Last Saturday my son displayed his art in a show with his art class at the Central Park Zoo. It was a well received show and outside of heat, it was a wonderful day. My frame was actually well received, sloppy corners an all. Luckily though, I was able to make a second piece to help display his art and this one came out much nicer.
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| Dylans art show display |
One of his three (3) dimensional projects was a clock. It’s a collage of clocks glued onto a box, with a round porthole cut out to reveal a clock face inside also.
Since the clock just sits on whatever you put it, I was asked to make a clock stand.
Initially I was going to make a low stand with ornate feet. As the deadline approached I was looking through The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture & Cabinet Construction. After thumbing through the section on feet and basically deciding on making a rounded base with mitered legs, I then flipped through the cabinet on stand section. I occurred to me that I could make a tall stand for the clock rather than a stubby one.
With that idea in my head, I went out to the shop and started milling legs and aprons. I was making a tiny shaker table to hold the clock.
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| Should I clean my table saw blade. |
I won’t go into too much detail on the table, as there are many resources online for making a shaker end table (I’d personally recommend the Shaker End Table Woodwhisperer Guild Project).
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| The finished clock stand with the clock atop. |
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| Perfect miters right off the miter saw. |
Kamis, 31 Maret 2016
Google Comments
As the Penultimate Woodshop is a Blogger blog, its easy for me to integrate with Google+ using Google+ comments. Google+ comments mean that comments to a blog post or to the corresponding Google+ post will show at both locations.
When Google+ comments first came out, I tried them out. I found that they allowed for much more interaction around posts and more conversation. |
| Should I use Standard Blogger Comments, Google+ Integrated Comments or would you rather mail in a comments form? |
As much as I liked this, I turned them off when I found that they required a Google account in order to comment (no more anonymous).
Since then Ive watched, and almost all of the comments I receive are from people with Google accounts. So, Im turning Google+ comments back on. I really enjoyed the increased comments.
While doing this, Im not looking to exclude anyone. So, if you find that youre not able to comment because you dont have a Google account, please email me. If I find that Google+ comments is causing problems, or disenfranchising my audience, I will turn them off again. As far as Im concerned the increased conversation is nice, but not at the expense of others ability to comment.
So please, if you find the Google+ comments a problem, let me know. Otherwise, please join in the conversation.
Selasa, 15 Maret 2016
How To Design Furniture
In 2009 Taunton released a special issue of Fine Woodworking: How to Design Furniture.
As with most of their special issues, its a collection of previous articles, all focusing on a single topic. |
| image from Taunton. |
In this case, I think they cove the topic of furniture design wonderfully. There are articles about styles, creativity, proportion, drafting and even SketchUp.
This has alchoices been one of my favorite design books. If you havent had a chance to read it, now is the time. Taunton has re-released it as a magazine special issue. Id recommend you pick up a copy of the re-release. Its sure to prove a reference youll use long after the current print run is gone.
Kamis, 03 Maret 2016
Dylans Frame
On Saturday, my son is displaying in an art show at the Central Park Zoo. One of his pieces is a large coloring on canvas. In order to display the coloring I was assigned building him a frame.
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| Can you see the frame yet? |
I’ve enjoyed using the rough sawn lumber I picked up from +Kari Hultman last summer on my last few projects, so I began the frame build by heading to the attic and selecting a large slab. I’m not sure what type of wood it is. Once milled, it’s a nice blond color with a mild grain pattern.
To make the frame, I broke the slab into three (3) pieces with my jigsaw and then joined and planed them flat. Though I only planed them until all three (3) were flat and parallel, they ended up being exactly 1” thick when I was done. Once I had ripped them to width, I used my Incra Miter 1000 SE to cut the miters. I call it out so specifically not to brag about it, but to complain. I find the flip stop annoying to use and the face of the fence is not plum, resulting in the leading edge of the work lifting when it is held or pushed against the fence. I had problems with my miters, and I believe this is why. Finally, I cut the rabbet for the picture with two (2) passed on the table saw.
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| The dreaded 1000 SE (the burning is because the blade desperately needs to be cleaned). |
After everything was cut, I set a domino in each miter and glued up the frame. This was the first time I’d used the framing blocks for my parallel clamps. I was pleasantly surprised by how well they worked.
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| My sloppy miters. |
To address the gaps in the miters, I used wood putty mixed with rasp shavings. I decided that rasps would be the quickest choice to make the pile of dust I needed. Unfortunately, I decided that a coarse rasp would make the dust quicker, so I used the coarse side of my Shinto rasp. The Shinto rasps leave shavings closer to what you’d get off a jointer than to saw dust. These big shavings didn’t mix very well and some didn’t even fit in the gaps at the miters. Even after puttying the miters aren’t perfect. I’ll probably use a wax stick to fill in the remaining small gaps once I’m done with the finish.
I followed +Marc Spagnuolo’s Simple Varnish Finish instructions and finished the frame with 5 coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal. The final coat still needs to be buffed out, but it looks good.
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| The frame - mid finishing - during a dry run of fitting the picture. |
