Post and Rung Stool

This is a post and rung stool completed a while back.

This stool was the result of a growing interest in green woodworking, Windsor chairs and turned work which led to picking up an old lathe on Ebay.

This was my first attempt at making a piece from a tree that I picked out and watched being felled, split using wedges and a sledge hammer and turned on the lathe whilst it was still green.

The seat is Paracord, which is available in a large range of colours and so far it's holding up well.

This is the first in a series of stools and chairs with each one building on the lessons learned from those before it.

Oak Bookcase

I've recently completed the bookcase that I've been working on over the last few months.

The bookcase, in European oak, was made to overall dimensions supplied by the client to fit into a space set aside for it at their home.

I'm happy with the look of the finished piece and the clients were very pleased.

I can't believe that a year has past since my last post! There have been a few developments in my life; the big one was the birth of our daughter, Kimberly Anh, in October and she's been keeping us all busy/awake/on our toes since the moment she came into the world.

We've moved having found a place with a garden for our boy to run around and he's already at home digging up worms and collecting snails with mum.

I made a wall storage unit for the local preschool which has been put to good use for a while now and I have an oak bookcase nearing completion; the bookcase is a big piece, almost 2m long.

I'm looking forward to seeing it assembled for the last time once I've finished applying the oil and wax having decided to pre-finish because of the number of corners. I'll post some photos as soon as it's done.

I'll shortly be making a start on some green wood chairs which I've been looking into; I've sourced the hand tools needed and have a shave horse almost complete. I plan to start with post and rung stools and chairs to get a feel for the tools, etc. and have my sights set on making a contemporary Windsor rocker.


It's pretty clear that blogging doesn't fit into my routine so I'm thinking of making some changes to the site to change things around and it seems I'm not alone in this having come across sites of other makers that have also found regular blogging difficult.


Thanks for reading.

Nursery Furniture

I've been looking into knock-down furniture which was always a consideration for a future version the Genkan Table and something I intend to develop over the coming months.

I realise there aren't many hand-cut dovetails to be found in most knock-down furniture but now that we're expecting our second child I've been thinking about nursery furniture.

The stuff on the market falls mostly into two categories: traditional looking solid wood or melamine flat pack which is practical but not very inspiring.

I like the practicality of laminate furniture where children are concerned but plan to use colour and maybe a little solid wood to make something that stands apart from what I've seen so far.

So back to the sketch book for now...

Chair 2.0 More Build Photos

Took a couple of photographs after the glue-ups and the first coat of oil yesterday.

The oil has brought out some fantastic rays on the back legs and I'm planning to give the frame several more coats of oil before making a start on the woven seat. Got a few ideas for a laminated crest rail but I want to see the finished seat before deciding on the exact design.

I'll post some photographs of the seat weaving next week.

Chair 2.0 Build Photos

All the design work yesterday paid off as the making of the side rails went smoothly and the compound angle cutting jigs worked a treat which meant I had time to cut all the mortices.

Using SketchUp to work out all the Domino offsets and joint locations meant my first real use of the new machine was trouble free and gave me time for a dry fit and a couple of photos.

Chair 2.0 Update

Spent time resolving the joinery for Chair 2.0 in SketchUp today.

One of the advantages of the Domino is less marking out for joinery if you can use the built in stops and board thickness slide to locate the mortices. By juggling with the presets and manually adjusted jointing heights you can set rails in from the outer faces of the legs.

Legs are square on rather than in the same plane as the side rails so the compound angle cuts are all in the side rails. Mortices shouldn't be much trouble with the Domino but cutting to length will need both the saw blade tilted and the rail ends cut at an angle. I've resolved the angles and designed jigs and hope to get the side rails cut to length tomorrow.

Seat material hasn't arrived yet so I'm leaving room to adjust the rails to have the outer face of the legs flush with the seat edges. Once I know the diameter of the cord I'll be able to cut the mortices and do a dry fit.

A New Start & Chair 2.0

Trying to fit in as much as possible into the year at Rowden and dealing with all the other things going on meant that blogging never became the regular thing that I had hoped it would last year.

I completed the course at the end of November 2010 having extended my stay a month to complete my final project; the Genkan Table and finished with three personal pieces in addition to the student projects, workbench and jewelry box required to be completed during the course.

Having taken a couple of months off to sort out a few things that have been put to one side during the last few months of the course I have now moved to a new workshop and made a start on another chair. This one will be in white oak with a woven seat and use Domino joinery in contrast to the Parnham Joints used in Chair 1.0 which I'm hoping will be a lot quicker.

Rear legs, front legs, and front and back rails are cut and shaped with the side rails due to be made this week. I'm fitting a number of new techniques and materials into this one and hoping to have it ready for a dry fit by the end of the week for a quick photo.

My First Chair

I've been working on a dining chair over the last month or so.

It's been an interesting project; the first one that I've taken from brief through initial sketches, tweaking the design in SketchUp, making a half scale model and finally the actual chair.

I started with some design constraints and basic ergonomics and ended up with a chair design that I'm very happy with. Every time I look at it I see a new variation or possible development of the idea and trying just a few of these ideas could keep me busy next year.

The frame is bleached maple and upholstery is raspberry leather. The seat and back panels are ready to send to the upholsterer now that the leather has arrived.

I'll do some final sanding over the next day or two and I'm planning to use microcrystalline wax for a finish to avoid yellowing the now bone white frame.

Everything should be ready for photographs by the end of the week...

Workbench Progress...

I decided to stop posting every time I did something on the bench to get it built but I have been taking photos along the way and will post these over the next week or two now that the bench is complete.

Just the tail vice to finish off and most of the machine work has been done on the components.

I'm dry fitting the dovetails at the moment which is hard work; there is so much friction inside a dovetail on a 70 mm thick component you have to really beat on it to get the joint to close and again to get them apart.

It's a fine balance; take too much off and the joints will be sloppy but leave too much on and you run the risk of them not closing when glue is added into the equation and everything start to swell up.

I'll let you know how I get on...

Measure Twice, Cut Once... Redesign, Measure Again...

The bench frame components were cut to length, excluding the angled rear legs which would be cut to length when the tenons at the top are cut.

I was checking the components before marking out mortices and noticed I'd rotated the angled rear foot cut through 90 degrees... Oops!

This would change the orientation of all the 70 x 90 mm components so that they measure 70 mm viewed from the front of the bench.

This wasn't a problem as the legs were still over-length so I could simply recut the rear feet but I decided that I prefer the idea of having the side frames with components measuring 70 mm at the front.

So it back to the drawing board to redraw the side frames.

I took this opportunity to include a detail a student who started after me will use on his bench which involves notching the bottom of the stretcher tenon so they sit lower over the bottom side rail joint.

I'm using 70 x 150 mm deep bottom side rails and stretchers and chose to notch both the top of the side rail tenon and the bottom of the stretcher tenon to keep both joints as strong as possible.

This whole area wasn't easy to visualize when I was redrawing the joints and I had a few nervous moments cutting these mortices.

One of the good things with the course is that there are students at different stages working alongside you which lets you discuss plans and incorporate ideas you might not have come up with working alone.

The redesign means I've increased the size of the opening between the legs and the underside of the bench top and the top of the stretcher.

Students have used this space to house a set of drawers similar to an auto mechanic's tool chest. I'm not planning a tool chest of this type but by increasing the size of the opening I've kept my options open.

I'll be discussing cutting mortices next...

Finishing the tail vice screw

All the frame components have been machined to final dimension and I've made a start on trimming them to length before cutting mortices.

The maple screw I ordered from the US arrived last week, it's beautifully machined and I'm looking forward to working on the tail vice.

I've given the threaded parts several coats of danish oil in accordance with the instructions on the manufacturer's website and will wax them for smooth running prior to final assembly of the tail vice.

The hub and handle have had several coats of wax, I chose a simple wax finish for the exposed parts to keep them as close as possible to unfinished maple - bench tops here are typically left unfinished.

I picked up a nice Record 52 1/2 quick release vice on Ebay a while ago which will be fitted to the bench before making a start on the tail vice but there's a lot of work to be done before that...

Workbench design

Short entry to show you the design of the workbench project I'm undertaking. The sketch shows angled front legs but these will be vertical in the finished bench; rear legs will be angled.





The design is based on the standard student bench built here at the school with the addition of a wooden screw in the tail vice and deeper bottom rails and stretchers to accommodate a curve to the underside.


I may add trays to the tool well instead of the simple removable boards shown and a drawer between the vices once the bench is complete.

Do I need a low angle jointer - part 2

Having spent another day using the low angle jointer side-by-side with the No. 5 1/2 I've pretty much decided on the standard angle jointer over the low angle version and will buy the Lie Nielsen No. 7. My decision was based on the method of adjustment of the low angle plane and the fact that I'll be able to use the same plane irons in both bench planes.

I found the small knurled adjuster difficult to use; it's low down and very close to the bed of the plane, difficult to reach and the small diameter makes it hard to turn. Also, I miss the ability to adjust the depth of cut on-the-fly as I do with the No. 5 1/2.

This finding may affect my decision on a block plane which is one of the final hand tools left on the school's recommended tool list. Most of the LN block planes, both standard and low angle versions, are adjusted using the same small knurled knob so I may look elsewhere for a block plane.

I do like some of the other qualities of the low angle planes and interestingly, the LN low angle smoothing has a bailey type adjuster much like the bench planes so I may look at this if I need a smoothing plane in the future.

Do I need a low angle jointer plane?

While fine tuning the workbench frame components with my LN No. 5 1/2 jack plane I wondered if the process would be easier or quicker with a jointer plane; that would be the correct tool for the job after all.

I bought the 5 1/2 with the idea of adding a No. 7 when I started working on larger projects... like a workbench. I chose the 2 3/8" wide 5 1/2 over the 2" wide No. 5 because the parts can be used on a No. 7 so if I add a high angle frog or buy an extra blade or two I can use them in both planes.

I borrowed a No. 7 1/2  low angle jointer which has made the decision more difficult! The finish the low angle jointer gave was very good with no tear out, using the 5 1/2 on the same surface earlier had left some tear out but I did miss being able to adjust the depth of cut on the fly.

I'm used to setting-up and adjusting the 5 1/2 but doing this on the low angle plane didn't seem as intuitive which might just be what I'm used to. I don't have enough experience with the No. 7 1/2 to make a decision so I'll sharpen and set-up the plane in the morning and use it for another day.

I'd appreciate comments from anyone who had the same decision to make and how you decided to spend your money.

From the machine room to the bench room

I completed jointing and planing the workbench base components down to about 2 mm oversize today and apart from a couple that needed some extra attention on the jointer everything went well.


The next step is to refine the reference face and edge on each component with a bench plane before taking them down to final dimension back in the machine room. This can take a while depending on how each component looks after the rough milling process.





I started with the front stretcher and I've still got a bit of work to do - accepted tolerance here is 0.25 mm so any light showing beneath your straight edge has to be taken out by hand planing before you can move on the the next one.

Making a start on the workbench

This is the bench room where I spend my days; that's my bench on the left shortly before moving to the empty space under the window.

The bench in the middle is being built by Dan using iroko for the base and hard maple for the top with a steel face vice and traditional tail vice.

Dan's bench uses the school's standard design which has been built by many students over the years. Students often add their own touches but I'm told the basic design doesn't change very much.

Wanting to do something a little different, I chose to use hard maple throughout and ordered a maple screw for the tail vice from Lake Erie Toolworks in the US.




The timber for my workbench arrived last week and has been acclimatizing in the machine room ready to make a start this week.

After a close inspection to decide where each board would be used I started rough cutting the base components to length on the radial arm saw and ripping to width on the bandsaw.

All components are oversize and will be brought down to final dimension as work continues; why not follow the build over the coming weeks.

Welcome

After more than twenty years working in the construction industry for consulting engineers and an outsource service provider I decided to try something different...


Having taken a week long woodworking course in September 2009, I signed up for a year to learn how to make fine furniture at the International Woodworking School in Devon.


The blog will document my time in the workshops starting with the build of my workbench, the first large project made by everyone taking the course.