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Pair of bar stools for our kitchen/lounge breakfast bar.

We moved into a new house in September. I told the wife don't worry I'll build some stools. Took a lot longer than planned due to other jobs and various other things on the go. I didn't officially start until well into the new year.

First time doing mitred mortice and tenons and there was a lot here. This was also my first time of making two of something, so having to make sure they matched and keeping the parts well labelled was a task in itself.

American White Oak - Danish Oil finish.

This was my first time doing upholstery too - my wife helped and we did a great job if I say so myself. Found a video online which made the result very professional as I was worried about this part. Felt like I learned loads during this build, made a few mistakes too but discovered the joy of cabinet scrapers as I had some nasty tearout when planing one of the legs due to the grain changing direction.

Overall super happy with the results - beats standing at the bar now and the guests that have used them so far think they're great.
 
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V2 of my daughters built-in bed thing. V1 has an extra set of drawers and was too tall.

The drawers are from something IKEA, which was more trouble than it was worth. The runners have zero capacity for finessing so the install has to be perfect. What a pain.

The rest is CLS and ply.
(I'm assured that these will be sufficient storage)
(and if not, she can keep her dresses and stuff in my wardrobe.)
(Along with all my wife's clothes which are already in my wardrobe.)
(I should probably build myself a new wardrobe somewhere inconvenient).

More importantly plenty of space for her books and random stuff 10 year old kids have.

Whilst I was at it, I filled in various holes in the plaster, ripped out the existing naff wardrobe /drawers combo, revarnished the floor, and repainted the walls.

The colours are not my choice. I do what I'm told...
 

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V2 of my daughters built-in bed thing. V1 has an extra set of drawers and was too tall.
(I'm assured that these will be sufficient storage)
(and if not, she can keep her dresses and stuff in my wardrobe.)
(Along with all my wife's clothes which are already in my wardrobe.)
(I should probably build myself a new wardrobe somewhere inconvenient).

More importantly plenty of space for her books and random stuff 10 year old kids have.

Whilst I was at it, I filled in various holes in the plaster, ripped out the existing naff wardrobe /drawers combo, revarnished the floor, and repainted the walls.

The colours are not my choice. I do what I'm told...
Very nice. As for saying sufficient storage though, I think that's a little like saying 'I have enough clamps'.
 
Just had a
Just had a look through your previous posts and see that you're "the Beast"! Great website and products. One of the reasons I'm getting into woodworking is to do cases for Eurorack and studio equipment. I've been eyeing up Serge and Buchla DIY stuff too. Do you produce the circuit boards ? Tempted by a Easel but probably not the best buchla to start with. If you do cases I'd love to see them.
 
Before lockdown we'd started playing cribbage fairly regularly and mostly with four players. Most boards just have three lanes as traditionally four players would play in pairs but we like playing individually so I decided to make a couple of four lane boards using some left over maple and walnut from previous projects (working on the principle that if I'm making one, I may as well make two in case one goes wrong). I made a drilling template in 10mm HDPE which also provided the guide for a flush trim router bit for the shaping of the board. the lines are just drawn on after the drilling and final sanding before finishing with Osmo and a wax buffing.

Looking forward to when we can get together with the neighbours and play again :)

Cribbage Boards.jpg
 
Hi. That’s incredibly nice neat work, how did you draw the lines on/what with please. Obviously anything inky would follow the grain. Ian
Thanks.
At first I'd planned to transfer the lines using an inkjet printout on waxed paper but I wasn't happy with the result. So I placed a paper printout on the board and used the point of the bow compass to mark the corners/end points of the straight lanes and the centre point for the compass to draw the arcs and then joined the dots. The pin pricks are all covered by the ink line bar the one for the second bend, but I can live with that. The pen is the 0.8 pen from a UniPin fineline drawing set. With the maple sanded to 180 grit it didn't bleed or deviate with the grain. I tried a test with the Osmo finish and it didn't smudge so the only down side will be if it isn't as 'fade proof' as it claims.

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First chisels in partly bright metal. Made from mostly old wood files (the wide one is made from a bastage file for metal - sometimes those are more complex alloys that don't turn out as well as the wood files of the same brand). Aesthetically, I think they still look freehand made (which they are, no jigs or anything, just hammered, filed/ground, heat treated, and then bevels ground and cleaned up freehand) with oxide left on them. "real" english chisels would be crossed up near the tang (glazed across with a finer wheel to remove the oxide, but I don't have any such setup).
 
What do you do for tempering/hardening the blades Dave ?. Is it just gentle grinding or do you heat them up ?. Theres a bloke on another forum im on has been making knives of recent, and he's been experimenting for that sort of thing(not that I understand it, not wood is it :LOL: )

I dont think he'll mind me posting a pic.
He's doing me a steak knife for cutting up my dinner, but I dont feel I can press him on it as its a freebie for some nice timbers I've sent him for the handles.


NOTE - THIS ISN'T MY WORK.
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I harden (by heating) in a forge, quench in an oil called parks50 for most things and then temper in a toaster oven in a "metal sandwich" with an oven thermometer on the shielded metal sandwich.

The first part of shaping is hot hammering (on an anvil).
 
Before lockdown we'd started playing cribbage fairly regularly and mostly with four players. Most boards just have three lanes as traditionally four players would play in pairs but we like playing individually so I decided to make a couple of four lane boards using some left over maple and walnut from previous projects (working on the principle that if I'm making one, I may as well make two in case one goes wrong). I made a drilling template in 10mm HDPE which also provided the guide for a flush trim router bit for the shaping of the board. the lines are just drawn on after the drilling and final sanding before finishing with Osmo and a wax buffing.

Looking forward to when we can get together with the neighbours and play again :)

View attachment 109736
Those are nice. I made a 4 row similar to that a few years ago. I found a printout template on line and marked the hole positions with an awl. Had to do the drilling in stages as it was a real strain on the eyes. Mine just has a small recess for the pins. The card drawer in your's really is a nice extra.
Regards
John
 
A couple of table lamps, upcycled from a pair of London pattern piano legs. I had to turn a couple of new parts. The hexagonal sections were re-veneered in walnut, then the whole thing bored out on the lathe, wax polished and fitted with a new base (the one on the left is iroko, the other mahogany).

IMG_20201020_143559951_HDR.jpg IMG_20201019_143818114_HDR.jpg
 
What do you do for tempering/hardening the blades Dave ?. Is it just gentle grinding or do you heat them up ?. Theres a bloke on another forum im on has been making knives of recent, and he's been experimenting for that sort of thing(not that I understand it, not wood is it :LOL: )

I dont think he'll mind me posting a pic.
He's doing me a steak knife for cutting up my dinner, but I dont feel I can press him on it as its a freebie for some nice timbers I've sent him for the handles.


NOTE - THIS ISN'T MY WORK.View attachment 109784

That's a nice knife, by the way. The level of entry for really clean knives is pretty high because there are so many makers. I have made knives, but more of the japanese style without bolster because that's what a guy with a grinder will do to avoid the grinding near the tang there (with the groove in the bottom). I don't have a setup to do that cleanly on a hardened knife.

The biggest gain with custom makers, in my opinion, is the ability to get a knife with a reasonably thin longer flat grind that's well finished and on a knife hard enough to hold a honed edge rather than be lower carbon with the intent to be steeled.

Stock removal method is probably more common on knives than custom chisels (I like to hammer mine to initial shape - they need to be annealed, anyway, and it gives me a chance to thermal cycle the steel without extra steps (which is heating in descending temperatures - something I need to practice, but that probably isn't getting much gain). Then, the chisels are (they're not really annealed from a metallurgical sense, but the temper is heated out to them and they air cool) soft enough to file and grind and then I reharden them - that gives me control over the hardness on the blade while leaving the tang less hardened so that someone getting rough first notices they may get a slight bend and knock off the behavior - files are notoriously hard and brittle and even when they're just ground and tempered back a little, they can end up being more brittle than expected.

commercial heat treat of a specific alloy would be more predictable, but I haven't settled into bar stock to use instead of files yet (will do shortly), and I hope to never have to use commercial heat treat as I think this stuff can be done well in a forge, as well as mediocre or short cycle commercial heat treat.

the mule below is a test knife that I made out of stock thought to be the same as V11 (admittedly, it's just laying in my shop covered with filth now). V11 has to be heated to a higher temperature and at the time, I didn't want to lengthen my forge to make big knife, but I may now in the future. It's hard (chisel hardness, definitely over 60), very thin and blindingly sharp aided by that thinness. It takes time to make knives because of the steps doing surface finish, and It's kind of a pain, so the shine mostly wore off - chisels being more of a draw for me.
 
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Recently bought a bandsaw so now I'm able to resaw to suitable dims I had a go at a Paul Sellers desk organiser.

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Box is American White Oak with a Zebrano lid and drawer pull. Not varnished yet so not really finished but I've now got a massive dose of CBA after faffing with the hinges for over an hour.

I've done three (I think) boxes in AWO now and as a relative beginner found it difficult to work. It's flipping hard for one thing but I also keep getting caught out with the grain direction. And on that note, I absolutely butchered that Zebrano - just couldn't figure out which way the grain was running. Took a great lump out of it which is why the lid only just covers the top of the box - it was supposed to overhang on all sides and have a fielded section on the underside for the hinges.

Any recommendations for a more forgiving hardwood for my next project?
 
Recently bought a bandsaw so now I'm able to resaw to suitable dims I had a go at a Paul Sellers desk organiser.

View attachment 109828

View attachment 109829

Box is American White Oak with a Zebrano lid and drawer pull. Not varnished yet so not really finished but I've now got a massive dose of CBA after faffing with the hinges for over an hour.

I've done three (I think) boxes in AWO now and as a relative beginner found it difficult to work. It's flipping hard for one thing but I also keep getting caught out with the grain direction. And on that note, I absolutely butchered that Zebrano - just couldn't figure out which way the grain was running. Took a great lump out of it which is why the lid only just covers the top of the box - it was supposed to overhang on all sides and have a fielded section on the underside for the hinges.

Any recommendations for a more forgiving hardwood for my next project?
I made the very same box just before Christmas. Post a photo of the last thing you made
I used cherry for the case, maple for the pull and pine for the drawer bottom and shelf. I didn’t have benefit of a bandsaw though 😀
 

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