| Blog series by greg48 | updated 106 days ago | 3 parts | 2350 reads | 7 comments total |
Part 1: Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Creche (Sort of)
Actually, the inspiration came indirectly through his son John, who developed Lincoln Logs ® and who’s design I slightly amended. OK, the joinery technique is really just half lapped joints, but I thought the inspiration tag sounded better. Anyway, to move on, I was “tasked” by the wife to help build a crèche (manger) for her figures by next Christmas (this is not a last minute project). Having a handful of 18” x ½” dowels leftover from a previous project, I thought that I might just desi...
Part 2: Construction completed
Things move along quickly as long as employment doesn’t interfere. Actually, I am transitioning into retirement and it is not taking much effort. As you may have noticed in the first blog, the ½” plywood base was cut with shallow 45 deg. kerf cuts and cross cuts were made by chisel to emulate staggered planking. To make the new structure not look so “new”, I distressed the base with files, rasps, hammers and chain to dent and mar the pieces. That was tough, I usually try to avoid d...
Part 3: Thought I was Done!
I presented the “finished” Creche to the wife for her artistic additions. Needless to say, I wasn’t finished. It needed a back wall. OK, back to the shop. In keeping with the design criteria (leftovers and simplicity) I came up with a new joinery method to join together lengths of 1/4” dowels to form a palisade wall, I call it the knot and dowel system. Actually, I think I saw it in the latest King Kong remake. As you can see, all it requires is some lengths of d...
