Proud and another not finished

I am proud of my effort this last 2 weeks, it is so good to be doing some real wood work that has nothing to do with gib board and paint.
This bench top will eventually be to the left of our stove and the off set will allow one of us to use the top and be out of the other persons way as they use the stove.
The light wood is douglas fir and is glued to a sheet of mdf, the douglas fir is very old and I wasted a lot cutting out the big knots and wood borer as a result I had very few long pieces so the idea of the compass rose was to enable me to use the short pieces, the purple hart was given to me and I just had to use it, I think the result is very pleasing adding to an otherwise plane top.
I think the colours will be more pronounced once the coating is applied.
The material for the kitchen cupboards is ordered along with draw runners, the second hand rimu has been rescued from its cob web infested corner, I have 13 doors and some draw fronts to make from this pile of what at the moment looks like rubbish, today I spent some time extracting nails and cutting out some very large knots and at times have my doubts about the quality of this pile there are some very large shakes that are full of very dry gum and the nails I have been pulling out were 50mm deep into the wood and at 450mm  centers so at some time I will be making a lot of fire wood and dust along with all the thoughts of "why have I chosen to do this" the radio will be necessary to distract my mind and keep me otherwise entertained.

Excitment in a rose

The compass rose is taking shape, the colored wood is 5mm thick and glued to 9mm mdf, it has taken me 2 days of intensity to get this far, I have had other things to do but there is probably 6 hours or more in cutting and fitting these shapes and gluing them to the backing board, the dark long pieces are purple hart and will be cut to radiate out from the center filling up the ellipsis around the points then it will all be set in the bench top to finish flush.
Ho so much fun.  

3 Days on

Its been a fun 3 days and a lot to show for it, I did 2 pressings in the jig shown in the last post each time I glued up 4 lamination's and when removed from the mold it sprung open I then took 12mm off the outer part of the mold and glued together the 2 previous pressings giving a very stiff, very accurate 21mm edging, the joints are tight on the top fortunately but a bit gappy on the underside and may look better when I cut it to width, I am very pleased with the stiffness and the way it has kept its shape, it is now put aside till I have the top made and ready for the edging.
I machined up the Douglass fir trying to keep the grain straight and eliminating any blemishes I have cut it to 20mm thick and about 50 to 70mm wide there is still much worm to cut around and some big knots so I have a lot of short pieces and to make the short pieces more usable I have decided to incorporate a compass point within the round end, the center of the compass point will be the center I used for the round end, I will try to encase the compass point in a ellipse making the north point long and east / west point short, as the bench top is such a plane colour the compass point will be very colorful I have some very pink jarrah that I expect will go dark brown and european beach that is very pale and to fill in the ellipse with purple hart so a big splash of color, I had wanted to use

padouk but after my last efforts with it and the bleeding of the color into the white wood the jarrah is my next choice.
In this photo I have tried to show one of the drawings of the compass point it is not the one I will use but you will get the idea if you can see it.
There is a lot to do now and progress will be slow but fun.

Starting the kitchen

Its a big project so as they say break it down into small projects and face a bit at a time.
I will replace the ceiling around August and plan on having a kitchen ready to install when the ceiling is finished there are some new windows to install along the way and the walls to reline.
The bench top here is going to be different and I have toyed with what to do for a long time, well since we moved into the house I have known that the bench is too near the stove and had thought a island unit was the way to go but having looked at the pros and cons I have decided to change the shape moving the bench away from the stove, the area behind the bench unit is intended as a dinning room but we have our large table towards the lounge so the space is vacant most of the time, it is access to the ranch slider and we need room for a curtain, at the moment the microwave is taking valuable bench space up so I an thinking of a shelf between the extractor hood and the curtain, the electrical socket will need moving down but that's a small issue.
I have shown the cupboard door style in a previous posting also the stainless steel sink bench top so I am hoping a bench top of Douglas Fir won't look out of place, I have some very tight grain Douglas Fir and with a thick coat of epoxy that is made for bench tops I hope it will stand the use it will get.
This picture shows the back side of the top so it will be the other hand when installed, that offset is 300mm so I think it will push the top far enough away from the stove to be more comfortable it will also give us one more cupboard than we have at the moment along with a bigger bench.
The picture shows a piece of mdf I will use when laminating the edging of the top, I intend a 20mm thick edge and the only way to get douglas fir around that radius is in 2mm strips so I will be gluing 10 of them together around that radius then strip plank the top, the strip planks will follow the shape I say to make it more interesting but the truth is I have lots of short pieces and not mush that is 2.2m long as I want to cut out the knots and other defects, the end against the wall is 600mm wide and 900mm at the round end.
Just one small project in the big picture that will keep me busy for a while.