIGHT on. it was a perfect height, didnt stick out too much and was just the right length. Being in a building downtown, people do pass by my shop door and poke their head in. I decided to grab one of these passers byers and asked them what they thought. "it doesn't stick out too much, it's a great size....how much will it be?"...well thats when they widen their eyes and walk out, out well.

Now onto my compound curve experiment. here it is!

Theres no denying its curved in 2 planes at once, but now i have to figure out how to skin it with the good stuff...

Now im off to spend the whole day picking through fresh walnut boards, searching....for those right boards.

Keepin' Track

2010-06-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

Just for the record, at this point in time i haven't seen what im about to start building anywhere. So im not ripping anyone off...picture this...walnut, barreled everything, hall table. start mocking it up soon.

Anywho the Slow Furniture Studio show was over the weekend and i had a blast! It was great to get out of the shop and meet some other folks that are just as obsessed with furniture and wood as you are, it was very refreshing and just want i needed to get my gears going again. it really reminded me of being in a band again, you load your gear in(furniture), set up, then wait around for hours and do nothing until its show time heh.

Anyways here's a link to an album i made of the show on facebook. Should be public so all can see! I'm sure i forgot a piece and the pictures are horrible, but hey you'll get the idea i hope.

Looking forward to heading to another show whenever it happens!

Got No Ideas? Make A Box!

2010-06-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

It's come to the point where i've got no flipping idea of what to make next. Instead of sitting there like a vegetable, i decided to try my hand at this box that Adrian Ferrazzutti wrote an article about in FWW. It's also an amazing way to use up these useless pieces of wood lying around. The woods in there are some Maple, Pau Ferro, Mahogany and Palisander.

I didn't snap pictures of gluing up the piece of wood, but you just make a symmetrical sandwich of contrasting wood and then slice it up into veneer.

Now comes the hard part...figuring out what to do with said veneer. Now instead of cutting up the good stuff, i photocopied the veneer and and currently cutting and taping together pieces of paper. I'll spare you a picture of a pile of paper, oh and i haven't exactly come up with a design i like yet. So thats all with that.

On to the exciting stuff. Im heading out to Toronto for the Slow Furniture Show. Not only just to drool over the other pieces there, some of mine are actually in the show as well! I got my own artist page to prove it!

Also since i'll be in town, i may check in with a special guest that works around in that area. I'll also check out A&M to see what they got in the way of wood...i imagine they have some stuff stuff and i wont be walking out without something nice..

FINITO

2010-05-14T11:18:00.001-07:00

Nearly pulled my hair out with this one, but its done!

European Beech, African Mahogany, oil and wax

Squeaky Wheel Gets The Oil

2010-05-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

So the table it pretty much done with! What i started with was a 2x2 hunk of mahogany that i wanted to turn into a graceful, beautiful leg. It took me a while to try and figure it out. At first i tried tipping the bandsaw table but i just couldn't get the right shape out of that...it was still too chunky, no matter how many curves i cut..into poplar practice pieces by the way. Then i decided instead of wasting wood, I'd do it with blue-tape first. So whats what i did. Also i figured out i had to taper the sides and the back faces in as well as curve the front and back faces. So i came up with a template of the leg and covered a leg with blue-tape. I traced on the template and cut away the blue tape. I removed the tape that was "going to stay", meaning the blue-tape the is left behind is the negative space.

The smurfy mock-up looked pretty good, so i *gulp* did it for real and that's what i came up with. Very happy with the results!

After i cut up the other 3 and jammed them into the table, the table just looked "right". I wasn't sure about the table, because the legs were just so chunky and blocky, cant see the forest for the trees huh?

After a day or so of hand shaping and sanding, it's time to oil. I love pre-finishing because one can really get into all the nooks and crannies without having a gross build up of finish in the corners.

All that's left is to add more oil, I'm going for 6 or 7 coats then some wax. After that i glue the legs into their pockets and shes done! A challenging project, and I know i missed a few bulls eye's, but i learned and I'm sure i know a better way to put this sorta table together now...

PHEWF!

2010-04-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Alright to follow up quickly to my HORROR freak out post, all is well with the table. I planed flats at each socket, made sure the dovetail was the same angle as the bit and routed them on the legs, nothing fancy.

Now all i have to figure out is how im going to shape the legs.

It's a lil diff than a regular leg where rails come into 2 faces. Just one face is glued to the table so i have to shape is a lil differently. i have a third face to deal with. I'll figure it out eventually...something involving tipping the bandsaw table, and whenever the bandsaw table is tilted....it's serious.

Dream: Denied

2010-04-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Alright back to the table. You know that feeling you get, when you tackle a new project. You know, something really outside your skill level. You think over every single step and got it all down pat. You've built it 100 times in your mind already, so you feel 110% prepared to knock it out of the ball park.

Dreaming in technicolor sure is pretty...aint it. Too bad reality has to set in eventually. And thats what happened with my poor oval table...reality hit me.

Not saying it's firewood, but my bubble did burst.

So, what went wrong? First off, the "key" that finishes off the edge banding. Not that making a key was incorrect, i just made it WAY too big. What i should have made was a little tiny key. Also the angles i chopped into it very way too steep.

But guess what, after burning through 3 keys, i somehow(don't ask me how i did it, cause i don't even know) nailed it pretty well. I just wish the grain matched up a little better, but hey this is a crazy project and i expected a thing or two to go wrong along the way.

Next i realized as I opened up the pockets for the dovetailed chuck to fit into, i got too heavy handed with the file and kinda taped the walls of the pocket. Not cool. But anyways i could just fill the gaps with wedges, which is what i did.

On to the next mishap, my whole leg joinery. Yes all of it. I just realized how effing screwed i was after i sketched out what i wanted to do with the leg and recoiled in horror knowing my fatal error.

What i WANTED to do was to route the male dovetail member on the leg, slide some of it into the pocket(which was shaped into the slight curve of the oval), the the shoulder of the dovetail would be carved into the curve and it would look super sharp. The whole time i was looking forward to this step cause it was gonna be SO EASY! YEAH RIGHT!

Can anyone see the problem that i didnt see? Router bits leave flat bottoms. A flat shoulder that would extend PAST the edges of the table. See crude sketch.

I had a breakdown. How could i have NOT seen this coming? DUH RIGHT!?

Anyways, after some thinking, i did what i was avoiding to do. I planed the leg area flat. Boring ol' flat. SO now i have to make a little paring block for my chisel, to pare the correct angle into each wall of every dovetail, since i changed the angular relationship of the shoulder line to the actual dovetail. No biggie, i mean i cant see anything else going wrong by doing this and im sure it'll look pretty sweet when im done with it.

I guess it just goes to show, you may THINK you have everything figured out until one goes out to try it out for real. Oh well, im sure i'll have more to complain about with my next project...

Edge Banding To End All Edge Banding

2010-04-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

ALRIGHT, THE MAKE OR BREAK OF THE TABLE. I was dreading this step for a while, cause i knew how hit or miss it was going to be.

So what i started with was tracing the table on some MDF and building up an "MDF cake" that was going to be my bending form, yes the edge banding is a bent lamination.

3 strips of mahogany, about 1/32" thick. i just cant get over how cool it is that i could force those pieces into such a tight curve...or oval

The result....but wait, its not a full oval? what gives? AHHHH that comes later...

What i didnt take a picture of was the 3 or 4 hours of clamping, and sanding away the high spots. I knew id end up with a gap or two, but i wanted them to be as small as possible so i could fill them with glue and file some fibers into them. I got those sick web clamps from lee valley, they are fantastic!

Now the result. WOW. as expect i ended up with a few VERY small gaps, that i filled and are now invisible. But i just couldnt believe how well the glue up turned out.

Alright, now for that "dovetailed" seam i was talking about. i made a little chisel ramp to chop a super clean angle on each side.

The result. a compound angle.

Alright so i did make a key to fit the gap earlier, but the curve didnt fit the gap and there was no way i could really force it in. SO, i thankfully i cut way more veneer than i needed. so i made a super big key. i mean i only need about 3 inches to fill the gap, but i bent 14 inches just so that i had some wiggle room...well a lot of wiggle room. the idea is to shave angles on the key to fit the gap and have an invisible seam...if the grain plays along.

SO thats where i got to now, after this its onto to some leg and dovetail leg fitting...on goodie!!

More Ovaly Goodness

2010-04-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

Alright where was i...Oh yes! bake-ins. grr..anyways the pipe-bent poplar wasnt working out so hot. i couldnt force the wood into the right curve without large gaps. So i E-mailed my good friend, German Plessi, and asked him what he did. "well i just glued and nailed on bendy ply-wood and if there are gaps who cares, its getting covered anyways", is what he said more or less. Usually the cave-man way of doing something, is usually the best way. So thats what i did, glued and nailed on a strip of wiggle wood with a sorta half assed scarf joint that didnt really meet up. oh well! like German said, you'll never see it and it's not going anywhere.

While that was gluing up, i worked on my veneer joints, nice 8 way match for the top, whatever mahogany for the bottom.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere! i made little marks where the notches for the legs were, so that i could open them up again. I just sawed- chiseled and filed away the opening to match the expose the lil cavity that'll have the dovetailed chunk.

Once that was done i moved on to the actual veneering, which made me nervous. My oval is at final size, if the veneer shifted i was beyond eff-ed and i would have had to have scraped off the veneer and re-do it all. yikes. Also since the burst match isnt side grain, its end grain, it was super duper fragile. i actually had one joint just hinge open as i lifted the sheet.

Thankfully everything worked out fine and i have a nice amount of meat to trim off all around!

So I'll be working on the edge banding now, which is gonna be a bent lamination with an interesting joint for the seams.

Needless to say i cut extra edging.

I leave you with a spooky shot of the alley in back of the shop.

HOT POTATO!

2010-03-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

Well it still looks the same, but It's coming along!

Started fitting the dovetailed chucks into their pockets, but im getting a little ahead of myself.

The looonnnggg mahogany is the edge banding, which i'll do a cold lamination around a circular mold. The Beech is for the top, im gonna do a sweet 8 way burst. Think it'll look pretty sharp!

And here's where my week went. Since i wanted 1/8th of an inch for the bake-ins, i couldnt really do a cold lamination for a few layers of 1/64" stuff...well maybe i could have, but this was waaayy cooler!

So i had to build a pipe bender. Basically what it is, is an electric BBQ lighter stuffed into a metal pipe, that i wired a dimmer switch into that i could control the temperature for the pipe. Simple, it works and cost a whole 50 bucks.

Just soaked some poplar strips in water for 3 hours, then went to work forcing the wood on the pipe, worked so well!

I also made a very crude "drying form" so i could clamp the poplar strips to while the water dried out of them, which should take about 24 hours.

The bent bake-ins. Why 2? well im joining them together with scarf joints, one each for half the circumference i still have to figure that one out...until next time!

Templates and Routing

2010-03-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well started with the templates and routing of the oval table. I'll sorta try to explain what makes sense in my head.

First i started with a 1/8th MDF template of the oval. By the way all templates and the ply-wood that will be the substrates, were all drilled with locator holes to help with alignment when i glue them all together. anyways!

Once the oval template was done and i was happy with it, i copied it to a thicker chuck of MDF that will be the master oval template that will be for the top/bottom of the table.

Next i went back to my 1/8th inch template and located where the chunks of wood with the dovetail slot will get glued into. Found then, laid them out and used a lil ply-wood "window" to copy the notches onto the template.

THEN i was left with a 1/8th template with the notches cut out of it, which i copied to a thicker chunk of MDF to be the master oval template...with notches.

On to the ply-wood, not exciting, i just template routed them.

And thats where i got to today, they lined up surprisingly well, just next time i'll use 1/4 as my starter template. 1/8 was barely enough for the bearing to ride against, yikes!

So whats next? i milled up all the mahogany for the legs and all that, i start on the dovetail...which will be the only time i ever use a router to make dovetails. But since it's a sliding dovetail, it doesn't count! until next time!

EDIT: i forgot to mention something, before they send me nasty e-mails too, in no way did i dream up this technique. i had a lot of help from Greg Moffatt and German Plessi, both students at CR. They sent me pictures and answered my questions about building oval stuff, with the edge banding and the dovetails. So if you guys are reading this, THANKS!

MORE UPDATE! Honestly it was about 2 hours more worth of work, or even less. But i got excited!

Dovetailed chunks in their notches.

What it'll sorta look like, minus the bake'-ins and edge banding.

Semi-disastrous glue up. The dowels i hammered in freakin cracked off on me, only 2 made it though.....i hope they'll be enough to line up the top and bottoms...if not i guess i'll put my template back on and re-drill them.......yikes.

On Ho!

2010-03-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

After i got over my post-nadle depression from the maple showcase cabinet, it was time to pick myself up and make some more dust.

Like i mentioned in a previous post, i started an Oval table. Oh wow right? Well im pretty excited because the joinery is pretty awesome. The legs will be joined to the top with a sliding dovetail that kinda sandwiched into layers of ply-wood and veneered over. Oh and the edge banding will be interesting as well...with a sorta...dovetailed/scarf joint.

Anyways, i have to make 2 templates, one of an oval for the top/bottoms and another oval but with 4 notched cut out for the sliding dovetailed hunks of wood. I only got around to making the oval template and copying it once. I actually JUST received my bits as i was writing this, so yay! Anyways fairing the oval was a bit of a pain in the ass. You think you got a smooth oval but nope, there a flat there and one here, smooth those out, and there are more to come. it seems like the more you try to fix, the worse it gets!

But of course the dovetail bit i need to plan my joinery around was sent to Calgary for some reason(until i just got it), so i decided to try out the euro beech i bought. Now last time i worked with unsteamed american beech, it cracked, warped and all that. not fun at all. I learned my lesson, i got myself a plank of STEAMED euro beech, mainly riff to quarter cut. Now i still heard it likes to move a lot, BUT since it's steamed, a lot of the stressed have been steamed out, which would have it less prone to going ape shit on me. Plus its more of a creamier pinky color that the other stuff i had.

Maple Showcase Cabinet

2010-03-11T08:55:00.001-08:00

Well i took some shots this morning, kinda dark but whatever i might re-take them later on when i feel like doing so!

And by the way, my mother likes to do wood burning on little eggs, no idea why eggs, but they're something! I'm trying to make her an esty.com account but shes shy, cute.

PS. I've build a lot of things of maple lately, im giving maple a break for a while and diving into dark colored, moderately priced exotics...i'm currently looking for some Kwila, Doussie and MAYBE Iroko, Nick Nelson has been trying to sway me away from Iroko cause it'll make me want to kill myself...oh we'll see!

More stuff

2010-03-10T18:11:00.001-08:00

Me hammering in the glass and showing off my beautiful greasy hair.

Cute lil tenon and cute lil wedges

Alright Lets see here...anyone else HATE gluing in back panels?

In this picture im cutting the shoulders for the shelf pins out of lovely Cocobolo, which made my lungs burn like i was breathing fibreglass...with my respirator on!

Observe the purple demon...hate the floury dust, love the headache inducing smell..

After some filing and what not, we have shelf pins. i think i'll be using a plug cutter to make the shelf pins next time, filing them round is too inconsistent for me.

After some finishing and installing of glass, here we have the cabinet. purdy aint it?

So yeah at the end of the day i learned that showcase cabinets are A LOT OF WORK! wow, i didnt think it would have been this intense....and frightening. the whole time i was scared of scratching or breaking a pane. Will i do it again? damn right i will!

Im gonna take it easy for oh...a day and then get started on my next project...an oval pedestal table. i mean, why should Nick Nelson have all the fun making lil plant stands? PFT!

It's gonan be interesting...having 4 legs come in on very slight curves...not to mention theyre sliding dovetailed into the top....

Crappy, semi mock up of the table...still gotta get a leg design down, i guess i'll get to the when i get there!

Worries

2010-03-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

Something's been keeping me up at night ever since FWW come up with the "10 ways to avoid shop fires" post on their site. Now im usually stressed out and worry about most things, but fire really troubles me, a lot.

What would be the most likely cause of a fire? The obvious and often neglected balled up rag soaked with danish oil. I always toss them outside by the dumpster, never in the shop. What about a pinched tablesaw blade, tossing a hot ember into the dust collector..erupting into flames hours later(which ive witnessed at tech school, but the collector sucked up a red hot router bit that shattered). So i empty my shop vac and dust bags at the end of the night, just to make sure.

Now the last one is some grey area to me, since i know nothing about wiring and power, ive heard arching from a plug can ignite dust thats lying around, so i guess i dont really have any prevention for that...blow out the sockets once in a while with a compressor?

Now A little about my shop, not that there ever will be a fire(right guys?), my shop has sprinklers. so when a fire never sets them off, id come into the shop with rusted cast iron and a ruined project. So whats better, losing everything or rebuilding a project and wet sanding rust off of cast iron tops? well i'd prefer neither!

im pretty sure fire is the last thing on a lot of woodworker's mind's, but ive become helpless obsessed with fire prevention and meticulously cleaning EVERYTHING at the end of the night. woe is me.

Showcase Update

2010-02-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

Been a while since my last update on the cabinet , so here we go!

Doors are fit, sans hinges in this picture, but i got the hinges and reveals done today. and the back panel was just taped on for effect.

Gluing up back panel. A lot of people say spalted maple is hard to finish. i didnt really have trouble slapping some shellac on it...

While waiting for some deliveries, i made 2 planes, a high angle place(its like 57 or something) and a jointer with a wider blade. both out of bubinga, a wood which i doubt ill use again. so many cracks..not to mention as i re-sawed the wood for the blanks it went MENTAL on me, twisting like 1/4 off the bandsaw, and i mean ive had this wood for 2 years!

Pre-finishing the african mahogany(i have a lot more where this came from), it also went mental on me, but i guess cause the plank is so wide(2 feet) its still super juicy in the middle, i might rip it down the flatsawn to give it a chance to dry out better.

Cabinet on the stand, pretty aint she? also the buttons that'll attach the case to the stand../PS the "brass" at home depot is plated aluminum...anyone got a good online source for some brass flat stock so i wont have to use this crap again?

So the list of things to do is getting smaller, i just have to order some glass, make the lil flipper floppers and whatnot and she'll be dones!

Mahogany Box

2010-02-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

It's good to get things done every now and then. Just a lil super simple box, African mahogany with some Pear for the panels. Dovetails came out pretty well, im happy with them, far from perfect, but im getting there. I plan on doing another quick box after the showcase cabinet is done with. But damn this wood was splintery and brittle. I used a lemony smelling wax, so the inside of the box has a fresh citrus scent which is always better than smelling like rancid linseed oil! not that oil touched this thing, wax and shellac only, so that the ugly ribbon stripping wouldnt pop out...why did i buy african mahogany again.....

Oh OH OH

2010-02-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

Well i refused to get twitter but whatever i shamelessly got it now....probably to make my mundane life seem more interesting that it already is. Please follow me so i feel like i have a a big fan club!

search for derrevo

Cabinet!

2010-02-02T15:29:00.001-08:00

FINALLY! i got the doweling done. One problem im really scared of. i used mortise and tenon for the frame members on the side and i kinda drilled into that joinery. I just see it coming apart cause i drilled into it. guys tell me the truth, did i just mess up or am i just being a freak?

PS: sharpening bandsaw blades on the grinder? yay or nay? and lets just say i DO have the time to do it.

I guess sharpening bandsaw blades is worth it, took me about 4 Isis songs or 7 Slayer songs to do it.

Substrate Goodness

2010-01-24T16:06:00.001-08:00

Well got the doors and the sides glued up and pre-finished, on to the substrates for the top/bottom. Now this is where i hate veneering, like hate. If i'd make a cabinet in solid wood, id make my doweling template, and dowel the sucker together, leaving the top/bottom longer and just trim them on the bandsaw afterwards. Not when it comes to veneered panels, you have to make the panel to the exact size(with all the bake-ins and edge gluings) already on.

So what i did was get the length of both doors, plus about an 1/8th more and same for the depth of the cabinet, 1/8th more. Then i of course have to account for the edges and bake-ins. So i made up a few story sticks, each progressively shorter. Meaning i had to mill my bake-ins and edges before hand. i just simply subtracted each piece from each other story stick...right.

So then i had the exact length and width of my plywood core, to which i cut a shy oversize and hand planed it straight and square(well as square as i could).

Handplaning ply-wood sucks, you cannot get good shavings no matter what. Thats whats so awesome about bake-ins, they sorta give you a second chance to make everything right again, but you have to be close enough to begin with, that and planing poplar is way better than ply-wood.

anyways right now i'm just gluing and trimming wood and making veneer joints, exciting stuff!

Doors: Check

2010-01-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

Got the joinery for the doors done for my new cabinet, this one in maple. I went with the stiles going all the way on the outsides but the inside ones are a lil shorter, i like the look of the doors this way.

i have a feeling this cabinet is going to get banged together rather quickly. that is until i hit the veneering and the web-frame for the stand!

So what Have I Been Up To?

2010-01-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

Honestly not much.

Due to my birthday, Christmas, New Years and Christmas 2(my family celebrates the Orthodox Christmas as well) within more or less the same month, i was either with family eating, nursing a hangover or actually making some dust in the shop.

Oval cabinet? Well i donno about it. It's kinda sitting under my tablesaw waiting to get worked on. Maybe i'll finish it, Or i'll just build another one with solid curved panels instead of glass. Oh well right!

I have been making a little box out of some mahogany i got a while back, this one is with pearwood panels. And practicing some more dovetails. I donno if my skills have gotten better or just that the mahogany is squishy wood, but im really happy with how they turned out...i also got the Lee Valley western backsaw. I think i've given up on those thin bladed japanese saws. They just wont track the blade no matter how slowly or carefully i cut, whatever the case, my western saw and i have become BFF's.

I also started designing and roughing out some parts for a showcase cabinet on stand, with some drawers in the stand. This one out of maple and some mahogany.

Also something not really fine furniture related, but as i was "working hard" at the shop on my b-day, this old deaf gentleman walked into the shop, and after communicating on paper with me, told me he wanted me to make him a panel with a kitty door for his cats. I did it, which took about a whole 30 minutes, gave it to him and wished him a merry christmas. It felt good to do something like that.

anywho! I always find it's hard to get the gears to speed after the holidays, but the progress will pick up! Seeing new work from everybody is really inspiration and adds more fuel to the furniture building juggernaut.

Maple and Birch Table

2009-12-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

Well i guess it's done! finally! Just needs some more wax on the drawer, but here are some lame pictures of the table i was working on here and there.

also i glued up my substrate for my lumber-core panel. i chopped up the panel into 5 chunks...something tells me i should rip and re-glue it into more staves so it wont move...

What do you guys think?
*ahem*

Ciao Back Panel

2009-12-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

Well after pressing the second back panel..i heard a heart stinking CRRRRACK as one of the sheets of veneer split in 2 places....i still stuck it though, thinking i could somehow repair it, took it out of the press and saw that the veneer didnt even glue to the corners. so i flipped out and cut the panel into a few pieces and went home.

whats next? lumbercore panel. F*** it, im going hardcore. This panel will not beat me!

Oh Hai Hurr

2009-12-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

I'm really running out of names for the posts.

Anyways! curvy cabinet is coming together. Pressed another curved back and it's waiting for some bake-ins, got the door and 2 sides glued up and started planing everything flush.

Anyways thinking of a next project is proving difficult....since i have no idea what im going to make next! Some curvy desk or something...

Anyways on to things woodworking other than furniture

this guy makes some awesome puzzles. I have NO idea how the heck he plans them out or even builds them. but they are awesome and probably insanely difficult to figure out.

More Curvy Goodness

2009-11-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking pretty hard lately, waiting for bendy-ply wood orders and all that. But never the less, its starting to come together. i also got the front door facet for glass with the pins, oh it was fun let me tell you(not).

Workmanship Of Risk

2009-11-10T20:34:00.001-08:00

I dont think i've ever wanted to defecate in my pants more than i did today. Cutting open mortises in curved pieces is one thing, but dealing with 3 different curves is another thing. Thankfully everything went pretty smoothly. Yes a little bit of finessing by chisel is needed to get the joints to seat fully, but the scary, "cutting through my curved lamination and ruining my work OMG" part is over!

next i have to work on the curved back panel, doweling that to the back rails, routing the flats for the glass, then gluing the sunofabitch together.

lord have mercy.

Progress!

2009-11-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well I stuck the last rail into the form to bent today. so what comes next? Well the joinery. At first i thought i would join the rails to the stiles with loose tenons, but now im going to use those open mortise and tenon joints. So im basically making 3 curved doors, with the back panel splined to the side doors. Right.

I still of course have to make a form for the back panel, which is going to be doweled into it's respective rails.

I believe i'll use some of the african mahogany for the exterior veneers and hard maple for the interior.

And during the bending waiting game, i finished up my table. Made the drawer and started oiling it. i hate finishing, but when you smear on that first coat of oil, damn is it beautiful. Im gonna put about 5 or 6 so i get a nice build and sheen and all that good stuff.

woo-hoo!!...so far at least

2009-10-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

A big woo-hoo as my first bends actually came out alright! i mean the glue lines are a little too noticable for me and im just paranoid the laminates will pry off, but i cant stick a finger nail in them, so they arent gaps, theyre just dark glue lines. another reason i have glue lines are..i shamefully didnt plane each laminate...i just stuck them through my drum sander and glued. but i find if i plane the edge of the bend, the lines are less visible...i guess if i planed them, then i wouldnt have a glue line at all, but at this point all i really care about is this cabinet staying together and not exploding!

So far all the bends are off of one form, the next 4 bends are on a tighter radius, im afraid the soft maple wont be able to take the bend, so i may pipe bend them a little bit first.

Anyways it's exciting to start seeing something besides laiminates and pools of oozing glue.

The Hell Begins

2009-10-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

I wont be doing much except for making forms and wrestling strips of wood into curves. I hope all goes well, it only gets worse after this of course!

This curve is actually the milder curve...the other one is about 1/4 inch or 3/8ths tighter. meaning my laminates have to be pretty thin, like 1/16ths thin. i did a test bend in poplar and it turns around pretty alright. took the bend and didnt spring back too much, im using white glue for my bends because i dont want cancer.

one down....7 or 8 left to go. This first one might end up as a write off because one of the ends didnt close up at all...so depending how much i can get away with, i'll have to cut up another rail, unless i get can more or less the length i need!

New Stuff

2009-10-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

Seems like everytime i near the completion of one project, i discard it and start on a new one! Actually im starting on a my new project because it involves a lot of bent laminations, so while they're curing i can finish up my coffee table, which is almost done anyways! The new project is going to be a great source of stress and frustration and will take me a good long while to get done...so bare with me here. An oval showcase cabinet with integral legs.

It took me a good while to decide what woods should go where for what parts...and im still pretty on the fence about my choices but hell im sure it'll look good either way. Im going for soft maple for the bent lams and posts, hard maple for the veneered surfaces and more soft maple for the legs and edge banding, but this plank is super red for some reason!

Anyways i've only gotten as far as roughing out my parts for the bends and posts and drawing out the oval shape to make into my bending forms. Oh speaking of which, my lumber yard RAN OUT OF POPLAR. Like how can you run out of poplar? So im waiting til they get some more so i can start building my forms and all that. Oh yeah and my test pieces, which i'll need a lot of....

So there we have it! Oh yeah, the rain forest is a little smaller thanks to me:

Got this huge slab for a song so why not. It's african mahogany...im not very impressed with african mahogany, but im sure i'll be able to make it work with some spalted maple i have been hoarding for a year or so.

Ahh at last..

2009-10-11T16:27:00.001-07:00

Well if you've followed some of my earlier posts, you see i have a problem with dovetails and how inconsistent they are. Well today was when everything clicked together and i have a feeling they'll be coming out awesome from now on.

First off, i realized it all begins with the saw cuts. If your saw cuts are off, chances are so will your joints, And its where i had the most trouble.

My saw didnt really ever listen to me. I'd tell it to saw straight down the line and it would always wander to one side. I had enough. So i got it stoned..err stoned it. I ran a diamond stone down the blade to reduce the set and hopefully make it saw a little straighter. And saw straighter it did. =)

Another thing i changed were my chisels and how i sharpened them. I'd always sharpen with a micro-bevel like i did to my crappy footprint chisels. But these are japanese chisels, and i came across a lil blurp saying that you should always sharpen them flat on the bevel with no micro bevel. i did so and holy moly what a difference! No longer did they dive into the grain and tear the end-grain, they stayed true and sliced the end grain like a champ!

Now onto the tails. "split the pencil line in half", yeah right, i always thought i could pare to a perfect fit. Nu uh, getting a fit right off the saw is the answer. Maybe cutting slightly, very very slightly over and paring a lil bit is the way to go, but splitting that pencil line and getting them to fit off the saw works best as i've found...which really helps if you have a saw that listens to you and cuts where you tell it to!

Now little gaps are probably always gonna show up, so what i've found really works is to squirt in some watered-down glue into the gap and file the end grain into the gap. After everything is dried up and planed, it looks perfect perfect!

I feel way more confident in my dovetailing skills and all it took was time to really hone my tools....duh right?

Remember Me?

2009-10-07T17:33:00.001-07:00

Got around to taking some pictures of those bookcases i was working on a few months ago.

As for the table, after patching my veneer bag, its working great, so i pressed the top. so while im edging it, im working on the drawer and should be done in time flat.

VEEEENEEEERRRRRRR!

2009-09-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Well got the table glued up! So whats next...oh yeah, the top. Well i cut a piece of MDF the size of the top, so i can use it as a template for the real top and use it as a doweling jig.

Now on to veneer. I cut up some birch for the 4 way match i have planned. God i cannot believe how much curl is on this veneer. It's like a limited edition Luke Skywalker trading card.

Here are the possible matches i came up with. didnt really decide on one yet...so, while the top is in the veneer press i'll be working on the drawer and after a few coats of oil, we'll have us a table!

Table Progress

2009-09-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

Well i mean i know it's not much to look at, but i did some milling and joinery today. I decided to go with 2 little tenons instead of one big one, for some reason i think it'll give me a better joint.

Next on the to do list, is:

-routing the lil runner for the drawer
-cutting notch for the top
-figuring out how the heck i'm making the top
-drawer
-blah blah

I hope to get this table out of the way fairly quickly, because im super excited to start my next project..and its a big one. An elliptical showcase cabinet. woah doggy, all im saying is sliding dovetails on an oval. it'll be a lot of template work and wood bending and all that good stuff.

James Krenov

2009-09-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time i stumbled on to his website and saw his veneered cabinets on stands and thought to myself, wow furniture can look like this?

I haven't met him nor have i attended his school, but his teachings and way of working greatly impacted my life. I wouldn't be doing what im doing today without his books or the work coming out of the schools he started/inspired.

When i heard he was making hand-planes, i just had to get one. So i did. Now why i have two of them...upon receiving the first one i noticed the cross pin was nearly split in half, i e-mailed JK asking if i could return it for one that didnt have a cracked cross pin. He insisted i kept it as he would send me another one, with a pile of wedges to boot. Great man, with a great message. He'll be missed.

Ahh...The Wheels...They a Turnin'

2009-09-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

Inspiration and design are a funny thing. I've been trying to design a showcase cabinet for something special. Bow front with glass, on a stand with 2 curved drawers. Drawings look great, try to make a lil maquet and it just looks too weird.

Trying a few different designs, but in the meanwhile, instead of just sitting here drawing and not getting any dust made, i'd make somethign simple that everyone needs. a coffee table. One with a drawer.

This time i didnt have a drawing, i mean coffee table right, duh? But adding a drawer to a table for some reason makes life a lot more complicated. So this is where knowing how to put furniture together and tons of reference books come in handy. Web-frame? Kicker? Runner?

I decided on a method of hanging a drawer that i havent done since tech school, wooden runners, a la Krenov. So right away i know that my rails have to be flush with the faces of the legs, since that all becomes bearing surface for the drawer sides. Which leads to another design option, do i leave the legs square and get a super thick rail? Naw, cant re-saw that thick out of 8/4 and veneering just isnt worth the trouble for this. But wait...what if i have the leg on a 45? so that i can get away with a thinner rail but still have it flush on the inside AND have my 1/8th reveal on the outside!

So onto a mock up of the leg, this is where you get to make all the mortises and mistakes you want, cuz who cares, its left over poplar! I'm also notching the leg and cutting a matching 45 nub off the top, so the whole "superman emblem shaped" leg doesn't poke through the top, just a lil block, to make life more complicated of course.

On to the top, i wanted to do somethign different veneering wise, cuz the same bookmatching....*yawwwwn*, yeah gets boring after a while. So im gonna do a 4 way match with some of the awesomest Birch i've ever seen. I've been using little bits of this planks for the last year on my projects! I mean the plank was about 14 inches wide and 8 feet long! Way on the bottom of the pile at the lumberyard, dig deep son!

Now this is where i get all artsy about grain and listening to the wood and making love to it. I wanted to have the grain sorta..."spill" from each leg, and since its a 4 way match, i can get that effect. Also the outer edges of the top, i wanted to have the grain sorta go in an inward curve, invite you into the table...blah blah blah right?

And if anyone thinks this is a blatant copy of Craig Vandall Steven's coffee table design from his book, you're kinda right! So thats why i put in the drawer! and doing a 4-way match, but then again a coffee table is a coffee table and trying to reinvent the wheel pretty much always ends in up as some twisted, hellish desecration of furniture and needs to be whipped back into a dark cellar and locked away forever...in my opinion at least.

What Next!?!

2009-09-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

Well i think i might have over reacted with my cursed dovetail rant. I mean after all, you're just sawing to a line right..?

Anyways after a few practice sets in hard maple, i feel pretty confident in my dovetailing skills, but im sure that wont last too long haha!

Upon veneering some shelves for a project...i noticed my vacuum pump wouldnt get to full vacuum...meaning theres a bloody leak in the bag. In case you dont know, vacuum bags are pricey.

SO...what does one do when confronted with a leak in a vacuum bag?

A) Try to fill the leak with some kinda silicone or something
B) Cry and cough up a couple hundred clams for a new bag
C) screw that modern shizz and build a mechanical veneer press

really im leading towards C, i dont want to deal with another leak down the line but i've never used a mechanical press, so i really dont know how well or not well it works...

i need sage advice.

Curse of The Dovetail

2009-09-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think im cursed. A funny thing happens to me when i cut dovetails. I cut a super awesome set, and then a super lousy set. Take for example the drawers i made for my Beech cabinet. Awesome dovetails, now the little box im working on...super lousy(no picture but trust me). And im pretty sure i know why, after i cut a super awesome set, i think im the dovetail king and all my dovetails will come out super awesome. Boy am i wrong! I milled my stock too thick(5\8ths for a box? nu uh 1/2 next time), i cut way too far from my line, meaning a lot of paring meaning gaps, getting frustrated, smashing the parts together in a blind(or half-blind tee hee)rage, watching the hard maple splinter apart, starting to sweat and screaming at the wood.....and scene. Did i mention hard maple is...hard and unforgiving? Thats what i get for cutting my drawer sides in SOFT maple.

Needless to say, im milling new stock for my box when i dont hate dovetails anymore. Another issue i've always run into is my chisels just dont fit inbetween the tails, so paring them is very interesting. But this story has a happy ending, because it involves me getting a new toy.

I was searching around on good 'ol LeeValley for a paring chisel..not those super long chisels, but a super thin one that i can fit into my joinery. and then i saw it, that tapered edge 1/2" paring chisel that Yeung Chan likes to use. Should make my life easier and has convinced me that my dovetails will come out super awesome all the time...until they dont.

One more thing. Anyone that has ordered the stop hinges from Brusso...why are the screws so freaking long? i have to order shorter screws or use the spares i got from Sanderson. Damn you Brusso.

Beech Cabinet

2009-08-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Welp shes done! gonna take some better pictures later on, but i got excited.

Baby's Got Back

2009-08-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well after a rainy, drunken, sunburned and insect bite related weekend of camping fun, i was ready to knock this cabinet out of the ball park. Got the back glued up and fitted, fitted the top drawer and carved the pulls and got the drawer bottoms done, all in a day! Now i just have to finesse the reveals of the doors, carve some more pulls and work on the flipper floppers and then the cabinet is pretty much finito!

Oily Stand

2009-08-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

Got the stand glued up and started to oil it, i donno how many coats i'll put on, maybe 4? I love red oak, but oiled, i've never shellaced red oak myself so i cant judge, but that deep golden color, mm mmm mmm!

Oh yeah, took another shot at dovetails, i think these are WAY better that the last ones, it's all about paring to fit!

Oh yeah, if anyone has the 2 1/4 Triton plunge router...does it have a 3/8" collet for it? I ordered a 3/8" carbide end mill and well i need a 3/8" collet for the damn router but i dont seem to see anyone talking about it, does it even exist?

Out....Standing?

2009-08-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

Once again, i love the Mortise-Pal. All the joinery was done within an hour or less. It's really awesome when it comes to off square joinery, instead of having to cut angled shoulders on tenons, i just cut the angles on the table saw, and used the floating tenons to join them together.

After that was together i started to rough out the curves on the band-saw. i still have a lot of meat to cut off and a lot of scraping and stuff to do, but i'm liking it so far. i could have put the front stretcher a lil higher up, but i'll live with it.

Not so dovetails...

2009-08-05T19:02:00.001-07:00

Well i was super psyched to start cutting the tails but then my enthusiasm quickly disappeared as i started at them. why? cuz i told myself i'd never cut super tiny dovetails again because theyre kind of a pain in the ass. Well here i am again...tiny dovetails! haha, it actually wasnt too bad this time around, i got a lil more comfortable using my 1/8th inch chisel and got it super sharp.

anyways, why they're not so dovetails is because, well if you know anything about cutting dovetails you can see in the picture i kinda cut too close to my line, i actually cut right on the line which lead to gaps...i also forgot to plane the insides before i scribed...so i wrote this drawer off as a trial drawer!(but now im out of riff sawn Birch so im going with some left over Beech).

i glued it up anyways and after i planed the sides, the fibers kinda got smooshed into the gaps, so they didnt look so bad, but theres no way im letting this guy live in the cabinet. So it became an exerscise in fitting a drawer and getting a slick/no rattle/uber tight piston fit...which i happily got. i'm not upset, nor am i happy, somewhere inbetween, tomorrow is a new day and theres more forest for me to ruin!

i wanna start incorperating videos in my blog cuz im a nerd that way. i'm thinking of puttng together a short clip of how a cabinet or something gets together, so people that dont know anything about woodworking can understand why these cabinets end up costing so much and why it takes so long. until then, heres the fit i got for my trial drawer, damn shame cuz it's a sweet fit.

Tunin' up

2009-08-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while i like to(and should) give all my tools a once over, flatten some plane soles, check blade alignment and a first, flatten my workbench top. I was really surprised that it hasn't moved much, only a very slight dip in one spot, it took about 10 minutes from starting to putting on some wax on the top. I put on wipe on poly when i first made the bench, but i found that to be a lil overkill. a coat of oil should be enough, because a slippery bench top is pretty useless since i do a lot of routing and planing and chopping and well..work on it.

Lil' Bit O' Color

2009-07-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

Got the case glued up and shellaced up. Whats next? The back panel, which is about 1/2 way done and then the drawers, followed by the stand which will be in done in red oak. Then the lil things, like flipper floppers and carving pulls and stuff. I'm aiming to have her done by the end of next week! I'm really impressed with myself over how quickly this one is coming together, I've never done a concave cabinet with all the angles and stuff and its coming together pretty smoothly. mmhmmm!

UPDATE: got the back panel in a "state of more done" just tonight. just gonna do some rounding over and final sanding, then finishing and gluing! I'm gonna have the "beading" of the panels facing out the cabinet, i just find the inside of the cabinet looks a lot cleaner and less busy this way. The wood for the panel is of course Birch. The next cabinet i make with it is definitely getting oiled, there is so much insane curl in this stuff that even a scraper raises the grain! And my gnarly finger kinda gives a sense of scale with this cabinet, petite!

Movin' Along

2009-07-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

I'm making some serious progress with the beech cabinet, got the sucker doweled today and shes looking good. now i just have to saw up all the interior partitions and fit them in. I was really worried about getting all the angles right and working with the off square angles. But sometimes when things appear to be complicated...you just have to dumb it down and things really aren't as complicated as they once appeared to be. Once i got the doors, i just traced them on paper and just made a really crude plan view of the cabinet. From there i came up with the doweling template and all that jazz.

I think shes gonna be a pretty one.

Got the back glued into one of the bookcases...and started fitting in the partitions in the beech cabinet.

Lil update, got the hinges installed on the cabinet, took the better part of the day, but they be awesome and a swingin'!

Back on Track

2009-07-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Well after my drum sander blew up...3 week wait until i got new paper. i figured i needed a vacation...so i headed on out to BC to Inside Passage for their veneer and curves week. I cannot say enough good things about my week there. I learned a lot in just a short week, so i can just imagine what i'd pick up in their 9 month program.

Anywho upon returning i had the bookcases i was dreading to finishing. Not because theyre so difficult, just that the work turned into production work and they're pretty biggish and awkward to joint 3 foot long veneer and stuff. But i can see the finish line..the backs are being pressed and the shelves are right behind them. so after i finish those, it's a few coats of oil and those monsters are out of the shop.

I started working on a pair of doors for my next cabinet im planning. I've never worked with beech, but damn is it nice...and cheap! But the stuff i got wasnt dried properly...as soon as i resawed the parts, they cupped like MAD and these insane cracks opened up from one end to the other. i'll try to squirt some watered down glue into the cracks and clamps the board, the bigger ones are gonna have to be sawn out and re-jointed. I just wish i had some pear lying around, because it would go so well with this pinky wood. Donations?

i guess i learned something about coopering at IP because i did the joints and glued up the doors in a day, with zero gaps and very invisible joints. Me happy long time.

Breadish Boardish Ends

2009-05-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

So finally, the pile of veneered panels are starting to look like something! Working on the b.b.ends, with my convex plane and mah good ol' smoothing plane. that smoother is the first plane i made and it works the bestest.

So a pile of shavings later and i noticed i was getting a headache, could have been from not eating or the walnut was doing it to me...never the less i got 2 of them doneish...shaping something like this is a very personal thing...you can tell something is wrong bu you just can't quite put your finger on it. So you plane a lil more...flatten out the curve, scoop out some more along the top, more pillowing, slap it back on the case, stand back...humm...still not right...more planing. after a few hours you just can't tell what looks good and what doesn't anymore. thats when it's time to just hang it up, work on something else and come back to it later on.

I plan on getting the bases started and/or done tomorrow depending how smoothly it all goes. I'm also trying out my brand new moristing jig...the mortise pal. Because i am too broke for a real slot mortiser, i thought this lil jig would be a great alternative....we'll see i suppose!

TOMORROW:
I love love love love the Mortise Pal, i want to be it's boyfriend. i got BOTH bases done in less than 2 hours! loose tenons are the f^*%ing way to go!

And after seeing the cases on the base, my bread board ends gotta go on a serious diet. they have a kinda "donkey ears" thing going on....NON!

Veneering...ugh

2009-05-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

I used to love veneering, until i had to do 14 panels of it....i dont even know why i opted for veneer instead of solid wood, damn me.

Oh and one bookcase has an awesome match, bellow is the "caca" match as im calling it.

Got the doweling done! up next...veneering the backs and making the rabbets for them. the end is near...

beeen a while!

2009-05-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

Well what have i been up to lately? Working on my first commission, 2 asian styled bookcases. If they turn out anything like my little mock-up, i'll be happy! So far so good, but i HATE flat sawn stuff. I know i dont have much choice when it comes to that, finding a riff sawn or quartered board is difficult these days...i just wish i picked up that 15" wide board instead of the 10".....

Oh yeah i had about...4 hours while the panels were pressing, so i fixed up some planes, sharpened some chisels and just cut some dovetails for practice. i think i still got it!

Night table done...sorta

2009-03-29T15:08:00.001-07:00

Well just a quicky. Got the night table done, all i gots to do is put a few more coats of oil on the thing and thats that. The pictures kinda make it look stumpier than it really is, i promise!

Bendy Bendy

2009-03-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah so i've been bad at updating this! Been working on the curved door of my next cabinet, and also sketching up something for a client AND being sick. I'll let the pictures do the talkin'

Jig i used to route the flats for the glass. Took me a lil bit of thinking, but it's pretty easy. Make a lil cradle to hold the piece, and located it on the template where you want it. now drill holes for dowels all the way through the template and the cradle, so then you can easily locate the rials on both sides fo rthe template to make damn sure the flats are going to line up.

Top done

2009-02-27T20:11:00.000-08:00

Yep, really in the home stretch now. Got a coat of oil on it and it looks pretty sweeeet. Scared isnt the word for how i was feeling when i was routing the notches for the top...a whole week's worth of work could be destroyed in mere seconds. Thankfully it fit perfectly first shot. If i ever revisit this design i'd put the legs on a diet a lil and have a lil less poking out from the top. Oh well! I think i fell in love with the lil pencil roll on the back there.

So all thats left is a drawer and ba-da-bing im done!

Lil Update

2009-02-22T14:57:00.001-08:00

Well i suppose this is going to be a short and cute entry. Got the night table just about done, just have the top to finish and the drawer...then slap on a few coats of oil.

Whats next? A showcase cabinet in Bubinga and maple, with a bent laminated door. Gonna mock that sucker up, then cut some more veneer. My wood pile has gotten ridiculously big and i have to get on top of turning it into furniture. Cabinets on stands anyone?

Designing Sucks

2009-02-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm trying real hard to remember how i came up with the pear cabinet, cuz i could sure use some of that magic now. Trying to come up with a new design sometimes turns into trying to reinvent the wheel, and thats never a good thing. But ripping off someone else's design isn't something i want to do either.

I know i want to make a wall cabinet. I know it'll be veneered, i even got the woods ready to go! I know i want a curved front door with glass so i can figure out how to slap that together. But how many other wall cabinets with a bow front door and glass are out there? Plenty im sure. This is where i'm trying to reinvent the wheel. I started to think, hey maybe instead of glass i could make 3 panels with pierced carving so that you could sorta see inside the cabinet, but sorta not and then slap in a lil drawer for the sake of filling up the empty space...but then thats not much of a display cabinet without the ability to display whats inside it!

Good thing i still have a night table to finish before i have nothing to do but sweep the floor and think..

FINISHED AT LAST!!

2009-02-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Title speaks for it's self. About 2 months of work and here it is! Tons of mistakes but hell it looks awesome and my next one is going to be even better. I just wanna thank the guys for helping me out whenever i got stuck, couldn't have done it without you!

Curved Drawers....The Pins

2009-02-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well with the back panel done for the most part. it was time to move onto to drawers...which are curved...and yes that makes everything a lot harder kids. I read this article on Finewoodworking on how exactly to cut dovetails in curved drawers. When i first read it, i didnt think i'd ever be able to handle all those balls up in the air, but it's actually not that bad...

But that article was for bent laminated drawer fronts, mine were curved with hand planes and such.

First i have to make sure that while the front is curved...it also has to be square or my drawers will come out sort of lop sided. With that done, i had to then make a template of the drawer front. As you can sorta see in the picture, the sides that meet the front aren't 90 degrees, they're set at certain angles. To figure out those angles, i used a shim that represented the distance from the end of the tail to the end of the drawer front..which was 1/8th.

Now how exactly am i supposed to pare the pins to these angles? Well with the help of cradles of course! all they do is more or less match the curve of the drawer front...but where the shim is, it sorta flattens out into the angle according to my template. Glue the shim on and you have yourself a jig that pares the pins at the correct angle to match everything up.

Does this take long? It took me a while because this was my 3rd attempt at these and i didnt laminate my drawer fronts...I also had to make 2 jigs because the drawers aren't whole curves...they're only half of a curve.

Then it's hours of cleaning up the pins all nice nice. Tomorrow, the tails..

Frames N' Panels

2009-01-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

Well Got the framing of the back panel done today. Cut some teeny tiny lil mortise and tenons on my mortising jig and router table. Came out alright, but next time i cut the middle rail at the same length of the other 2 so i dont have a nice gap at the shoulder =(...next time..next time..

Now the hardest part was shaping that damn rail to more or less to match the profile on the mini cabinet. I think i got it...then again i really have no idea what im doing and im flying by the seam of my pants here!

Got the panels more or less done the other day(HUGE thanks to Mr.Breau for grinding a beautiful radius into the bit i used!), just got to finesse them especially the lil carved part, which was a pain until i got the technique down. I'm starting to feel a cold coming on, so i really hope i'll be able to knock this out of the park in the next day, then it's time to cut the drawers!

Lil Update

2008-12-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

Well haven't been doing much real woodworking lately due to the holidays. Even less this coming week because i am going to be with friends for a week up near Quebec city drinking my brain cells away. But i did manage to shellac up the main and lil case and glue them together. Pretty happy with my results!

Anyways think im going to use some soft maple for the drawer fronts/sides and back panels. Which i will be getting into hopefully on the 5th!

Make a very quick and dirty "mock-up" of the drawer fronts and just cut some pins to see if they wouldnt turn into dust due to their size...and man are these dovetails gonna be smmmmmall! I'm going to be blind after cutting these!

Rumble in da Bunx

2008-12-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah i donno about that title either...
well i honestly have done much work in the past week or so, due to it being my birthday(23, where is my youth going??) and totally killing brain cells. This time of year always depresses me so much...I get a year old, less sunlight, it's cold..blah blah

But i made to the shop today, and spent an hour fixing THIS..

See im not alone in the shop, i share with 2 other dudes, and for some reason cutting plastic laminate on my sawstop was a good idea. I dont really care as long as they swap out my Forest WW2 blade with theirs, but..apparently plastic laminate has aluminum backing to it? haha... can you say, uh oh pasghettios?

Anyways, after about an hour trying to pry the blade and brake off, i went to work on my pear cabinet. Got the door flipper done, carved a lil notch for a door knob, finished up the moldings, and got the lil mini cabinet done. Yep all in one day! Hopefully i'll be able to get some pre-finishing done tomorrow or whenever and glue some shizz up.

One thing has REALLY been bugging me, i mean REALLY. For the mini cabinet i thought...hey why not use 1/8th inch dowels. Seemed fine to me, but for some reason i can only find god damn OAK dowels that turn into DUST when you try to glue them in. Yep i think i've re-drilled those holes 3 times now. Theyre still super tight, but shit...i'm really tempted to just use steel dowel rod and epoxy that shit in!!

Blue Tape Monday

2008-12-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

So Spent the day prepping the veneer i cut and gluing it down to the substrates. No disasters..pretty much the simplest, trouble free day in the shop ever. Came up with a pretty awesome match for the top of the night table, should come out pretty bitchin'. (looking at it again, the match that kinda tapers into eachother...yeah its not happening for me. so i think im going to saw down the joint the kinda looks funny and "straighten" it out)

Tomorrow we're supposed to get about 7 inches of snow...yeah don't think shop is happening tomorrow...

I tried to use my friction board with a handplane...and for some reason it just woudnt work. i was getting shavings from the edges of the board, but not from the middle? I figured instead of messing up my veneer, i'd just use sandpaper. worked out great! but i think i'll be getting a drum sander soon...

panel in the press and my home made veneer press that i made with plans from joewoodworker.com, works amazingly(yeah im surprised too!).

A slip match for the bottom panels...see any gaps? i sure dont!

UPDATE. Waiting for the finish to cure on some panels for the night table, i worked on my pear cabinet. Got the knife hinges in and for not knowing what i was doing...i dont think i did so bad. i just have a question...how do you figure out how long to make the mortise in the first place? I'm sorta just taking small bites and checking. but im sure there is a more precise way...anyways i also cut the curve into the front and started working on the moldings.

Mini cabinet that'll have 2 lil teeny drawers almost done

Yummy Num Nums

2008-12-07T01:17:00.001-08:00

Remember that night table i was working? Remember my disasters with trying to cut veneer? Well i gave them another shot today much mucho success!

I upped the tension on the bandsaw and made a new fence that i clamped onto the table it's self. Fantastic results, i shall be getting one beautiful night table with all this veneer!

And this lovely machine has been sitting in the corner of the shop for a while...covered in dust n' rust. It was left to us by the previous owner. No one seemed to want to give it some love, so i pulled it out and if it's worth anything...shall be added to my arsenal..

I have zero information about this shaper, if anyone out there has any idea if this thing is worth it, lemme know! I know the fence has to be re-made, and i have to figure out how i can fit it to use router bits. I checked the spindle and it's either 15/16ths or 1". RMP? no idea...i think 3450 or something was written on the motor. 2 HP, wooden frame, cast iron top, unfortunatly not tilting arbor :(

Kay guys here are some more pics. the fence was totally made of wood! so im gonna make a split fence out of MDF or something. I also couldn't figure out how to get the bushings off the spindle...i also didnt have a wrench that was big enough. I tried looking for a spindle lock, but nope.

.

Post rust, the fence works with a lil knob that moves the fence.

PS. finally got the spalted maple, sooo awesome!

Really starting to take shape

2008-11-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

Well it feels like i dont have much to show for 10 hours of solid work. But here's what i got done. Doweling a cabinet together for the first time is not a good idea right after having a cold...

I think it's lookin' pretty bitchin'.not bad for my first real piece of ultra fine furniture. Gonna be a real cute small wall cabinet, which is exactly what i was going for!

Rabbet for the back tomorrow along with more shaping work. And as soon as i get my hands on some brass stock, KNIFE HINGES!

Just a lil updated pic(looks exactly the same =P), thats what i plan on doign with the back panel. Seen a lot of cabinets coming out or CR with that sorta back panel, so i figured why not? The shape of that funky stile is just for me to figure out how the hell im going to make this, i have to make the lil mini cabinet first!

The Times, They Are A Changin'

2008-11-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well i started shaping my door today and i think it came out pretty bitchin for my first time coopering ever. But due to my Eff up, the door is A LOT shorter than it was intended to be. So anyways, i doodled up another version of my cabinet, trying to keep the length by adding some drawers at the bottom....and honestly when i mocked it up, it looked like balls. it just wasnt right. so i re-sawed the pieces of my sides and top/bottom....

...and then it hit me....hell instead of a vertical cabinet, i'll just make a horizontal one with a serpentine curve!

i made a quick doodle and got it bang on, i made a "scale ruler" using my drawing, and everything was proportional right from the get go.....very very scary.

so right now im letting the parts freak out a little bit before i final mill them and start with the doweling.

Needless to say i am very very excited about this new design. Things have such a weird way of working out..

Boy oh boy

2008-11-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

Today went from being the worst day EVER to a pretty awesome day. Finishing up the staves for my coopered door....i realized i just wasnt happy with this knot that was on the back of the door. Firewood i thought, blast it all. i left the shop in a hurry, thinking of what a F&%*ing idiot i was to WASTE such a precious piece of wood! anyways i was on my way home when i realized, hell all is not lost! i can simply cut out the knot and to make up the empty space, i can just add a drawer on the bottom of the cabinet! Now i really know why Krenov always makes the doors first!

And i guess thats what woodworking is all about...changing ideas on the fly, dealing with mistakes and doing your best to work around them..

So i zoomed back to the shop and finished gluing up the door and man oh man, that last glue up was a rough one. i just hope to GOD there arent any gaps, i got decent squeeze out, but i'll only be able to tell when i scrape off the squeeze out and see for myself. so far there are tiny tiny hairline glue lines, do they bother me? Yep they do, but hell im just being way way too picky for my first real piece done this way(krenovian way that is). So gimme a break here!

Now i've got a question for one of you wood nerds out there that read this...im looking to get a sort of "halo" effect for the face of the drawer, since i'll be shaping it, what type of board do you think i should go with to get the effect(if it's even possible)...

Also when selecting stock for a cabinet sides, top and bottom...whats the best way to go about it? Do the whole re-saw, flip boards and get the top/bottom from opposite ends sorta thing? like you would for a box so the grain wraps around...or just a simple book match styled re-saw?

I really hope i explained that last part properly!

Numb Thumb

2008-11-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

Walking into the shop today and said to myself....time to slice up that pear and start another project...so thats 3 projects going on at the same time, i like keeping my mind occupied alright? I was browsing the new fine woodworking gallery and came across this coopered wall cabinet in hemlock(forgot the dude's name, but damn it was sweet) and i said to myself i wanna make one! So thats what i set out to make, a smallish wall cabinet with a coopered door, in pear. My first time coopering and i only managed to get in a few hours at the shop today, so i did not complete the door, but so far so good...i roughly drew out a curve on some ply-wood and tried to lay out some angles, at the end of it, i decided just to start cutting up the plank into staves and figure out the angles as i went along. so far so good yet again, should have the door completed tomorrow and start looking for the rest of the cabinet in the small plank of pear that i have left....*tear*. the tear is because as you wood nerds know, pear is such a sweet wood to use. My first time and wow, its like butter but not flimsy like pine or anything, still has some meat to it...cannot wait to get this cabinet done!

UPDATE: Coopering doors by hand sucks....what the hell did i get myself into!?!