Ay Wood project

Ive been fixing a table and chair for a friend. The table was back together and standing on all four feet again, but I had the chair to work on yet.

Chairs are an intimidating thing to me. Ive built one, just one in the past, and though it saw light use, the friend who took it off me in a trade a half dozen years ago has recently told me that some of my questionable joint making has failed.

In my defense, I really had no idea what I was getting into when I started that chair, and I made some very naive decisions. Things I know better now. Im not surprised it failed.

So chairs and I kind of have this spotty history together and Ive resolved that I need to take a good class in them to get over my avoidance issues when it comes to them. But here was a chair I needed to have a good go at fixing.


It was dowel city for the joinery. Many of them broke or wiggled free in the trauma.


Originally I had pulled it apart into three pieces by stressing the joints by hand. A little while later, as I was cleaning things up, one more joint loosened. I had four joints to dowel and glue.


I sawed things even where they stuck out and plugged what was pulled out. Then I redrilled new dowel holes and redid the joinery as it had been in the past.


I glued the front together first and then connected everything else together once the front had dried. In the excitement of it all I forgot to take any pictures until I took the clamps off.


I am less confident about these repairs than I am of the repairs to the table, the cross corner blocks help quell my anxiety.


In the end I would much rather build from scratch, but these occasional repair jobs are good because they push me out of my comfort zone and make me do some different kind of problem solving. The table and chairs have been delivered and the owner was tickled to see her Grandmas table come back to life, especially since she thought it was a goner.

If you missed the repairs, or want to review the whole process, all the posts about this project have been collected at this LINK.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

Hi Everyone,
Ok, Im back.

I love to carve wood and I began carving as a child. But as Ive grown older, Ive developed some arthritis in my hands and hand carving has become just too painful to do anymore. I really miss carving and Ive been searching for a way to carve without too much pain.

I received a request for a set of hand carved spoons last summer and I attempted to make the spoons using a whittling knife and a set of hook knives. It didnt work out and my hands hurt for months afterwards.

Fast forward to last week: I was looking at a catalogue that I get ever once in a while that consists of hand carving tools and in the catalogue was a selection of draw knives. These are knife blades, typically 5 - 11 inches in length with a handle on both ends instead of on only one end of the blade and I decided that carving with both hands at the same time might be the way to carve something:

 So I went and purchased a 5 inch carving knife this morning and a block of basswood and after the bowl turning this morning I roughed out a spoon blank on the bandsaw and sat down and proceeded to carve away:




Here is a photo of how a drawknife is used. These types of carving knives are used to shape the exterior of an object:



Here is the blank after about 1 hour of carving:



This is the block about an hour later:



And of course there are always shavings to deal with:


Well, my hands arent hurting at all. Very good.

Now tomorrow, we have the big problem to deal with: hollowing out the bowl of the spoon. That will have to be done with a hook knife, which is a knife with a single handle and thats going to be more difficult.

As its a holiday weekend in the US, Ill just be taking it easy this weekend but I probably will be working on the spoon and if I do, Ill post more photos.

Lets all take some time off this weekend and remember all the people who have served our country.

VW

Hi Everyone,

I put another layer of lacquer on the tea box this weekend for a total of three layers and let it dry out yesterday until this morning. I took a look at it and decided to place it on the lathe one last time to polish it and here is what it looks like:




The outer lid has begun sticking a bit so Ive brought the whole thing inside and Im going to leave it disassembled for a few days to see if the wood shrinks a little. It has been very humid here in the Midwest the past several days and the wood may have distorted a little in response to the ambient moisture in the air. This is going to eventually live in Southern California where it is drier and warmer and its possible the lid might dry out and shrink a little and loosen up. So well see where this goes.

Im satisfied with the piece overall and I dont plan on doing anything more to it so well stick a fork in it and call it done. Ill mail it at weeks end.

______________________________

And, I got myself a birthday present: pen jaws for my Nova chuck! Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while will remember my past attempts at turning needle cases for yarn needles several years ago. Well, to make a long story short, I failed miserably at it  because at the time I couldnt drill a hole accurately down the center of long blocks of wood. With these jaws Ill be able to drill a hole exactly in the center of small diameter blocks of wood. Im very jazzed as you might guess and Ill do a turning later this week.

Oh Boy!



See you later this week,

VW

So it was time to paint the "One Hour Stool". I had already decided to paint it blue, but just to be sure I brought out the milk paint sticks. Yup, it still wanted to be blue.



I broke out the Real Milk Paint and mixed up a batch of sky blue. I wanted the paint to be somewhat transparent, so I adjusted the proportions to make it more of a wash.


After letting it sit for a bit, I painted up some scraps - Hey, those look like busted up legs from a small stool! Huh, wonder how that happened? Anyway, after they dried, I tested some various oil/wax combinations to see how they would change the appearance.



On the left, is my own beeswax/mineral oil mix. In the center, is Tried & True Varnish Oil. On the right, is Dark Tung Oil. I decided on one coat of the T&T Varnish Oil, and one coat of my own mix.

On to the stool.


First the paint.


Then the oil.


And its done! I didnt keep track of time during this stage of the stool build. Id have to estimate that the painting and oiling took about 45 minutes total shop time.

So I guess that would make this one hour stool a two hour stool...