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.

About a month ago I wrote about a book I picked up called Zany Wooden Toys That Whiz, Spin, Pop, and Fly, by Bob Gilsdorf. It took a while, but managed to get hold of Bob and ask permission to make one of his projects for a video.

Guys, this is one of the best woodworking books I have ever run across. All 28 projects are ones I would like to build. In most woodworking books, Im happy to settle for a couple that look doable. These are so creative and clever! I wish I had half the creativity as Bob.

All the projects are designed for the total beginning woodworker: you can do them all with a few basic hand tools. But whats cool is that they arent your typical boring birdhouses and the like. These all do stuff!

No, Im not getting compensated in any way for all this praise. I just really like the book.

In exchange for using one of Bobs plans, Fox Chapel Publishing asked me to link to the book here. If you would like to buy one, they have also given me a discount code that will save you 20%. When you check out, enter coupon code zany20. Its good until the end of the year.

One of the projects in the book is a soccer player that you control. Using an ingenious rubber band system, his legs kick a ball, but I am making two modified versions that feature the heads of Chuck Norris and Mr.T. so they can have a fight to the finish. I have no doubt Chuck Norris will win. By the way, did you know that Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect 4 in three moves? Yeah man. But this aint the only amazing Chuck Norris fact.

I digress. The project I chose to do for the video is the "10 Cent Labyrinth Challenge". Its really simple to make, but will drive people nuts trying to solve! Enjoy the video.

Earlier this summer I picked up a copy of Peter Follansbees video "17th Century New England Carving" and I started on a bit of a journey that has taken most of the summer to complete. After practicing a few basic techniques I decided to jump into the deep end of the pool and build a carved box sometimes called a bible box. I did make some, non traditional decisions with the box.

Initially the box initially progressed slowly, carving a panel at a time at different events. I started with the sides of the box, choosing to carve the front facing section first. I borrowed heavily from Peter Follansbees work to get started but in my mind that only made sense because I had used his video to pick up the techniques I needed to refine.
I find it difficult to take pictures of the process while Im carving, with joinery and other woodworking operations there are some clearly defined steps and that makes remembering to pick up the camera easy, but carving is almost one long process, and once I get started working I get drawn in. At that point pictures become a secondary thought, but I am trying to get better about that. Above is the start of the front panel with its opposing series of arches

I did blog about the demo and the other things that went on that weekend HERE.
Mix in a couple of days of visiting with the public as they came through our demo and you get this finished panel, below is the print out of a picture of Peters work that I used as reference. This was my first time really carving anything like this and I am still pretty proud of the way it turned out.
A close up of the carving.

After that weekend the pieces went back to the shop, until the next event a month and a half later. Now I was ready to tackle the sides but I had some decisions to make. I could carve them exactly like the front with the arches reaching all the way to the edges, or I could change up and do a more encapsulated design. I really liked the idea of the stand alone medallion on the side and besides, this piece was for practice so mixing it up would be good.
I started it out with a vague idea of one arch and one fleur de lis, so I used dividers to scratch in the top arch and the two half arches that reach up into the flower. Then I just stood and stared at the piece for a while, trying to visualize where to go next.

I started by conecting the arches together. From there I filled in the space inside. If you click on the pic to look at it bigger you can see the divider scratches in the yet undone side. I laid out both of these at the same time so I didnt have to try and recreate the settings on the dividers over from scratch.
With the front and sides carved I couldnt help but bang the dovetails together in a dry fit and place the stock meant for the lid on top to visualize things a little. Then I moved on to carving a larger motif on the lid, but well talk about that more next time.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

My favorite beer: Spotted Cow, craft brewed locally here in New Glarus Wisconsin.

My favorite restaurants: Local, family owned places win out over any chain/franchise store every time.

I prefer to buy my lumber from a small saw mill up the river as opposed to buying at a box store.

I guess Im a domestic kind of guy.


But walking the straight and narrow is difficult, and sometimes I cheat. Ill drink a Coors Light or buy supper in a fast food drive through or buy boards at Home Depot. Ive also strayed from the domestic woods I love and despite myself Ive gathered a small collection of exotic woods. Most of them came from a random grab bag buy at one of my semi annual pilgrimages to the Woodcraft store in Madison.

Ive horded these pieces for a while, but two things made me decide to dig through the dusty collection and liberate some of the selection. The first was the build itself. James Krenov often used exotics to highlight and draw attention to details in his work. I wanted to emulate that, but I found myself waffling in the decision. Working with exotics can be a little like playing with fire. Time after time Ive read accounts of accomplished woodworkers, artists who have made their names in grain and sawdust, who have played with exotics and developed an allergy that has made it dangerous for them to be around sawdust at all. An allergy that steals their avocation and their art from them.

If Im honest, the off chance of that happening is very scary to me. Ive held those pieces of exotic on the shelf for a while because of that fear. I thought maybe Id make the door pulls from black walnut and more cherry wood.

Then I received my copy of "To Make As Perfect As Possible: Roubo on Marquetry" and started reading my way through it. The book starts with an extensive listing of exotic woods, their properties and colors. It took me a while to work my way through that part of the reading, but the overall listing of it was fun and fascinating. It made me think more about my small horde and about how silly it was to have it sit there on the shelf.


I piled it up and planed down several pieces. I wanted to use two contrasting woods. Since the pieces came in a turners grab bag and Im not very experienced outside my little domestic circle. To me the pieces look like Rosewood and Bloodwood.


Planing the blocks yielded some of the most entertaining shavings Ive made. Looking at the color contrast in this small pile helped satisfy my worries that I had made the right choice.


I used the bandsaw to break down the stock into the dimensions I was looking for.


There was some great subtle grain in the bloodwood. I paid attention and set up to bookmatch the grain on the handles. It will be a subtle touch, but the kind that I like.


The rosewood broke down into four blocks to hold the handles.


I marked out the mortise on the rosewood blanks. I drilled them out and squared them with chisels.


Test fitting for a tight fit.


Then I used rasps to round the corners and smoothed them down up to 400 grit paper.


I set them out on the door fronts, I played with several configurations. horizontal, vertical, and asymmetrical. In the end, with some consultation from my wife, we decided that a standard vertical placement in the middle of the door height was the best.


I set them out and mortised the space for the rosewood tabs.


Its satisfying to stand the cabinet up, look at the results, and be happy with what you see. There was one problem Im not happy about.


Maybe I was overzealous paring out the mortise, the grain of this pine is wild and weak in places with all the small knots and I blew out a significant chunk on the inside of one of the doors. I havent decided how Im going to repair it. I imagine it will have to be some kind of patch.


Other than the patch, the cabinet is in the home stretch. The final work will be the two small accent drawers for the inside. Im using spalted maple for the fronts and cherry for the sides. Ive been saving the maple board for just this kind of thing.

What will I do when I run out of these specialty odds and ends?

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

Good Evening All,

Well, it has begun to snow again here in Minnesota this afternoon and evening. Its supposed to rain and snow all night tonight and into tomorrow so we may have some snow on the ground tomorrow morning.

Snow or not, its time to talk about the next project: the pine tea box and here is a photo of it from several days ago. Its the yellow block in the left of the photograph:


Discussion

Ive been wanting to make tea boxes that have a more curved exterior than the ones I usually make and Ive also wanted to begin experimenting with some exterior adornment. This block is comprised of several oddly placed pine blocks that were laminated together with the hope of carving the block. The grain patterns dont match up well so I think this might be a good block to experiment with. I also have a 2" thick solid pine block that I can use for a lid and both are a pleasant vanilla yellow color.

Plans

Im going to turn this into a tea box that has the capacity to hold about 3 oz of loose tea leaves. So first Ill cut off the corners of the block and then mount it on the lathe. Next Ill shape it into a cylinder and from that Ill sculpt the outside of the block. Lastly Ill make the lid for the box. When this is all done it will have to be sanded perfectly smooth and the tools will have to be kept super sharp to prevent tearing of the wood as soft woods are prone to this.

Ive got a head cold at the moment and its supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow so I probably wont do any turning till Sunday.

Blue Period Returns

Those of you who have been following the blog for a while will remember that about a year ago I tried to stain a couple of dried flower vases blue and wound up with flower vases that were kind of a puke pink color instead. Ill spare everyone the details of that. This time Im going to paint the body of the box a blue-grey color and leave the lid natural pine color. So with paint there cant possibly be a way for me to screw this up this time (of course with all of the coffee scoop projects that have all gone bad, this may be too much to hope for) as Ill find someone to mix the color for me before I begin painting. So keep your fingers crossed, the blue period is coming back.

So if youre here in the mid west, stay warm and if youre elsewhere where its warm, stay cool and Ill see you later this weekend.

VW

#007 out the door today, and what a beauty! a local client commissioned this vermont themed banjo from will at seeders instruments a while back ... all vermont woods and inlays; local cherry from bob crosby at battenkill tone woods in arlington, vermont, walnut from my dcf stock, cut in rupert, hop hornbeam for the fretboard from a friend who was cutting some firewood and liked the look of the log and dropped it at our shop for will to dry and use ... its all good ... click the pictures to enlarge them ...
the seeders instruments nameplate ...
the whole deal
side view
will set up a new photography thing by hanging the banjo from the ceiling on monofilament fishing line in front of some pool table felt we had on hand. were wrestling with a new camera so some of the photos seem a little dark, but the details are crispy when you blow them up ...
back view with another map on the heel ..
peg head with a little knot figure in the walnut
nice tuners from stew mac ..
and the boat heel detail on the neck ... very cool ... i had never seen that shaped detail before.
and there is a short video, both claw hammer and picking style on wills website and there are a few in process photos below ...
other banjo posts here ... and wills banjo plays nice with some of our other vermont stuff ... might be time for me to do something vermonty ... hmmm .
the boys are proud to be vermonters .. sam has sold about 150 of his vermont belt buckles now ... great wedding and birthday presents.
and trevor made this coffee table for himself a few years back