Housekeeping Continues

It has been over 2 months since my last post. 2010 has been declared the year of the studio. So I've set aside all new furniture designs until I get the shop sorted out. Still patiently working my way through the diabolical district permit process for a small shop addition for metalwork, and a covered outdoor working area/carport. In the meantime, I stripped the shop, built insulated walls & finished the insulation/vapour barrier on the ceiling. She's holding the heat now, just in time for the mild weather. Ripped out a whole bunch of stuff, whatever wasn't crucial, like a big utility bench. The extra space allowed for much needed lumber/in-progress racks/sharpening station/dust collector home.

Slowly getting on top of the chaos that broke loose & putting tools & machines in their place. Loving the bunkhaus laboratory's new warm, white walls, as any self respecting studio should have. Looking forward to getting the metalwork department into it's own space, then I can run ducting for the dust collection, put in a window etc.

A few words about sharpening & the sharpening station i threw together. I've been using this precision ground granite slab for flattening my sharpening stones, & decided to use it as a bench top for honing too. Some people don't flatten their stones too often, but I prefer to keep my stones flat, it eliminates possible confusion, like when you start getting a weird camber on a plane iron & can't figure out why. It's also less of a chore when you stay on top of it. Also really like this 10" slow speed electric wet grinder, works well. I had been persevering with a cool hand grinder, but I couldn't fix the annoying run-out on the arbor, so made the switch.

Here's a link about all sorts of cool local species, going harvesting with Dan has introduced me to a lot of these:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/24206/hank-gilpin-exploring-the-american-forest

Also a good clip, old school style:

www.finewoodworking.com/item/9932/truly-old-school-woodworking

I'm sure there's not too many people left in the world that can whittle a pair of shoes from a log. I'm also sure there's not too many people who can appreciate what it takes to set up & maintain a shop. Which brings me to a good book I read recently - 'Shop Class as Soulcraft' by Mathew Crawford, which questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a cubicle/knowledge worker, and the resulting almost complete loss of craftsmanship in our society/economy. He also takes a close look at the merits of manual work, a great read from a pshycologist turned mechanic.

and in a world where we celebrate mama pacha day once a year, but continue to buy furniture that doesn't last long, a few wise words from a designer buddy of mine (a most entertaining blog with all sorts of goodies):

http://blog.fyidesigndept.com/2010/04/tr-design-diatribe-thoughtful.html

Food for thought...

Speed Stripe Shutters

I enjoy the routine of rolling out of bed & swinging open the shutters to greet the morning & make my Pacific Northwest rain forecast (showers/light/torrential). They have a nice door-swing weight to them, mainly because the western maple frames are 1 3/4" thick with the goal of handling door dimensions as an exercise. The hinges that I knocked up run surprisingly well. I put a Tupla finger slot in the door frame instead of a pull for opening & closing; clean, comfortable, simple. I might make latches at some point. I hit the Western Maple frames with 1000 grit after hand planing & then beeswax; super silky, beautiful wood.

I'm really digging these things, although they don't feature any complex/extraordinary woodworking. I think it's because this is what customising the loft is all about. Reading about designer Eero Aarnio recently '...furthering the notion that home life and design are fully integrated into a sort of laboratory for living.' I like the experimental nature of these things. I'll continue exploring in the bunkhaus laboratory.

Shelter & Shutters

Like the Stones said - 'gimme shelter'. Here's the plan for the metalwork shop/carport; one giant bunkhaus awning. I've started some planning work; finding where the underground services are, gas, hydro etc, sourcing materials & contacting engineers. I plan to use Krinner ground screws for the foundation on the left wall (the foundation wall on the right already exists), these things are awesome http://http//www1.schraubfundamente.de/schraubfundamente.html and reclaimed 6X4's (that I salvaged last summer) for the framing. Hoping to save some weight lifting & use aluminium Ibeam for the roof trusses & aluminium square tube purlins, depending on what the engineers say, and if I can source 30 foot lengths of Ibeam from a mill. Corrogated galvanised steel roofing with a polycarbonate panel for light. I'd like to fabricate some kind of torsion kneebrace system using turnbuckles, that should make her hurricane-proof. Once the drawings are finalised I'll need to mosey on down to the district office to see if there's an outside chance they'll issue this dusty cowboy a building permit.

In-progress pics of the window shutters. A few swift, sweet passes of the jack to square & flush the ends of the panels. Love the Jack. I milled the planks for the panels from one of the many above mentioned rift sawn 6X4's doug fir 10 footers in the backyard, and a little walnut (partly a design feature, more about getting to my width). Cutting kerfs for the tenon wedges, always good to take a deep breath before cutting through a precious tenon. and shooting the door rails flush with the stiles with the jack & a makeshift shooting board. Yes, love the Jack. The massive wedged double tenons glued up like I'd welded the frame together, we'll see how they hold up. Still need to clean up & wax up, & make some hinges.

Harvesting & Housekeeping

Nothing makes you feel like more of a man than cutting logs with Dan's new monster rig. The inaugural firing-up of Dan's 6' bar went well, and we were pleased, and we felt like real men. Sliced up a nice wide crotch piece of Manitoba Maple (Box elder) and a Birch. 12 slabs, a good days takings.

I decided to do some housekeeping before xmas, in between working on the panels for my doors, so the shop roof has been insulated, and a drying shed has been built in the backyard compound.

Here's a cool clip about a man whose in the zone after 30 years of dedication to his craft. I like that he's found the zone, and his multi-medium, japanese influence combination, nice work.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/19284/pro-portfolio-michael-hurwitz-planks-into-poetry

The Jack

A cool print from Brabant "the days last lesson"; makes trying to build a table that's bigger than your shop look like a walk in the park. I like it. Hand planing the western Maple door frames; what a pleasure planing something that actually fits on the bench.

The pleasure was heightened with the newly acquired Lie-Nielson No.62 low angle jack. what a sweet plane! Doing all that hand planing on the walnut gave me a chance to do some soul searching. While wooden planes are a beautiful thing, I've decided to reserve them for things like coopering or compass planes for now. Working in a garage has it's challenges, one being that I need to re-flatten the sole of wooden planes regularly, which opens the mouth. What i like about the bevel-up planes is you can easily change the angle of cut, depending on the angle of the micro bevel. With a bevel down wooden plane, you have to go make another plane with a different bed angle. I'm now using a honing guide & stop block jig to get repeatable micro bevels, and I also have a spare blade prepped with a steep angle for those difficult situations. The mouth on the bevel up planes is also adjustable, so it can be tightened up for fine shavings & less tear-out. I actually thought this plane was going to be on the first truck back to Lie-Nielson, it had a taper on the sole, so the leading edge of the iron was not parallel with the mouth. But I managed to lap it true in the end, & it seems to be running well. It's really like using a big block plane, very similar feel, I like it, I like it a lot.

I'm also really liking the Western Maple. One of my new favourites. It didn't machine that well, but it came to the party with hand planing & responds well to a good burnishing with the plane shavings. Nice to find a good local wood that's not too expensive (~$6/board foot). Hopefully Dan & I can harvest more soon.

Table No. 2

Equally at home in a converted barn loft, or the conference room. Measuring in at 118 1/2" x 40 1/2" x 30". XXL. 8 planks of Black Walnut finished with hand rubbed Kunos, a waterproof all-natural product, clear coated cold rolled steel and acrylic lacquered hot rolled steel.

Edge joints

After a quick tune-up the slot mortiser was thrown into production. I got carried away. an aircraft will be able to land on this table. Lots of dowels. But then, table tops do see lots of moisture over the years, so maybe aircraft carrier construction is not such a bad thing. Here's a couple planks getting stitched up for a dry fit. Before I got the mortiser, I was planning on using biscuits for the edge joints, but dowels provide more strength & a precise fit.

The scene of the crime - the nice thing about making tables is you have an assembly table for glue ups all ready to go. I glued up the planks in pairs, & flattened each pair with my jointer hand plane, top & bottom. Then started gluing up the pairs & re-flattening by hand until I had one big flat table top. About 9 days of hand planing! Nathan at Chapel Arts in East Van has a CNC machine for getting big wood flat, about 100/hr (he has the most awesome shop in a heritage building). Gluing up the whole table top, then flattening with the CNC machine & finishing with a smoother plane would be a more economical approach. I decided to do it by hand this time round because it's a good exercise to go through & was curious how flat I could get it by hand (pretty damn flat).