Road Find and Jig

 I have recently made a couple of picture frames.  I have the good fortune to live with a Glass Artist that can cut the glass for the frames, I've had no luck cutting my own glass. What was then needed was clear glass to put in the frames, preferable cheap glass.  As I drove home the other day,  what was at the end of someones drive way but....free glass.

  Once it is taken apart I will have to wash the glass before it can be used. Eva can cut the terrarium  into small pieces and hey presto, custom frames from re-used materials. 

  The other thing I though I would  share is a jig that has been used quite a bit lately.  I made this jig a while (years) ago to help me accurately make 45 degree angle cuts and to trim the pieces using a plane.

  I use the jig to hold the wood while hand cutting the small pieces or to hold the material while shooting in with my low angle smoothing plane. When shooting I set the jig on a piece of counter top, the plastic/acrylic top is smooth and slippery so the plane slides along very nicely. It's maybe time to make a new cutting  jig this one is getting pretty cut up.  

   I have found that fine mitres,  as on picture frames require some fine tuning with plane

 and/or sand paper regardless of where the cuts are made.  I have a pretty good sliding mitre saw and its cuts still need fine tuning where the joint is going to be highly visible.  If you go onto the inter-web there are many many videos on how to make jigs for all type of saws. Invest the time a a good jig and mitred corners should cause you no worries.

  cheers ianw

  I love fall colours.

worthy of a Group of Seven painting. 

 

Picture Frames and a "tankard".

   Since the grand kids were here I have been working on a couple of custom picture frames.  For these small projects I opted to work only with hand tools, for a couple of reasons.  One, small bits of wood are easy enough to work without all the power of mitre saws and routers, also small pieces and power tools together sort of scare me a bit. The other reason is hand tools make almost no noise and so puttering around in the shop in the evening, listening to music is good for my soul.

  Making the frames with hand tools is slow, but satisfying.  Over the years I have collected a shop full of fine tools, good saws, knives, planes and jigs. I cut the frame material in a mitre box, trimmed the ends on a 45 degree angle shooting board.  Then I hand cut the rabbet for the glass and cleaned it up with my rabbet plane. Once everything was cut and sanded I glued the ends together using my lead weight gravity clamps and my KREG Klamp table.

  It is interesting re-learning a method of work. For the first frame I fumbled around looking for measuring tools and angle gauges and deciding which saw etc. etc. etc.  On the second frame I knew what I wanted to do and in which order.  Now I need to make a better mitre box before I do the next set of frames.

  I spent many hours in my head designing the other project.  I got the idea that I wanted to make a rustic tankard from which to drink my favourite cool beverages.  A wooden tankard sounds good, but I opted to ask my Sister-in-Law to throw a pottery body upon which I would attach some sort of carved, rustic wooden handle.   

The pottery body is very fine.  

How to attach the handle? 

I didn't want to glue the handle to the pottery, too permanent, ugly and too difficult to modify should I have a better idea down the road.

The current result:  

The deer antler handle is comfortable and feels nice in my hand.  Antler is very easy to work on with sand paper by the way.  It is glued to a thin strip of wood, which is glued to a layer of leather and the lashing is waxed hemp cord.  The handle is secure. but not as aesthetically pleasing as I want.  Also, I want to see how well the waxed hemp holds up in  real life.  I have another body so I can try another version without having to take this one apart.  

It is getting cold and wet, the season for painting and wood working is upon us. 

cheers ianw

Table Top, and Kid Projects.

  This was a grand kid dominated weekend, a great return to our normal life.  My Grand Daughter worked with Oma and created this lovely stained glass panel as a gift for her teacher. Once the panel was cooled it needed a stand. Clara and I worked in the shop to make the wooden stand.  She cut the wood using a back saw and mitre box.  I did use the table saw to cut the slots into which the glass fit to help out.

Stained Glass Apple 

  My next project is a coffee table using a large live edge slab of soft maple.  This slab was cut using a chain saw and so needed plenty of sanding. For a task like this I have a heavy duty diesel powered disk sander.  I inherited a 7 inch sander from my father's shop. My father had a "go big or go home" attitude towards tools.  Generally I use my 4 1/2 inch angle grinder with a sanding disk, but this job needed a 7 inch 40 grit disk to flatten the chain saw ridges. I think the table top will be very striking when finished.  It has some spots that will need epoxy to fill and I am going to consult with a friend who is expert in using epoxy before I take this on.  I would hate to mess it up and then have to grind out the mistakes.  

Live Edge Table Top

  This weekend also saw my Grandson make his first lathe project.  There are few tools as much fun as a wood lathe. Kieran designed this light house, complete with a little house for the keeper and made it on my mini lathe.

Light House lathe project

  The next time they are here I'll have wood mounted on face plates so the kids can make bowls.

  Our lives have returned almost to normal after so very long.  We have been blessed, no one in our extended family fell ill and very few people had their work disrupted. I hope that is the situation for you'all too.

cheers ianw 

 

Road Wood

   I am always on the look out for free wood.  I hate to think of quality wood going to waste. On the weekend I was going to my Mother's house and found this collection of wood. This wood is all 1 1/4 thick.  I suspect that these pieces were part of a large reception desk and product display area.  This wood had been very nice custom furniture, once upon a time.  

  Originally these five pieces were were two table tops.  I had to cut the wood into these pieces to get them into our car.

  What am I going to make from the wood?  I don't know.  But...it was too nice to let it be turned into firewood.

  cheers ianw