whining

after seeing the first table, a recently re-united aquaintance asked if i'd make him one, but with the ability to store wine. after drawing some truly shit ideas, i just bought the wood and used this as an opportunity to design in real life as opposed to drawing on paper. first idea sucked, totally annihalted the first piece and it was ridiculously hard to get it to re-align again. and i thought to myself that by doing it this way i was going to end up with a really boring standard rustic table. so far most things have had some weird backward design process going through them. i decided i wanted the legs to hold a wine bottle, and try and push my leg design a bi,. going with this angualr idea (originally four but smashed two).

attatching these together wasn't too bad, screwing them to the top was a fricking nightmare. some intnese drilling, and some gnarly blisters later, all was good. the frame was a last minute idea, accidentally it adds as another rack, able to hold more awkward bottles (apart from J.P Chenet.)

........................................................................................................

a few days later, we crammed into a lift (with table) and put it into moustache boy's apartment. not going to lie, i'm amazed it's level and the feet fit to the floor pretty good. another friend's table next.

o

the pig.

recieved a warm applause for my last efforts, so good in fact i've been asked to make a couple more, with some alterations. I confirmed with the client a la facey b, the next day i pootled to the demolition yard and purchased some more haggard pieces of timber. they were in a lovely state as always; full of nails, plasterboard dust and weird stains. now that i have a vague idea of what i'm doing, i cleaned them up pretty quickly, cut them to some rough sizes, attatched them together then went home. designing this one was a bit tricky, it had to be double the distance from the floor as the prevous table, with a shelf incorporated to house a PS3, and a box of K'nex. I was also trying to be wary of it looking too similar to existing ideas, which of course is impossible but hell i may as well try. i wanted to put some legs on which came out at an angle, as i hadn't done that yet. the table and legs on their own looked like this:

really struggled for ideas on the shelf, at one point i was seriously considering the concept of hanging one from the metal rods that hold it together. eventually, i came to the conclusion that it would be better if the shelf added strength to the whole structure rather than be something that could create stress in places.

had the roughest idea ever, purely made it up as i went along, as is the style that works for me. i was tempted to sand down the shelf struts back to wood, then thought it would be cooler (lazier) if i just left them alone, all discoloured and painted. it would also add more contrast to the piece, so you have clean, shabby and totally knackered looking timber it. the hardest bit about assembling the frame was that i actually had to measure accurately where to drill the holes. i just nailed in the rest, didn't see much point in doing anything intricate. so the final item appears as follows:

the next one has to incorporate a small wine rack.........

o

all's better

barely functioning after last night's activities so i thought i'd try and do something productive. a friend of mine is moving to an unfurnished flat, and is only there for a few months, and didn't really fancy spending out loads on furniture.they described to me how the room was going to look in their head, fairly low level stuff, eg no bed, cushions on floor etc, and they wanted a table to go in there somewhere. this was pretty exciting, actually making something for someone, and having criteria to follow, not only just for the room, but also for the person who's using it. when i was thinking about how i was going to go about designing it, i asked myself, "what do i know about this person?"
 #1. They like parties.
#2. They are kind of clumsy.
#3. They hate pidgeons.

taking the first two points into account, i figured that this thing is going to have to be the most solid thing ever. i drove the micra to the usual place, and picked up these bits for the princely sum of £15.

as with every piece of wood i get, these were knackered. two evenings sanding and sorting them out in the sun and they were lavly. at this point i still had no idea what to do for the feet. (not legs as it's so low to the ground.) after several attempts with dowel to attatch them together side by side, i gave up as they were useless. dad stole me some metal rods from work, after some intense drilling (obviously i didn't have the right size bit) i forced them together. i wanted to give to try and hide the feet as much as possible, in the end i decided on screwing some triangular shaped bits on the bottom, this works pretty good.

didn't take too long to make this one, but i think it's pretty cool. the wood has some insane character to it, and it can definately withstand a few million drinking games. next thing, a chair! sort of.

cheers


o.

camelphant.

finally cut myself from my shackles recently and dragged my pasty self to the workshop, with the intention of making something in a day, as after i would end up doing 13 lucky days straight of cheese on toast service. this took about ten hours from start to finish, admittedly i had done a bit of prep beforehand but on the day i probably did about 7 hours, given at the time i was unable to skate or do anything with much movement, and didnt really think putting myself into a drunken stupor for a whole day was very acceptable.

before carving.

 not sure on the idea behind this, i followed my my creative juices (winged it) and this is what turned out. i tried to work a bit more methodically this time however, taking more care to mark out and cut and drill etc, as shown in some of the pics below. pretty pleased with the final result to be fair, and it has fitted nicely next to a set of shelves in my room (amazingly, it is the exact same height as well.)

definately pissed off an enire village for a good few hours as i carved these bad boys.

 this project was fun, as yet again i got to do whatever the hell i wanted, and it's cool as i think after 3 items i actually have a style, kind of. next thing in the pipeline is for someone else though, and there are a few specifics, like certain heights, what they'd like to use it for and how it's going to fit in its surroundings. as with this post, i'll probably post up about it around a month after i've made it.

toodles,

o.

x

bye bye bench.

after what seems to be a million zillion shifts at the cheese on toast factory, and trying my hardest to catch diseases in foreign lands, i've found time to do a new post. woke up too early on a tuesday to drive up to stratford upon avon to deliver the bench to a charity place. did some final adjustments (screwed the legs together and made some plugs) and we lumbered the beast into my mum's car.

 it rattled around in the car a bit before we wedged it in, then i fell asleep most of the way on the journey up. after cleverly avoiding some traffic, we squeezed the car through some tiny gate before we park it in the yard of the old blacksmith, where it's set to rot and fall about the next few months. sorry, i meant decades. it fitted in pretty well, the yard just as ropey as what i'd made. eventually the lady finally let me leave, meet the gayest fenchman i have ever seen, and get stuck in traffice for a few hours before another shift at the cheese on toast place.

tomorrow im going to try and make a table in a day.

o      

x

parsnip horse.

after much intense carving with the arbotech, and swallowing my own weight in wood dust, i finished the legs and joined them today. i used mortise and tenon, they actually turned out pretty sweet and with the added dowel insertion it's solid as. pretty chuffed, i actually made something which turns out like i intended to. the oak on the top has opened up a bit which kinda sucks, but adds a bit of character. thats my excuse anyway.

made a total schoolboy error by malleting the top into the leg joins, foolishly denting it. total idiot. however, nothing that a kettle, steam and a tea towel couldn't fix, all sorted. i think my favourite part about this table is the glaringly obvious, having a super straight table top with some weird legs that look like parsnips. or from some angles, the rear legs of a horse as it walks. it's also possible i've spent far too much time in there and the wood dust has had some odd hallucinogenic effect. whatever, i'm well happy with this and actually pleased to show some pics.

just need to wax it, make sure the glue has fully dried, and off we go.





o     x

new project.

went to the woodyard with no idea really what i wanted to make or what i was going to buy. kind of wandered around it like a zombie for a bit, before finding this rather grubby piece of oak. was only a tenner, so i threw it in the back of the micra and went skating before the heavens opened.

first job, and the main one really, is cleaning it up. not sure where this had been, had a real nice layer of scum on the top but a bit of scraping, sanding and planing sorted it out. although summed up in a sentence, this has taken me a few hours. running along the middle of this particualr piece is the heartwood, and it is one tough motherbitch to try and plane, especially given my current skill set at sharpening tools.

 i wasn't sure whether i wanted to keep the wonky edge or not, in the end i decided against it as hopefully it's going to have some pretty crazy legs. i did want to start making the holes for where the legs go in today, but forgot my drill. couldn't be assed to go back home and get it so i came home and wrote this.

im trying to make it so the top is square (ish) and the legs have all the character, kind of opposite to the bench really. should be cool, will probs end up being a coffee table. watch this space. please.



o.

xx