kolwdwrkr's Blog at LumberJocks.com

TOPOMAX CHALLENGE #3: A little more done

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:27:51 GMT

I glued the box together, sanded it, then did the padauk border at the top and bottom. I tried to get some decent pics of the grain. I’m not a photographer, sorry.

TOPOMAX CHALLENGE #2: Made some more progress

kolwdwrkr — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:12:35 GMT

Well here is some new progress on the Topo Challenge. It is NOT glued together at this point. Just has a few pieces of tape to hold it together to get pics. I need to break it down and dado out the groove for the bottom. Then I need to sand profusely and then glue together. After that I plan on using Padauk to do all the corners, maybe. I’m digging the miters on this piece. The effort to get all the grain to line up all the way around has been fun, and adding the borders of padauk may take away from that. We will see. This box is far from done. There are a ton of things to do like some marquetry, as well as some surprises.
It’s slow going because of the long list of things I’m doing, including but not limited to a bamboo rocker I’m making with a friend, shoe storage shelf unit with a carving for Gracie Barra jiu jitsu, a master bath, a bamboo sculpted vase, and a new japanese style jewelry box that Heidi is making a cross stitch for. I don’t know why I have so many things going on, especially since none of it is paying except the master bath job. I just love woodworking.
Thanks for looking. I hope you stay tuned for the next part of this. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

TOPOMAX CHALLENGE #1: Blame Topomax....MUHAHAHA

kolwdwrkr — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:25:13 GMT

Alright Topomax you’ve gone and done it!! Your “facetious” comment has given me the drive and motivation to improve on this “style” of box. I realized you were just kidding of course but the challenge was still there. I could feel it. LOL. So here we go, embarking on a journey that may or may not be successfull. Will it be padauk or wenge banding? Will it have a diamond like the last one or will it have some other pattern? Nobody knows for sure, but one things for sure. The miters will match and Topomax will be proven BRILLIANT!!

Here’s the start. My thoughts were around me, picking at me. Making me somewhat frustrated. How to do this. How to do this indeed! Well one thing is for sure, looks can be deceiving and everything is easy! This being bamboo is helpfull too. I can glue up two pieces and the seem dissappears. So in order to do this little diddy I decided I would have to cut 4 sticks. Each stick would make up the entire corner. It will travel up the side, across the top to the miter, make a 90 degree turn, then travel back across and down the side of the adjoining side. This has gone fairly easy so far, but I still need to cut them and do the bevels to begin the cube. Tricky? We will see tomorrow. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative, as well as direction too if you see that I’m doing this wrong. LOL

hand carved redwood bench #4: a smidgen of progress

kolwdwrkr — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:01:26 GMT

Well we were able to put about 6 more hours into the bench project this weekend. The display cabinets have been consuming our free time, but I’ve decided to stop working on it at 5 and work from 5 to 8 on the bench. We still need to sand it all, screw it all together and shape the arm rests. It’s just sitting there and the mortises are what’s holding it together. I put the seat slats down onto it so I could test the comfort. I need to shape the front slat and radious all the corners so that it feels a bit more comfortable. It’s also about 1” to high. I was shooting for 18” but then decided to make the seat curved. The 18” ended up in the back and it’s about 1” higher in the front. So the legs need cut down. It’s all simple stuff, but adds up a lot of time. I’m still unsure about what I want to do about the color and finish.

Anyhow, here it is. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

hand carved redwood bench #3: more progress

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:21:18 GMT

Well ladies and gents here are some more progress pics. I think this may be the end for awhile. I need to start a new job and it will be taking up all my free time. So this project will be on the backburner unfortunately. Anyhow, the back rest is carved, as well as one leg. We still need to do some sanding and such, and I need to make tool marks on the left and right sides of the back rest. But I don’t want to do that until I run the tenons. Just so everyone know, redwood is not super fun to carve. LOL. In fact it is very unforgiving, splinters easily, and is soft. So it makes it difficult to keep the tips of the beard and things.

As always I welcome constructive criticism positive or negative.

hand carved redwood bench #2: Some progress and an introduction

kolwdwrkr — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:45:01 GMT

Well the bench is coming along about as slow as possible. Working full time now doesn’t leave much of a window for me to be out there carving. And with some commissioned jobs coming up it will be worse soon. So I’ve been sort of rushing the carving while I’m out there and have to say that I feel somewhat bad, as I am trying to blog how to carve as well. So the tutorial will still happen, but it may not be up par (if they ever are).
Right now I want to say that I’ve recruited some special help. I’ve been working with my girlfriend over the past year helping her learn how to carve. I’m not that great of a teacher when the student seems to be a natural. I always wait for a question and the next thing I know the carving is done. She’s definitely a talented self starter and I’m happy to have recruited her to work with me on this bench. And, it gives us our time together while being productive.
Here is her latest carving.

She isn’t just helping with the carving though. I gave her control of the design of the carving she’s doing. This is what she came up with.

The legs are about 2 1/4 square. I will show her progress as I continue the blog.

Here is the progress of the carving I am working on. This is the back rest, and will be the carving I write the tutorial on. I am mainly working on the beard and leaves, and will probably do the eyes last. So the one on the left is just to get some of the leaves carved around it, and I wanted to see how I will proceed with it.
As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

hand carved redwood bench #1: The materials, site, and thoughts

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:36:40 GMT

I’ve been building a fence here at the house I’m renting (see blog). I ended up getting 2 sections out of one board as opposed to the 1 section I originally thought so I figured I’d use some of the material for a couple of projects. The first one is this bench, the second will be a carved screen door. This project is going to be a little tricky because I don’t really have “fresh” materials, nor do I have the thickness’s I would buy if this was going to be a project I wasn’t just throwing out there. In this case I am using material that has nail holes, it’s torn up, etc. Well basically it’s fence material. LOL. So there will be a lot of jointing, planing, and figuring. I’m sure there will be plenty of waist as well, but we will see.
To stat this off we have the materials. In the next sections I will show more of the process as I am starting the build as soon as I hit “post” to this blog.

The leg material. This is the fall off from the 2×4s used on the fence. My goal is to run one face through the jointer and then glue 2 together per leg. Then once the glue dries I will run 2 faces through the jointer and then plane to thickness. Because the material will turn Grey I’m not concerned with the grain patterns matching, etc. Hopefully it won’t delaminate in the future.

I have glued up the back rest into one plank.

Here is the material I will dig through to find the arm rests, seat slats, aprons, etc. This is also the material for the gate, and the other fence sections. What are the chances I won’t have to buy more? LOL

And this is going to be the new location for this bench.

I hope you all enjoy this series, and I will do my best to be as descriptive as I can. As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Fence #2: Completed back section

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:20:19 GMT

Well the street side of the property is completely fenced off. I think it came out good for not being a fence maker. Now I need to do a gate, a small side yard section and another entire length up against the neighbors yard (my foreclosed home :^( ). That section needs to be designed differently and won’t have the lattice for privacy issues. It will also be taller. ~71”. 72” requires a permit. Suckers. LOL. It will be coming off of the section I already did, so I am going to angle the end where they meet so it looks cool. I’ll keep this updated.
The left side of this section had to be scribed to a concrete section of the neighbors fence. It is slowly falling down the hill toward the street, LOL, so it was out of level almost 2”. I leveled mine though. On the right side I attached a plank temporarily so the dog wouldn’t get out, but that is the side the next sections will run to.

Here are the pics. Sorry there wasn’t enough interest to write the how-to blog so I didn’t capture photos of the process. Sorry Purp. The next project before the fence continues will be a Hand carved bench. I am going to write a nice blog on it, starting right now…....LOL
As always I welcome constructive criticism.

I'm gonna be a Star!! #4: the panels

kolwdwrkr — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:56:03 GMT

I finally found some time to make a little progress on my star door. I did a bit more chip carving on the star itself and had the frame pieces cut. Tonight I made the panels around the star. I decide to plane up some redwood for contrast, and made them 1/2” thick. This makes them sit down in the frame and gives the star more depth. Instead of routing a full raised panel on them I opted for a rabbet and a cove. I used a core box bit to make the cove. So the star has a large cove and the other panels have a small cove. So far I’m liking it.
Here are the pics. Nothing is glued together yet. I need to finish up some carving and then sand everything.

As always I welcome constructive criticism, positive or negative.

Fence #1: The first section is complete

kolwdwrkr — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:33:07 GMT

I thought I would share what I am working on. As everyone knows my house forclosed and I ended up renting the house right next door to it. Yes, it’s very difficult to watch workers go in and out over there doing god knows what. Life goes on. Anyhow, I have an agreement to fix this place up if the rent stays down some. So one of the tasks I have is to rebuild the fence. This is the first section of fencing. I still have about 15 more sections and then a gate.
The reason I am posting this here is offer a blog on how to make this particular fence. If there is enough interest I can take you through step by step as I make the next section. Its not furniture but its woodwork, and surprisingly enough it’s actually been kind of fun.

This fence was assembled at home depot in a different fashion. The landlord and I agreed it was cheaper to purchase an assembled section and take it apart rather then purchase seperate boards. After thinking about it longer I think we were wrong. LOL. Anyhow, you can see the nail holes from where it was assembled to some 2×4’s. I took the 2×4’s off all the slats (comes in an 8’ section) and used them again for the top, middle, and bottom rails. I am using 4×4 posts as well.

Anyhow, just thought I’d share why there was visible nail holes. I believe I will try to make this look rustic and mimic the use of reclaimed lumber, even though that was not the case.

Again, if there is enough interest I will write a “how-to” blog. Let me know