Ideas

Laney made the puzzle from last week, but with three different woods. Cool stuff. And yep, still drove everyone nuts trying to assemble it!

Before you start a wood working project, apart from your wood working plans you need a basic tool set to get you started. Wood working as a hobby is something you can enjoy starting with something fairly basic such as a simple coffee table and then progressing over time as you develop your skills to more complex projects. Wood working plans can range from simple to complex most of which can be built with a basic set of hand tools as long as you have somewhere to work, a bench to work on or even just a couple of saw horses.

You can build your tool set over time but to start with the minimum you will need will include saws, chisels, a mallet, hammer, various screwdrivers, a drill, drill bits, a good measuring tape, rulers, carpenters square, various clamps, pencils, a good hand plane, selection of sandpaper and a good wood glue. There is a wide variety of tools that you can use but you certainly dont need all of them to begin with.

So lets talk a little about saws - what type of saw do you need?

When it comes to saws, keep it simple, there are so many different types of saw but a general-purpose handsaw and a good tenon saw in most cases will be enough to get you going. An electric circular saw is handy for many projects and come in a variety of diameters, in corded and cordless versions. The thicker the wood you have to cut, the bigger the diameter saw you need and of course, the weight of the saw increases with the diameter making them more difficult to handle. 7 1/4 inch diameter is a common size for a corded circular saw. Most are adjustable for depth of cut; some also allow an angled cut.

There are also many different blades that can be fitted to circular saws, dependent on the material you are cutting and how fine you need the cut. Circular saws in particular can be extremely dangerous and are the cause of many accidents so if you are contemplating using one Id recommend you get one with a built in clutch so that if the blade jams the clutch stops the saw throwing itself out of the work piece. And NEVER EVER use one if the blade guard isnt working properly.

Electric jigsaws are another common accessory for your tool kit, jigsaws also have a range of blades for different purposes. If you are planning on using electric tools especially saws then you need to have appropriate safety gear such as ear mufflers and safety glasses or goggles to protect your ears and eyes. Safety is paramount when using wood working tools as the majority of the tools you will use have a cutting purpose and unfortunately, accidents do happen. If you are using power tools make sure you are plugged into a socket with earth leakage protection. Power saws have sliced through many cables.

Most important, make sure you have a good first aid kit in your work area, better to be safe than sorry. If youre a beginner you are better off buying your wood working plans as the designs will already be proven and will give you a much higher chance of a good result. As you develop your skills you can either draw your own wood working plans or modify others to suit your project. Keep your wood working tools clean and sharp.
Read Also My Sheds Plans

Hi Everyone,

Well the temperature is rising and the snow is melting fast and so this is a good day to go out and work on the bowl some more. Heres todays photos:

I began hollowing out the bowl yesterday and I probably cut away about half the inside of the blank. My goal today was to finish hollowing it out and hollowing a bowl presents a number of challenges.  People place things inside of bowls so the volume of the bowl is one concern. Another is the thickness of the walls and the bottom-you want to wind up with a sturdy bowl that wont break if its dropped but doesnt look clunky. And the inside needs to approximately match the outside in terms of the shapes matching up.

Here is the first photo. Ive deepened the floor of the bowl and Ive begun creating the sides of the bowl. Note the position of the tool rest-it needs to sit inside of the bowl and as close to the surface as possible. This allows me to get the tip of the turning chisel into the wood without causing a lot of vibration in the tool:


 Here is the bowl several minutes later. Its deeper and the sides are beginning to shape up. Note the raised section in the center. I like to leave cutting the center until well into the turning. It gives me a visual cue as to how much wood Ive removed without having to stop and measure the depth:


One of the problems that turners encounter when making a bowl is vibration, particularly at the rim. This can lead to the tip of the chisel skipping across the surface of the wood as it spins. I like to keep the sides and bottom a uniform thickness as I turn. That really helps to counter that.

Here is a photo of the rim. I want to have the rim and the width of the ribbon match up. I think this will look good and Im just about there in the photograph:


At this point I put the camera down and finished hollowing the bowl out. Another concern, and this happens with every project, is to know when its time to stop cutting something. Dont cut enough and you wind up with essentially an unfinished bowl. Cut too much and risk cutting through the bottom or ruining the design. How thin to make  the walls and how thick to leave the bottom are also questions to be answered.

I elected to leave the walls about 1/2" thick and the bottom about 1" thick. This last measurement includes the foot of the bowl. I think these are good measurements to stop with and I dont mine leaving this bowl, or any bowl for that matter, a little bottom heavy. It keeps the bowl from easily tipping over.

Here are the last two photos for this session:




The bowl at this points seems a little heavy to me so Im going to stop and sleep on it and return to the bowl tomorrow.

See you Thursday,

VW

If you write novels, like my cousin Mark does, then your trade craft is in words, but words are not enough to carry through a great story. Your medium is words, and ink, and paper, but your skill comes in story and plot.  The process is simple to explain. You have an idea for a story so you write it down. Then you rewrite it, and then you rewrite it some more, then you rewrite it again, and then, after all that, you probably need to rewrite it some more.

It can be an exacting process, trying to craft and re-craft your work into the best form possible, perfecting your plot, theme, dialogue, and words.

I see correlation to this process in woodworking, specifically when it comes to the all powerful step in the process, good design. In the end it doesnt matter how well you can cut a dovetail or how smooth you can plane a board. If your design is faulty, it can look like a second grade shop class gone wrong. (hopefully minus the glue-eating)

A "car" my youngest glued together from shop scraps.

The problem with design is that it can be a very personal thing. There are some constants when it comes to relating furniture to the human body and its mechanics, but the softer decisions fall more in the mixed up arena of fashion, personal taste, and a hundred other influences. All these factors may just make designing a piece on of the most daunting processes in woodworking.

The other side of the coin is fretting and worrying about your design to such detail that you end up making a meal out of a snack. You can become paralyzed and bound up in the details. inflexible and unable to move forward on to the actual piece. Frustrated when the entropy sneaks into the build process and requires a change of plans, an "off the cuff" change to the design. Starting to cut to build a piece can be an intimidating thing, Youve put work into planing, put money and time into selecting the right stock, and now if you prove to be fallible, you can reduce that stock to nothing but sawdust and firewood.


 I understand why a lot of people like to work from published plans, it helps relieve the fears that can come in the midst of toiling away at your own design. I like to work from published plans at times myself, but mostly in just a few circumstances. One is building a reproduction of a piece. In those instances you want to get it right and getting that information from someone who had the opportunity to measure and inspect the piece is a great way to go if you cant do it yourself.

The other reason I like to use someones published plans is because that artisan is someone I want to learn directly from. Working from someone elses plans is almost like getting a glimpse inside their heads. My wife bakes cookies as her stress relief, as a result she collects recipes and cookbooks by the armload. She has said that she can tell a lot about the cook by reading the recipe. The way they order the ingredients and the details to the directions tell her about that person as a cook. I will choose to build a project from a woodworkers plans so I can gather some similar insight, and often that teaches me more in-depth lessons than the proper dimensions of a chest of drawers.

Most of the time a piece starts as a rough idea in my head. a problem to solve, something Ive admired and wanted to build for a while, or a request from a rare commission. From there I move onto my sketch book. I have a small, 6"x9" bound sketchbook that follows me around almost everywhere. I have a fine arts background so I express myself best visually, using my hands. Even in other parts of my life, if Im trying to explain a process I end up sketching something.


In those first sketches Im not worried about perfect proportions or sizing. I want to get the big ideas down. From there I work my way back into the details, but the sketchbook is always in the rough. Ill write down measurements but they are guesstimates. I may also work out some joinery and details and plan some of the order of the build. Basically at this point I am doing a combination of mind dumping and free writing. I work fast and try and get the ideas out on the paper as they come to mind and as I think of variations.

Often I fill somewhere between 3 and 5 pages like this. Then I work back over the sketches and write additional notes, make changes in the sketches and try and envision the piece as a whole. I know just enough about sacred geometry to be dangerous and Ill play with Pythagorean theorem and golden ratios, but never as a hard and fast rule, only as a way to help fill the holes Ive left behind in the fury of the sketch.

Then Im ready for the next step, I dig out the graph paper and try to get dimensions and details nailed down tight. Here I will really focus on the measurements and the joinery details. I try to end up with a finished piece on the page.


The trick to my somewhat organic design process is that sometimes unexpected surprises happen and things take off in unprepared for directions. I have been working a lot on designing some pieces lately and something Ive wanted to build for a long time is a spice chest. A small cupboard containing an apothecary of small drawers behind a showpiece door, traditionally its an 18th century style piece.

I did quite a bit of research, both in books and magazines I own and using the net to find other examples. But I struggled with the door design. I asked my wife for some ideas, (she has a similar fine arts background) and she suggested trying to break up the door like a triptych. I liked the solution and played with size and shapes until I came up with this design.


The problem was that I liked this door a lot, but it was definitely not 18th century, it was very much Arts & Crafts style. I began to change game plan, to look at my other elements to see if they fit in with the the aesthetic the door design brought to the party. I decided the basics of the chest were safe, mouldings would have to be fit to the style, but the most difficult part was getting the feet of the case right.


You can see I played with idea after idea, some good, some crap. I tried not to judge them as I was working through them. Just put them down on paper and come back to decide later.

In the end Im not sure if a Arts & Crafts Spice Chest is an idea that would appeal to anyone beyond me, but it is a fun exploration into the form of the chest and into the aesthetics inherent in  A&C pieces, and thats really where Im at in my learning process. Exploration.

I did get held up a little on moving forward with the build of this specific piece. One of my mothers co-workers has recently been diagnosed with a aggressive brain cancer and I wanted to build something to donate to the silent auction. Inspiration struck while I was paging through the woodworking books at my public library. I was looking at a copy of "The Essential Pine Book" (by John McGuane and Megan Fitzpatrick). Inside was a neat little desktop organizer with a couple of drawers. I decided to use it as a jumping off point for designing a similar piece in pine and cherry and donating it. After playing with the measurements, heres the scaled drawings I decided on.

The fundraiser is in February so Ill have to build the desktop organizer before the spice chest, but Im OK with that.



Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to you and yours.
Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

This who had the idea to build the wooden horse

Trojan horse - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, According to quintus smyrnaeus, odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse (the horse being the emblem of troy), hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the. History of the trojan war - stanford university, The tro jan war. the apple of discord; greek armament; finding troy; embassy to priam; the war; the trojan horse; after the war. the apple of discord. the trojan war.

The godfather - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, The godfather is a 1972 american crime film directed by francis ford coppola and produced by albert s. ruddy from a screenplay by mario puzo and coppola. based on. John wooden: the difference between winning and succeeding, With profound simplicity, coach john wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. in this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave.

John wooden: the difference between winning and succeeding, With profound simplicity, coach john wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. in this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave. 101 romantic ideas - scribd, This is a free bonus version of 101 romantic ideas. feel free to forward to or make copies for your friends. theromantic.com 101 romantic ideas. The idea room - inspiring mothers, women and families, It’s here!! i have had several of you asking for the new challenge and i am happy to say it is here! i thought i would change things up a bit and that it would be. 20 creative ways to upcycle pallets in your garden |, 20 inspiring diy ideas for upcycling wooden pallets in your garden including vertical gardens, planters, greenhouses, compost bays, raised garden beds & more. Put - definition of put by the free online dictionary, Put (po͝ot) v. put, put·ting, puts. v.tr. 1. to place in a specified location; set: she put the books on the table. 2. to cause to be in a specified condition: his. The barefoot agrarian | cheap&dirty: build a firewood shed, This firewood shed was built from free wooden pallets, scrap wood, and a few items from the big box store..

Woodworking gift ideas include wooden rocking horses.

Wood pole barn - Monitor Wooden Pole Barn

How to Build Stairs - Easy Steps Building Stairs - Popular Mechanics

who had the idea to build the wooden horse
its good

The class began with the discussion of the evolution of chairs.

One of Ejlers full size mock up demonstrated modern chair design.

This is a sample design sketch of Ejlers.

This classic from Rennie Mackontosh does not ballance vision and function. There is only vision and no function.

Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

Here are some new pics of the cherry project. Ive been framing in the new wall, which the cherry will be mounted to. Well be working on the electrical rough in for outlets and sconces soon...

After a stalled few weeks of Tree House building due to Woodworking in America and Hurricane Sandy, I managed to get back out to work last week.

After cutting all the T1-11 sheathing/siding to length, I managed to get 2-1/2 walls hung. Hopefully next weekend Ill get to finish closing in the envelope.