It was all going so well…

20160123_161527So, I am still playing around with my lathe, as predicted. A week or so ago I began turning various pieces of fruit: an apple and a pear made from cherry, a couple of plums made from walnut, and a banana made from canary. I gave up on the banana half way through as it looks like it would have involved some crazy chuck mounting shenanigans that are still a tad beyond me, but I may get back to it one of these days. The stalks are turned from small pieces of ebony and, for authenticity’s sake, I stuck a clove in their bottoms to make it look like the remnants of a blossom. Continue reading “It was all going so well…” →

3

To everything there is a season…

20151207_153608As predicted by a comment from George on my last post but one, I have been neglecting regular woodworking of late in favour of my new toy. Continue reading “To everything there is a season…” →

0

Season’s Greetings

Santa-Shitting-Christmas-Card

 

Just thought I’d drop you a line to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the best of luck for the New Year.

love from

Goatboy, Goatgirl and the kids.

2

I’ve been busy

20151111_141153

For some time now, I have wanted to build myself a proper woodworking bench. Nothing to big – I haven’t got the space – but a small, solid bench, along the lines of the Petite Roubo. I’m thinking about 5 feet long, 18 – 20 inches wide and just shy of 3 feet tall. The top needs to be about 4″ thick and the legs roughly 3″ by 5″. The top would be attached to the leg assembly with through dovetails and mortices, and there would be stretchers on all four sides supporting a low shelf. I also want to make and install a leg vice, and conceivably a sliding dead man, although the bench may be too small for that. I already have a vice that would do as an end vice and I would drill and array of dog holes along the front edge of the top. I don’t want a tool tray, but I might make a small rack to go along the back edge, to keep chisels and squares etc. safe while working. Continue reading “I’ve been busy” →

7

Sandpaper caddy



20151029_152240
As I mentioned in my last post, I wasn’t entirely happy with the dovetails on the auger box. I haven’t had a great deal of experience of hand cutting dovetails, but still, it felt as if I was going backwards. The complimentary comments I received on that post are much appreciated and they went some way to cheering me up, but I decided to have a crack at some more dovetails to prove to myself that I could make a decent job of them. Continue reading “Sandpaper caddy” →

2

Auger box

20150923_132159

After a great deal of thought into the design of my auger box, I was faced with a choice between a flat box, rather like the one I built to house my mortice chisels, and a tall box which would store the augers in an upright position. Since the flat box was something I had already built, and since it would need several spring clips (30+) to hold the augers in position, I decided on the tall box. The design I came up with was a dovetailed box with a lid cut at an angle, the lower half of the box being solid with a series of holes to take the augers. I wanted to keep the weight down so I decided to use balsa for the majority of the solid core, topped with a panel of the same material as the box itself, which in this case is chestnut. Continue reading “Auger box” →

9

For the sake of completeness

20151007_122936Many moons ago, when I decided to give unplugged woodworking a whirl, the first order of business was to amass a modest collection of the appropriate tools. I quickly identified six main areas to consider: measuring, marking, chiseling, planing, sawing and boring.

The measuring side of things wasn’t an issue as I already had tape measures and rulers and suchlike; and the marking was taken care of relatively cheaply with the purchase of a small Stanley fold away knife and a second-hand marking gauge. My bench chisels were a present from my children on Father’s Day last year, followed up with my mortice chisels this year. That just left the planes, hand saws and hand drills.

I quickly built up a reasonable collection of hand planes (nos #3 – 7) which have served me very well so far, and it wasn’t long before I had half a dozen saws, both panel and tenon, rip and crosscut. These were all found on eBay, for very reasonable prices, and with a little restorative tinkering were pressed into service very quickly. It was the hand drills that posed the biggest problem. Continue reading “For the sake of completeness” →

4

A brace of mallets

20150922_114155

I went to a car boot sale the other day, and I bought myself a lovely handbag. Goatgirl was a little disconcerted when she found out – she thought that perhaps I was trying to tell her something.

Continue reading “A brace of mallets” →

1

Guédelon Castle

DSCF9383

Last month, Goatgirl and I took the kids on a camping holiday in France in our recently purchased motorhome. Starting in St. Malo from the ferry, we travelled across Northern France taking in Mont-Saint-Michel, Bayeux and Rouen before meeting up with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend in Maubeuge. From there we drove in convoy across the border into Belgium for the Formula One Grand Prix in Spa. That was an amazing four days, even in spite of McLaren’s poor performance. I hadn’t been to a Grand Prix for over 20 years, and it was a first for Goatgirl and the kids. A good time was had by all.

The day after the race we went our separate ways; my brother and his girlfriend headed home, my parents went on into Germany, and we went south back into France, travelling for another week in a loop that took us south of Paris and then west, back across to St. Malo. Midway through this return journey we had a scheduled stop in Treigny to experience something truly awesome – Guédelon Castle.  Continue reading “Guédelon Castle” →

2

A backup mallet

20150908_200116

A few months ago, I posted about a mallet I had made from a chunk of apple wood donated to me by a friend. Well, since then the head has unfortunately developed a couple of rather large radial shakes. I am wondering if perhaps it wasn’t dried out enough before I shaped it, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. I had toyed with the idea of using some kind of epoxy to fill in the shakes but I’m not sure how useful this would be. The shakes don’t seem to be getting any bigger and the head seems to be holding together in spite of them. I’m not sure if I really need to do anything – perhaps it is just cosmetic. I’d welcome some advice if any of you have experienced this kind of thing. Continue reading “A backup mallet” →

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑