Proy Wood

I always love to hear from folks who have made versions of my projects. A year ago I made a little swing to hold a couple of small potted plants. I gave it to someone as a Christmas gift and havent thought about it in a long time.

Gaetan Montenot is the first person Ive met from Mauritius! (I had to Wikipedia it...its an island east of Madagascar. Interesting fact: it was the only known habitat of the dodo bird!)

Gaetan made a bigger version of the swing and managed to slip in the little ladybug. Nicely done.

Browsing Pinterest I found this amazing light, Lolita - Shine by SHO and fell in love with the arms. Its lines are simple, but make a big impact! Perfect for a statement piece!


Once we decided on the shape, we measured and marked the edges with a permanent marker. The egg crate diffuser was cut into the shape of the arms with small clippers (clipping as close to the edge as possible).


Next we taped the bottom with painters tape and filled with plaster of paris (mixing it on the thinner side so that it would level itself at the top). You want it as level as possible to reduce sanding. Any excess was leveled off with a spackle knife.


Once firm, they were placed in the sun to fully cure (I ended up letting it sit overnight)

Then excess was sanded off. Some of the squares fell out during sanding, so I used a little craft glue to get them back in place. Then I patched the imperfections with drywall spackle and sanded again once dry. This part was pretty messy - so I was definitely glad to be done with sanding!

We wanted a simple fixture so that it wouldnt compete with the arms. Looking through thrift shops, all we could find were ones with curves (very 80s) we needed something more mid-century modern. So we ended up building our own electrical housing out of old chandelier parts, PVC, and brass tubing.

Heres how we did it:

All parts were lightly sanded to remove any gloss, and dust was removed with a microfiber cloth. Then it was primed, and painted with Sherwin William Rivulet (2 coats).


We finished it off with 2 coats of Krylon Lacquer to give it a super glossy finish.

Turning off the electricity first, we installed the light and held our breath as we flipped the switch.

Success! It works!


We also installed trim and painted 8" stripes on the ceiling to frame the fixture. 

Hollows and Rounds...Made in China?















Being a user, collector and lover of hand planes Im always keeping my eye out for rare or unusual styles. When recently surfing around the Japan Woodworker Online Catalogue I discovered some wooden bodied, Hollows and Rounds that are being manufactured in China. China? I thought...Why not, every thing else is made there so I decided to take a closer look. Ive always wanted a nice old set of hollows and rounds; Ive searched e-Bay, online and local antique tool dealers but always found that most you come across are over priced old planes that youll need to spend a lot of time refurbishing to get them back to a user friendly state or are simply nice old tools for someone to put on a shelf and look at. I wanted something I could use and hopefully not have to spend a small fortune on.
After reading the description and studying the photos of these planes I decided to order a few select sizes. Theyre manufactured in China and arrived well-packaged in cardboard boxes with a borg logo on the side. (no Trek-ie affiliation as far as I could tell)


The description on the Japan Woodworker web-site said the planes have been manufactured in and around Hong Kong for the past 20 years by Mujingfang. They decided to begin producing these high quality Chinese Style Planes seeing that previously, it was a cottage industry with little or no quality control. Furniture makers in and around Hong Kong use hollowing and rounding planes to create moldings and for shaping pieces of furniture. The plane bodies are hand made from well aged Rosewood and are nicely contoured to fit the hand.
They are 6-1/4" long and width varies according to size. The blades are high carbon steel and although needed honing and sharpening on arrival, the extremely reasonable price made it worth my while. They are sold as a set of one hollowing and one rounding plane for each width. I went with the 1/4", 1/2", 1" and 1 1/4" widths. After using these planes for the past six months Im very pleased with the quality and performance; as for the very-affordable prices all I can say is...Resistance is futile.