headscratching

a friend got in contact with me recently,  saying they were going to dispose of a big school bench, and asked if i wanted it to go towards my little project. i eventually said yes, and after i finally got out of bed this afternoon i drove my trusty micra in a dorset-ly direction. no breaking into the school was necessary as we had a key, and i quickly started to attack the bench with my limbs, and my mother's saw. after one minute, i had completely destroyed one of the pieces i definately want to use. i therefore took a slightly less physchotic approach, and resurrected these members....

there are a couple others too, which i haven't photographed due to my professional ability not to be able to focus on any one thing at a given time. after filling my car up with all of the remains for firewood (which i've just remembered are still in the car, sorry mum) i headed back to the workshop to try and figure out what to do with them

i'd say i just sat on the floor looking at those two beams for about 20minutes, trying to imagine in my head what i want to do with it all. how should i join them? how tall should the seating height be? shall i scrape off all the moss-type stuff on the legs or leave it on?  i may leave it on, adds a bit of character, and with the old mortiise holes and tenons showing it adds a bit of character. would be quite interesting to have these big oak beams, all sanded aup and clean resting on these old, used bench legs which bear the scars and stains of the school playground. and then to decide which features to keep on those bits, two of them have this bends and curves which would be good to incorporate, but then this that this that then that and the other. problem solving at its finest, interspersed with large doses of mumbling.

i'm sure my mind will totally change soon, need to make some decisions. hmmmmmmmm.

o x

hasn't let me down yet.

second beam

after many hours spent sanding the first beam, i decided i'm probably not going to get it a lot better than that and decided to move on it is pretty smooth, few machine marks here and there but i guess it adds to the "rustic" look of it.  conviently, the second beam has more nails than the first piece, and a brand new element. woodworm. also it is covered in a load of paint too.

woodworm holes.

after a few goes with the angle grinder.

 so, i took off the outer layer of paint with a scraper, then an angle grinder, which didnt do as much as i'd hope so i grabbed the arbortech. 

weapon of choice.

i'd like to apologise to the sheep outside which i really must have pissed off whilst i was using this very very loud piece of equipment, however it saves me countless hours of physical labour. in all fairness, it took me about half an hour to clean up all the dust and wood particles that went everywhere! had to take off a lot more material than i imagined, luckily for me there was an area on the other beam which had a lot of material taken out because of rot, so they kind of mirror each other. here are the two pieces together, there are both 63inches long, lots of work to do to the one on the right but hopefully this week i can start thinking properly about legs.

getting there.

o. xx

the beginning part 2 (posted in the wrong blog)

i have always loved being busy, making stuff with my hands. though i guess in my mum's eyes "stuff" would be "a mess". hopefully, this will be the start of something more productive than just daydreaming about what i want to do, and actually doing it! many of us are guilty of this i think.

100 year old oak, before any clean up had been done.

i recently aquired two lengths of timber (oak we are led to believe) from a regular customer at work, who is converting an old stables. fortunately for me, he donated them for free. unfortunately for me, there are tons of nails, a bit of rot, and some considerably massive knots. beggars can't be choosers i guess, plus it is an awesome opportunity to give some 100year old timber a new use. not quite sure what i'm going to make of them yet, going to clean them up massively first! after getting a feel for my uncle's tools (he has very kindly let me use his workshop for free), and realising their sheer destructive ability, i am slowly exposing some of the amazing character this item holds.

close up. a lot of work yet to be done! 

so far i have learnt that the abortech is a seriously gnarly piece of kit and should only be used when necessary, that if i press too hard with any power tool it will definately cause me more work by hand later on, and if i think something is a bad idea then it means that it definatley is. you can see evidence of this learning process in the photo above.  more to come!

o.