Having made the templates for all the main components for the full scale model (which took bloomin' ages, BTW), the next job was making the real thing. Easy, right!

As all the frame components are cut from solid maple, the first step was to make a series of jigs to cut them out using the spindle moulder. This was no mean feat, given the length of the back leg - and quite a job manouevering it around the machine without banging into either the wall(!) or one of the many piles of wood stacked up in the machine room.



It turned out I've enough Maple to make two chairs - one with arms and a second without. A bit more work in the finishing but at this stage, once the jigs are made, cuttung the components for both chairs at the same time takes no more time.

As it turned out, making the full size prototype wasn't half as complex as I'd imagined. As I headed off to TP's to buy some pine, Daren armed me with a sword to cut the wood down so as to fit it in the car. 'I'm sure the guys down there will help me out with that,' I said. 'No they won't,' came the swift reply. THing is, they did. And why? Because at no point did it even enter the heads of those guys down there that a woman would a) know what a saw is or b) be able to use one. So, of course they offered to cut it up for me - and load it into the car! Result!

The concern in making this has long been the seat shape but thankfully a piece of 3mm MDF nailed into position was easier than I'd thought, instantly creating the effect I was after - and making one helluva comfy chair (even if I do say so myself!)

Just the real thing to do now...

Size and scale

So, here we have the chair model - definitely not the easiest thing in the world to build but it's pretty much there now. Just one thing... as it's quite a complex design, the next step is to make a full size prototype. (sigh). Oh, well, onwards and upwards

A place to sit...

With the table now nothing but a distant memory, the last few weeks have been devoted to designing my next project - a reading chair. Definitely more complicated than the table! I arrived at what was to become the side elevation pretty quickly on paper. And then got stuck. And stuck. And stuck. And then I made a model. To say I 'made a model' sounds way more straightforward and successful than the process actually was. In reality it was a long and frustrating journey that had Daren sending me back and forth to redo various bits until I could have screamed.

Part of me was enjoying making the model while another part felt a bit like I was wasting 'making' time. A couple of weeks on I now realise how important the model making phase is - even more so in this case as I was essentially designing the chair in 3-D. With nothing but a side view on paper, the model had to represent the exact dimensions, look and feel of the final piece, only in one third scale.

Job done.

And then suddenly, there it was. Done.




And worth all the hard work. I remember receiving my first book back from the publisher. Sure, it was a rush but nothing compared to completing this table. It has now been delivered safely to one very happy customer.

And onto the next thing....

Ouch...

Nice curves....

Blimey, my hands hurt. I've just spent hours taking miniscule shavings off one of the table legs with a plane that looks about as old as I feel! The plane is one of Daren's 'Rounds and Hollows' set that have curved blades, thus enabling you to plane into the curve - but it's really, really narrow and takes ages! Doing both legs took about 3 days in total.



Next up sanding... and sanding.... and sanding.....and................



This is all about getting just the right amount of curve in just the right place. Needless to say, my carpal tunnel is suffering the most after more than a week in this position.

Next up... saw kerfing

With the pieces all glued together, next it was time to shape the pieces using a technique called saw kerfing. This involves running the table saw over the piece numerous times, each time adjusting the blade height to create the desired shape - in this case 125 saw cuts (and height changes) per leg! And about 6 hours in the machine room.



What you are left with is a series of grooves that then have to be planed out by by hand.



From here on in it's all handwork....

The right angle

I have to say, I never thought I was that bad at maths. Strike that. I'm not that bad at maths. But when you're standing looking at six pieces of wood, each of which needs two (different) angles cut on either end, suddenly brain freeze sets in and you find yourself languishing in a special needs category all of your own. And then the brain thaws out again and you realise it wasn't so bad (or difficult) after all. Just needed a bit of concentration.

And that's exactly what happened.



Then comes the next challenge - fastening your six beautifully angled pieces of wood together! This had to be done in stages to ensure all the joints were right. Joining four pieces together wasn't too bad, once I'd made a set of blocks to hold the pieces in place...




Adding in piece number 5 also meant also adding in some downward pressure and a new set of blocks...




And the final piece - well, a minor miracle really!

Table talk

Sorry, I've been really crap again about keeping this up to date - so you'll be getting daily blogs this week by way of recompense....

So, now it's all about the Adya Table - a coffee table with concealed magazine shelf in honduras rosewood. This design is all about the wood - it's strength, it's ability and pushing that strength and ability to its limit. It's all about the material. And in one sense, less about the design. Though, that is not strictly true as it is via the design that we get to make all this happen.

First step (and definitely the easiest) was prepping the table top and shelf - board selection, rough cutting both to size, planing and thicknessing. Am I the only one who can see Snoopy in the top...



It gets to a point sometimes when you've looked at a piece of wood for so long that all you can see in it is cartoon animals and weird shapes!

Next up, it was a case of cutting all the pieces to size - the table top is made up of six pieces of rosewood - gluing them together and planing the whole new single piece flat - much easier said than done given rosewood's propensity to tear out at the mere mention of a plane! At least I knew what to expect this time after the whole box debacle and hence had my scraper plane freshly sharpened and permanently within arm's reach.

More boxing

The box hinges were pretty straightforward but the finished article wasn't as good as it should have been so I decided to make a second box - this time in oak and maple. Daren puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of making the box well on this course and says it makes a real difference to the quality of the furniture you then go on to make so I figured a mediocre box would lead to mediocre furniture, which I have no interest in making whatsoever.


It just shows how the rosewood box taught me though. It took the best part of a month to make whereas my subsequent effort took only a week and looks a million times better.


Cutting the components



Ensuring everything's square in the glue-up



The finished box


Complete with oak liners

How NOT to make box liners!

Still trying to nail the box - figuratively speaking. The main body is is done and glued up. Next, the liners. I am making the box to hold my wood samples so the original box dimensions were specifically decided upon so the box was just wide enough to hold one sample. But then the wood kept moving and the sides ended up 3mm thinner than planned. As the outside dimensions remained the same there's now a 3mm gap either side of where the samples will sit. Solution: split the box into three sections using dividers and run the samples across its length instead.

This is how it went.

Monday - set about making the liners. These are about 5mm deep and sit inside the box. It was all fairly straightforward - cut the pieces to size, plane, sand, mitre the ends and fit. Then it was just a case of routing a couple of grooves along each side piece to hold the dividers. Which is when I cocked it up by making the groove too deep, thus rendering the liners useless.

Tuesday - set about making the liners - cut the pieces to size, planed, sanded, mitred the ends and fitted. Only this time they didn't even fit. The mitre guillotine is one of those 'take too little and nothing comes off, take too much and it rips the wood into a nasty curve' jobs leaving said liners fit only for the bin. Finishing any day further behind than when you started it is never a good thing.

Wednesday - third time lucky!

The moral of the story being don't try and rush these things otherwise you just end up making more...



and more...



and more...



until finally....



...you get it right!

Next step: hinges

Thinking outside the box

With the bench now complete, the last couple of weeks have been all about the box. In fact, this was supposed to be a quick two- week project - and probably would be in any other wood. But not Honduras Rosewood. It's hard, heavy and boy does it like to move around. This is actually the same wood that I'll be using for my next project but we're advised to make a small box straight after the bench to get us back into the habit of focusing on the details of a small project after the larger-scale bench.

First though, I had to order the wood. Having been given a sample of Indian Rosewood and decided it was the way to go, I called Timberline in Kent and placed an order. Only when it arrived it looked nothing like my sample of Indian Rosewood. Why? Because the sample I had been given wasn't Indian Rosewood at all. It was East African Pau Rosa. And how did I find this out? By schlepping all the way to Kent with said non-Indian Rosewood to return and it and hopefully get the right one. I should say that this was not the fault of Timberline. I had ordered Indian Rosewood and they had supplied it. The problem was that I was given a sample that I was told was Indian Rosewood when it wasn't. Just a 5-hour drive each way plus a couple of extra hours of post-Glasto chaos just to top things off. And yes, I was pissed off.

That said, it did give me the chance to visit a great wood yard. My 'Indian Rosewood' was identified almost immediately as East African Pau Rosa but they didn't have any. So it was time to find an alternative. After about an hour of block planing various woods to find, first the right one and, second, enough right pieces of the right one, I was good to go. It cost me a couple of hundred quid more, plus petrol plus two days out of the workshop. But I'm not bitter. Much.


But the box will be pretty straightforward from here on in, right? Wrong. All was going fine until I tried to flatten it. Almost every shaving I took with the plain cause the wood to tear out. And just when I thought the piece was flat, I'd take a lunch break to find it had moved again. And so it went on... tearing and moving, and moving and tearing. The 8mm sides are suddenly nearing 6mm and still moving. Aarghhh.

First up, apologies for the delay in posting over the last month. Bit of a family emergency that meant I had to disappear overseas for a couple of weeks. Before I left, I had just completed the tail vice on my bench - a pretty complicated job, as you can see from the number of components...



Then, once the pieces had been cut and fitted came the glue up. I almost had a catastrophe when, once the glue had been applied, one of the dovetails wouldn't hammer into place but Tim saved the day with a couple of almighty (manly) whacks with the hammer. Then out come the clamps to make sure pressure is being applied in all the right places until the glue dries.



And there you have it...



I'm really pleased with the way the purple heart has worked with the maple. I also used it to create the handle for the vice - which also involved creating a composite of the two and then using the lathe (another first) to shape the wood.

And finally....Ta Da....



in position and ready to go...



I've still to make the wood vice to fit on the right hand side but that's this week's job.

Vice squad...

Then it was onto the vice. The workbench has two vices - one metal (which you buy) and the other wood (which you make). Managed to get a great metal vice on Ebay for about twenty quid - but it was bue (the standard for all Record vices). And I wanted it to be silver. Time for a quick paint job...



Then it was onto the surround - purple heart and maple.....

Bring on the bleach...

I decided a while ago that I wasn't too keen on the colour of the Iroko we used for the bench frame. It's a sandy colour when you first cut it (which is fine) but over time darkens to quite a dark brown (which isn't). Not in my line of sight anyway! It's usual to then finish it with Danish oil, which gives the wood a golden tinge - again a no-go for me. So I decided to bleach it with a special wood bleach and then wax.



It's a bit of a faff - apply Bleach A, wait half an hour, apply bleach B, wait a couple of hours, if not light enough apply bleach B again, wait another few hours and so on. Then, wash down with a weak vinegar solution to neutralize. Then wash down with water. Then wait 72 hours. Then sand. You get the picture. So that was last weekend pretty much spoken for. It took a few coats of bleach to get the colour to lift sufficiently but I'm really pleased with the result.

Stuck on you...

After a week of planing and thicknessing, it was time for the big glue up of the bench top. The top is made of three pieces of (very heavy) maple which then have to be glued together to create a single piece - just a few clamps required to hold it in place!



Then it's back to the plane to make sure the surface is completely flat...

A busy week.....

Another busy week here at Rowden. I started the week with a Life Drawing session (my third) and really enjoyed it. This was the result....



Then it was onto finishing the underframe for my bench and making a set of wedges.



The two sides are glued together but the stretchers are dry fitted using wedges so that the bench can be easily disassembled and moved if/when necessary. I decided to go for Maple wedges (to match the bench top) spliced with a strip of Purple Heart - a hint of what's to come vice-wise...



And then it was on to the bench top and lugging a number of 2-metre plus long (very heavy) planks of maple about the machine room to get them down to size. I managed a couple before needing a cuppa and a sit down! I'm still digging the splinters out of my hands.
Meanwhile, as it was pouring with rain outside (and I mean really pouring) Stanners decided it would be much more fun to sit outside the workshop and keep lookout than stay in on his own and have a snooze in his basket. Hence, I returned to find one very wet dog!

And amidst all that I've been working on the design for a coffee table - my first commisson post-bench! I can't believe I've been here nearly four months already. It's going way too fast.

More next week.....

I made a pair of smaller trestles for when I'm making something heavy and can't lift it onto the big ones. Stanley, however, had other ideas!

It's got legs....

First up the trestles.... this was our Machine Room induction project. Very basic - made from pine - with a few too many compound angles for my liking!



And now for bench news ....



After a weekend of solid sanding, the frame is just about complete. Phew!