Prep for wood show

The drawers have been finished a while now so I turned my attention to what else I would enter in the wood skills show, the Yin Yang I had made thinking I may use it on the top of the drawers had to have a home and a place in the show, I had a rimu bowl with too many defects and thought if I cut off the bottom I would replace it with the Yin Yang, The end result is not what I really wanted but then it shows the Yin Yang of working with wood the course wood and the fine the heart wood and the sap the perfect wood and the defects the light and dark wood, dare I say it the right shape and the !!!! well this bowl says a lot of things and its not all perfect so that

is Yin and Yang as I understand it.

July better than June

June was a month that was all on, I was never quite sure how much time I needed, I did think I would be making the top in July and I thought it would take most of July, instead we are now the 12th of July the drawers only need the handles gluing on the top is ready to be screwed on and once the final coat of the Osmo oil wax treatment is dry I can glue on the front legs.
The veneer I had restricted me in what I could do with the top, I had thoughts of having to join pieces together and even then did I have pieces big enough, I started to make a Yin Yang that I thought would be surrounded by an oval piece of walnut then set in the center of each panel of the top, then once I realised my veneer was going to be big enough and the veneer was so full of the shimmer of a pommely I just had to discount the Yin Yang it will be used some where else one day.
When I looked at the front it is such a mass of one colour I was pleased I was going to use the swimming whales to form the handles, July is the month of handles or shall we say drawer pulls, I knew the top center drawer had to have a pull that matched the edge banding above so that pull is one on its own the others are all facing the same way as the banding above, now I think it is a bit too much of swimming whales, someone pointed out its an "over the top piece of furniture" so lets be over the top and enjoy it.
The whole unit stands 930mm high 1470mm long and the top is 610 front to back so a big piece of furniture.
The exhibition organisers called me today to ask if I'm ready, its so good to say Yes I'm ready.

 
 

June the month to remember

I had thought that if I could get all the wood work finished by the end of July I would then have August to do the finish coats, I want the have the whole thing finished and ready to transport to an exhibition in early September, at the moment I feel as if I am ahead of scheduled another 2 days and I will only have handles to prepare and fix on, I have some wood turning I want to do early in July, how ever I can see I will be totally finished by the end of July so 4

weeks earlier than I had thought.
I did think the top would take longer than it did to make but then a lot of preparation had been done as I made the drawers, I was unsure just what I would do for the top the veneer I have used was very limited in size so I had to make the boarder wide or do something to take up the space I started to make a Yin Yang to go in the center of each panel but decided against it as I would loose too much of the effect of the pomelly veneer.
The cabinet has had 2 coats of finish and while that should be enough I an not happy with the result so there will be a third coat and probably 3 coats on the top.
I was pleased to get the white whale swimming around the corner of the top and also pleased with the meeting of the whales in the center of the top, the patchy look on the top is water, water that I use to remove the the veneer tape, the tape is used to hold the pieces together till the glue dries that is holding it all together.
The next pictures will be of a complete and finished chest of drawers.

Good Progress Short Days

With so much to do the days are going by so fast, of course it being winter I don't want to be out in the man cave too early or too late in the day.
I seem to have done so much but its also very time consuming, the big curved panel stood here on the floor was pressed by vacuum on the mold I made, it has now been cut up to form the drawer fronts, I pressed it long ago it seems now but it had to be done first as it dictated what the curve of the front would be.
I wanted the drawer fronts to look as if they were dovetailed to the sides so the detail took some time to achieve and to me making more than one of anything takes a long time, I made 7 drawers.
The front legs were left off because I wanted to be able to sand the fronts flat and not do damage to the legs.
Once all the veneer panels are glued on I will start cutting and gluing the boarders around them, its a slow job as I have a limited amount of cramps, I also want to be very careful and be sure there are no mistakes.

 

A new project

I sold the 2 pieces in the last post and am pleased with the response I have had at the local market, the markets are quiet during our winter and I need something to do.
Last year I entered a wood work exhibition with 5 of my turned bowl, I won a second prize, the people around me were saying I should enter some furniture I have made, the rules stipulate entries need to be made in the year of entry, I need a chest of drawers for my bedroom, I have some veneer that is asking to be put to good use, I wanted to have another go at making the inlay I put in the legs here.
I made a block of the inlay in January but I was not happy with the result so I have remade it then glued it to the legs.
I made the panels that will be the ends to the unit, Its a pattern I have used before, this time its a double so the pattern is 2 high and made using a mahogany that is 3mm thick, its a course grain so I am using an oil on it that will leave the features of the grain showing, these panels are about 700mm high and 350 wide the veneer is glued to a 12mm MDF later I vacuum pressed it onto a 9mm ply so the MDF is not seen and I have thickness to fix the drawer sides to.
The whole unit is over 1300mm long it will be 2 drawer wide in the bottom 2/3 and 2 drawers high then the top 1/3 will be 3 drawers wide so 7 drawers in all each drawer being about 200mm high the fronts will be round.
I was given a piece of tree trunk 2 years ago that turned out to be Japanese cedar I had chain sawed it up expecting to turn it into bowls, I had it drying and it was still big enough to be used for the drawer sides so the plan is to leave the wood natural with the hope the smell will be there every time I open the drawers the bottom of the drawers will be bamboo ply.
At the moment I have no idea what I will do with the top only that the inlay going down the legs will continue around the edge of the top.
The wood show is held during September so I would like to have this finished by the end of August, its a big project and I have a long way to go.

 

Different Bowls

I got lucky and was given some large pieces of wood, the first was a piece of pohutukawa, this bowl is 270mm wide and 60mm high the blank I was given was much bigger but had a split through it so the easiest way was to put the axe through it and see where the split went, I don't like to waste wood so it told me to leave it square then there was some bits on those wings I wanted to remove so this is where it took me, I have seen this type of design called manta ray as in the swimming stingray type creature, it was a lot of work but worth the effort as it is a nice piece of wood.





The second piece of wood I was given was not so thick but a far bigger diameter, the platter has turned out to be 520 diameter and about43mm high, it was very difficult to sand as it instantly clogged up the sandpaper, that alone should have told me what the wood is the smell was there but I could not believe I would be given such a wonderful piece of kauri, most kauri I have come across has not been so colorful being almost mono colour this piece is different.
There were some voids that became bigger as I dug out the bark or
loose wood then to be filled with epoxy and wood dust so again a while in the making and the biggest piece I have turned.

New Wood

The wood is new to me, it had become too big at the bottom of a neighbors garden, its a Rimu tree and maybe 60 years old and for that kind of tree its young so I don't expect to find any great colour in it, I have been slowly cutting it up and rough turning it I have about 6 pieces turned and in cardboard boxes drying now.
I gained some dry Tawa, nice clean white Tawa, it is 8" X 2" I cut a piece off and turned it into a platter with wings just to see the quality of it, the one on the right is Matai and came from the local beach so a piece of drift wood, all these timbers are native to New Zealand.
I know people like rustic but I also like to achieve a good looking finish to what I turn so I am torn between leaving in the natural flows or trying to produce perfect pieces of wood which is very rare given that wood is so prone to movement, the Matai has some splits while the Tawa is perfect.
I have been working on some bowls I turned wet during the year, the one on the right is Elm Burl and is 8 1/4" diameter, now it is dry it is hard and nice to work with, the back one is Pohutukawa another New Zealand native timber this piece is 10" diameter a few cracks have appeared that I glued up as I went along so there were a few day work involved with this one, the bowl on the left is Cherry
a piece of wood I exchanged for some of my Elm Burl it was dry but split, I cut the block by the split, machined a good surface and glued the 2 pieces together before I turned a shape again I found shakes in the wood that had to be glued up before the final turning, all these pieces have been rewarding to get to a final point.