Barbara Shelton

No More Excuses...

2012-01-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

...except for being trapped behind a computer all day to generate the funds to be able to set up shop. Amazing how draining a desk job can be.

Anyway, below are some photos of our workspace as set up as it is going to be for now. There are still a few things that need tweaking and I don't know if everything has found a permanent place yet or not. I guess it is an evolutionary process that only really happens once one starts using the space. Otherwise I am sure that we could spend another year setting up.

Machine Room

There are issues letting go of off-cuts, even other people's.

We were the benefactors of a friend's recent move to the opposite coast. A pile of local maple.

Said friend's leg.

More adopted wood and future kiln site.

My corner.

Setting up seemed endless, and are still many things that we need, but I know at some point you just have to start working with what you have. Having not known any other shop than the one at school it is hard to separate the 'needs' from the 'wants'.

After so much time going by, rough milling some wood to make sawhorses was super exciting, and the more time I spend here the more my hands start to remember what to do. I am going to officially start work the same way I started the first days at school, sharpening!

Upholstery

2011-09-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post something for a while just to save the blog from death but haven't been doing much in the way of woodworking. Thought this may be worthy of posting.

Earlier in the year we took an upholstery course from a local upholsterer who is in the very early stages of setting up a school. There is more to it than I would have thought. Like wood, you have to be aware of the grain direction of the fabric and the matching of color, patterns and types.

Some photos of the dining chairs I used as my project:

From our local Danish Modern dealer. Covered in black vinyl and a ton of staples.

Hours of staple-ripping to get down to this:

The finished product:

Oh, and just to prove that I do intend to get back to wood...

...my new bench freshly flattened and oiled this weekend.
I did intend to build a bench but this one came up on Used-Victoria for just about the same if not less than the cost of the wood, hardware and mostly the time it would have taken me. It is an Ulmia, made in Germany. Couldn't have asked for a better find. The surface was well used and had a pretty deep dish lengthwise down the middle, but a couple hours of planing and scraping took care of it. Now to get all the hand tools out of boxes!
Will have more photos of the shop to post next time. Want to get it all presentable first;)

Keeping Crafty

2010-11-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

Since leaving school I have had to take a desk-job to counter the after-effects of going two years without an income. At times it feels as if staring at the computer screen is slowly shriveling my soul into a rasin (at least it's not a chickpea). To help keep my hands busy with something I took some quilting classes to get me back into sewing until I can do some woodworking again. Here is the result:

Not bad for my first, although looking at the photos here I see some not very straight seams, heh. Its probably the most colourful thing I own.

Too Long

2010-11-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

Too much time has gone by since I have done anything post-worthy. I thought that I would share the official photos of the cabinet (done by Ingeborg Suzanne) and the first few tools in the basement. The cabinet is currently at the Northwest Fine Woodworking Gallery and will be there until January. They have told me that there has been lots of interest but no serious bites. I'm not surprised, its not exactly priced to sell. Honestly I am kind of happy it will be coming home as it gives me something to show as evidence that the last two years actually happened.

Here are some shots of the machines in the basement so far:

We found this old Beaver drill press on Craig's List...actually Junior found it and we beat him to it. Sorry Junior. It is in great shape, previously owned by a young metalworker who had three of various sizes.

Yellow lettering...in case we forget what it is.

Lord Godfrey pointed us to the boring machine (thank you Ian). A former IP student was selling it just around the corner from where we are living. It came with a brand new Felder XY table, new Jacobsen chuck and new motor. (sorry about the blurry photo)

I guess Michal likes his fingers or something, he was dead set on getting a Stop Saw. We got to see the demo done in the store with a smokie. Pretty crazy! We haven't turned it on yet, so all I can say about it so far is I don't like the colour scheme

Wee dust collector.

It's still a way away from being functional but just seeing it start to happen is pretty exciting.

Finished

2010-04-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Finally finished off the piece on Thursday, save for a little refinement on the fit of the doors. Here are a few quick shots, will be getting professional photography done in May.

On the same day of finishing, Fine Woodworking finally came to the Coast, featuring Jason's letter from the students to JK and a photo of me working on the cabinet.

The photo wasn't at all staged.

Thanks for the great letter Jason.

Silver Pulls

2010-04-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Talking to Robert about what to do for the pulls led to using drop pulls to keep with the 'elegant' look of the cabinet. Usually we make drop pulls in the shop out of brass but while flipping through a book on craftsman-style furniture I saw a cabinet where silver wire pulls were used. I thought silver would go well with the silvery shimmer of the Curly Sycamore and liked the light, airy look of being able to see through them.

Some sketches:

After meeting with Erin Dolman about the silver, she advised me that the gauge of the wire we would have to use to keep with the scale of the cabinet would be too thin for practical use. So we came up with another design, keeping lightness of it and the shape of the Sycamore keys that I wanted.

Unfortunately using silver for the posts that attach to the cabinet was impractical as well, financially. So I decided to use brass and shape it to be mostly hidden by the seed part of the pull.

Using a jig made of maple, the mortise was cut into the brass on the shaper with a slot-cutter. The hole to receive needed to be ever so slightly proud of the top of the jig so that screwing the top piece of wood in place would hold the brass securely. This was done by drilling the hole close to the top of the jig then hand-planing the surface just until the hole is visible. (note: the other two holes are mistakes)

A tenon had to be cut on the back of the round post to prevent from rotating in the door. That was done on the table saw using a square piece of wood the same dimension of the post with a tenon that fit tightly in the brass piece. This gave me a reference to cut a square into the end of a cylinder.

A hole was carefully drilled from the back of the post and tapped, which allowed it to be screwed into the door from the inside. The screw head will be inset and the hole plugged with a small piece of Olive, the same wood used for the consoles, flipper-floppers and levelers. The hole was centred by drilling a hole in a piece of wood the same size as the post, then with the pit in place on the drill-press, clamping the piece of wood down. The post was then inserted into the wood and the drill bit changed to the appropriate size. A kerf was cut from the end of the jig to the hole to allow for enough clamping pressure to hold the brass down while drilling.

With the silver and brass pieces glued together with hot glue, a hole is drilled for the pin that the silver pull will pivot on.

To secure the pull while drilling, I used the same jig as used on the shaper. This held it in place, gave me a place to easily mark the hole location, and kept the bit from walking off the side of the post as it had to be drilled a bit off centre.

The pieces were then separated by soaking in acetone.

Drilled into the front of the door to sink the post about 1/16 in, and a hole to accept the screw from the back. Then chiseled out a mortise to accept the tenon.

Some detail shots:

It was a lengthy, finicky process (as you can see by the wordy post) but I am really happy with how they turned out and I think they really suit the piece.

Year End Show

2010-04-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

Open House

Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking

Saturday May 8th 1pm-5pm

1055 Roberts Creek Rd

Sunshine Coast, BC

877 943 9663

Furniture Exhibition

Kozai Designs

Reception: Saturday May 15th 1pm-5pm

Exhibition closes May 29th

1515 West 6th Avenue

Vancouver, BC

604 667 8166

The Home Streach

2010-04-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

This week I worked on the finishing touches for the stand which is now glued up. Here are the details:

These are the side stretchers which are about 1" down from the bottom of the cabinet leaving the top surface visible. The thickness looked too heavy but needed to be there for structural integrity so I made an angled cut to reduce the visual weight.

These are the inner stretchers that the cabinet will be attached to. The cabinet will be "floating" 1/8" above the stand, the curves were cut in the inner stretchers so they wont be visible from the front or back. Even though they won't be seen I decided to surface the cuts with beaver marks as it was a faster and more enjoyable process than scraping or spokeshaving.

The edges were softened with the little tulipwood plane I made at the beginning of the year. Works great for one-handed operations.

Shop-made brass brackets to attach the cabinet to the stand. I know they are simple to make but I was super happy to able to make them in a couple hours the other morning, and get great results.

Glue-up #1 & 2, front and back assembled.

Glue-up #3.

Glue-up #4.

I wasn't able to get a really tight joint between the inner stretchers and the front and back aprons in glue-up #3, but went ahead anyway. Then during glue-up #4 a light bulb went off to switch the clamps to the underside where I wasn't getting the fit I wanted. Duh.

Next week I will be finishing up the pulls and doing some final clean-up on the doors. I'm not going to say that I will be done, don't want to jinx it.

Kwila Stand

2010-03-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

The stand has been started now and was going relatively quick. As soon as I started to sense some real progress happening, I came down with a nasty cold and haven't been able to work on it for three weeks. Here it is so far:

The very first rough mock up, just to get the height and proportions right.

The cabinet will be seated into the tops of the legs and be attached with brackets to two stretchers from underneath.

Had to spend a bit of time straightening the grain in the Kwila.

Before:

After:

Marking out the cuts to get rift-sawn material for the legs.

I managed to get all the straight-grained pieces needed but can't help feeling guilty for all the cut-offs. If I can drag them around with me I guess they can be accessory material one day.

Aprons cut to length and ready for mortises. The Kwila has been great to work with so far, it cuts really clean.

Tracing the leg shape from a template to be roughed out on the band saw.

The mortises in the legs had to be different lengths and depths to prevent the tenons from running into eachother from either side of the leg. Steve showed me a little trick using wood stops the thickness of the difference between the two mortises to prevent having to do additional set ups on the XY.

The secondary aprons were doweled as the joinery would only allow for really small tenons anyway. Using a dowel centre to locate where the hole is to be drilled.

Tenons fit.

Earned a gold star!

Next will be faring the legs before taking the thickness down on all the aprons to create a mild step between them. Then I will be milling up the centre aprons and laying out where the cabinet will be set into the legs. After that will be finishing, glue up, attaching the cabinet and done!

Mini Tool

2010-03-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

My Dad loves having an excuse to go to Lee Valley and shop for tools he would never use himself, being a mechanic. This little guy was a Christmas gift.

One of my doors ended up with a little bit of wind. To fix it, the front style had to be planed down to match the other door which took away the small step that was between the style and the rail.

The little rabbet-plane worked great for getting that step back right into the corner. Just had to touch up and even out the surface lightly with a scraper and it was like it never happened.

Thanks Dad.

View From My Bench

2010-02-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

I have a great view from my bench that changes every so often.

From this:

To this:

I wonder what I will see when the Gilmer's order arrives?

Glass, Brass and Silver

2010-02-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

It is getting down to the final details left on the cabinet itself and I have been fighting that lagging feeling that comes from working on a project too long. Something I am starting to learn is that the longer one takes to finish a piece the more dents one puts in it.

All that negativeness aside, there are a few things that are keeping my motivation up enough to get this finished. I met with a local woman that works with silver to help me with the pulls for the doors. Should be installing them next week! She has been so great to work with and her stuff is amazing www.erindolman.com.

The stand is also underway and going relatively quick, will post photos of that next time.

Doors being fit to cabinet.

Placing the mullions between the two panes of glass in the doors.

The glass is held into the frame with wooden "pins" fastened with brass nails.

Same method is used for the glass in the side panels.

When mocking up the cabinet I didn't put the mullions in the doors. As per Robert's suggestion and seeing how well they worked in my bench-mate, Steve's, glass-font cabinet, I threw some strips of wood in there to see how they would look. I am happy with the result, they really help the spacing around the cabinet flow.

Some More Slow Progress

2010-01-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

I had some trouble getting momentum back after Christmas break, but I am reaching the point where the finished piece doesn't seem too far off. After a few days of planing and flattening the back-panel it was glued in and work began on the frames for the glass doors.

Cutting the rabbet on the shaper, I didn't set up stops to prevent going all the way through the ends of the styles, thought I'd be careful enough not to need them. A one-second daydream later, I had some patching to do.

Frame members fixed and ready for glue.

Poor unfinished cabinet collecting dust and feeling neglected.

Taking the glass shelves for a test run, realized that my measurements were a little off and I will have to reorder them. This time I will use templates to be sure that they will fit as the cabinet is more out of square than I thought. The glass cutter did such a beautiful job on the edges, will have to find another use for them.

Junior (a classmate) was working on a new counter for the Gumboot Cafe that is next to the school. He asked me to do a boot in marquetry to compliment the parquetry he did with Maple veneers. The boot was done in Rosewood and the Edges in Walnut. The counter top looks great in place but I think they will have to do something with the rest of the counter to do it some justice.

Does anybody else find formatting posts in blogger crazy frustrating? Just me?

2010-01-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

Some progress photos of the last few weeks. Not as far as I would like to be of course, but the goal is to be wrapping up by the end of January. I was happy to have at least had it to the point where it somewhat resembled a cabinet for the open house.

Gluing the frame members together around the panel. The open part will be glass.

The frame around the glass was joined with mortise and tenon. The piece framing in the rear of the panel was doweled.

Panels finally glued together and doweled to the top and bottom.

The applied edges around the edges of the top and bottom were very thin to stay consistent with the slight steps between the frame members and panels and sides to the top and bottom. The doweling position had to be very precise as just 1/32" would have thrown the steps all off and/or exposed the Sycamore from the interior.

Had to be careful positioning the hinges for the same reason.

Roughing out the flipper-floppers.

The big glue-up, Jason taking pictures and asking me to pose.

With Steve's help, and despite Jason's distractions, it went very smoothly.

Went to take a photo and found this surprise on my camera...

Flu Schmlu

2009-11-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

Well, half the class was down sick throughout the past month, myself included, and it took me a while to feel like I made enough progress to post a decent update.

While trying to get my momentum back (and to procrastinate on another design decision) I made a 1/16" chisel. My dad gave me a set of old needle files he found in his shop, they have been perfect for making small chisels and knives, just the right size and keep a good sharp edge.

I did make one of these last year but shaft wasn't long enough to rest against the chopping block while chopping dovetails. The handle is leftover tulipwood from the plane I made earlier.

So by this time the boxwood was dry but the piece I was milling for the frame members was from a different plank than what I had already used for the rest of the cabinet. When I cut into it some curly grain pattern and strong prismatics appeared. The colour was also quite different and all this would have taken away from the piece on a whole. I had to decide weather to just go with it or spend time taking what I had left of the original plank and laminating a 1/8" skin over the curly stuff.

The curly pieces.

Original straight grain on the left, the other on the right.

I decided to do the skinning.

In the mechanical press.

The skinning went pretty well, no gaps and well worked out grain graphics.

The frames for the sides and doors are joined with twin floating tennons about 1/8" thick and one small dowel in front of what will be the rabbet for the glass.

Having never used it before, I wanted to experience the XY table on the boring machine. The process was fairly quick and easy.

I had to make a dowel centre out of drill-rod to locate the small dowel holes on each piece. Something I learned from Fergal last year.

The panels for the sides of the cabinet are located almost in the centre of the frame member. To transfer the dowel position from one piece to the other, I used a shim to raise the locating jig to the right position on the frame.

There was no dowel stock the size of the holes I drilled, so Robert showed me how to size them by hammering larger dowels through the correct size hole drilled into brass.

I used the same shim used for doweling to locate the position for the rabbet in the panels so it lined up with the rabbet in the frame members.

Rabbets cut, time to start putting on finish.

5 coats of super-blonde shellac and 2 coats of wax brought out all the detail and shimmer in the sycamore but left the colour looking natural.

There was a decent bit a progress over the last couple weeks but I still have a way to go. I discovered a bit of an issue today fitting all the parts together, the step between one panel and frame member is a bit uneven and it is pretty noticible. It must have happend while planing and I forgot to check it as I was going along. With the parts now all with finish on them, I either have to scrape off the finish and plane the rest of the members down to the same thickness or saw the skin off and find another piece with matching grain to glue back on. I'll have to wait until Monday and get some advice from the master.

Please visit the school blog as well to see what's going on at the school, we try to do an update every week or so. http://residentcraftsman.blogspot.com/

Good News and Bad News

2009-10-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

Progress has been somewhat stunted by the still wet Boxwood in the kiln. I pulled it out a few days ago, the meter said it was dry but when I cut into it on the bandsaw it did the banana. I need it for all the frame members for the sides and doors, maybe I should have made the cabinet curved, then all the bending would have been done for me, heh.

But.... the marquetry is now done and went pretty well! I don't have any finished pictures yet but here are some progress ones.

Cutting out the leaf parts.

Robert insisted that I move the scroll saw from the crowded and noisy machine room to his benchroom. It was a very peaceful week.

Joining the leaf-halves together. I think there were about 25 or more (It seemed like more).

Using the template to place the leaves on the background veneer.

I had mixed feelings about seeing the boxwood with holes in it. Seemed shameful to cut out pieces of it, but I think the results were worth it.

The finished veneers and substrates ready to go into the press.

Cutting off what will become the applied edges of the side panels.

I guiltlessly used the Lie-Neilsen #62 metal plane to surface the marquetry which worked very well. The shavings showed the leaf shapes in the boxwood.

A sort of breakthrough happened this past week. I have to admit that I was never really able to get completely enjoyable results from my wooden smoothing plane. Even after taking it to Robert a number of times to troubleshoot it, I just felt like there was something I was doing wrong. So I picked it up again to surface the top and bottom of the cabinet, determined to make it work, and something clicked. I honed the perfect edge on the iron (with a bald spot on my arm to prove it), was able to set it up just right, and the perfect, fluffy, full-length, full-width shavings came out. I was left with a flat, smooth, reflective surface with no ridges or track marks. It was one of the most satisfying and fun days I have had working on a project so far.

I don't know what changed, weather, attitude, ability, luck. It was the same day that JK's cabinet arrived at the school, maybe some of his energy was here with it.

2009-10-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

A little surprise in my sandpaper drawer. Had to save it from the bottom of Steve's shoe.

2009-10-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

I made this plane out of a piece of Tulipwood while working on the box. The finished one is for doing edge treatment. The other half will be a compass-plane in the future.

Substrates and Veneers

2009-10-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

Things are moving along at a slow but steady pace. I've done all I can do to procrastinate getting into the marquetry, so I will be starting it tomorrow.

No major mishaps yet. The thickness planer gave me a little trouble and shrunk the cabinet by almost an inch with it's snipiness. One lesson I keep learning over and over again is to be flexible with the design so to be able to adapt when these things happen.

After having success with lumber-core substrates in the veneered cabinet I did last year, I decided to use them again for this piece. After gluing them together it can be treated as a solid piece of wood.

They are made of 3/4" strips of poplar, each strip is oriented so that the grain alternates.

The thickness planer has had a lot of use lately and decided to take a chunk out of one of the substrates. It was repaired by gluing a snipe-shaped piece in the divot and flushing it off.

Once the substrates are cut to dimension, they are cross-banded with commercial aspen veneer.

These will be the two side panels, and top and bottom of the cabinet. "Bake-ins" were glued over the end-grain of the top and bottom before the cross-banding went on to provide a good glue surface for the edges that will go on after the veneers.

Sycamore veneers.

Boxwood. See the fourth one from the right?...planer ate it.

First critical glue-up!

Shopping

2009-10-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

A big load of wood came to the shop a few weeks ago which included several big planks of curly sycamore. After scrubbing one of the planks, I soon decided to use it for the interior of the cabinet.

It took a long time to decide on a wood for the exterior that would go well with the sycamore. I kept avoiding the boxwood as it was unimpressive at first glance and quite pricey, but after revealing what was under the plain, rough surface, it turned out to be a perfect match.

Sadly the boxwood turned out to be pretty wet still. The first few slices were checked and almost curled off the bandsaw. It is in the kiln now. It feels like I sent it to the hospital, checking on it every day, making sure it is getting better, hoping for a speedy recovery.

"Mock it up"

2009-10-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

Just happened to have a cabinet-sized box under my bench to use as a starting point for the dimensions for my current project.

Glass doors with glass on the sides and a panel of marquetry within a frame.

Laying out the sycamore leaves for the panel.

First project of the year

2009-10-09T21:04:00.001-07:00

I wanted to do a warm up project to get back into working with the machines and tools after a summer off. It was a great feeling ,after spending so much time last year on a similar size project, to finish this one in two weeks. I am pretty happy with the outcome.

Like my first box, I used lacewood and mendocino cypress, the bottom is arbutus.