I need to make a chair right now like I need a hole in my head.

Looks like a chair, no?

I have at least a blog post worth of unfinished, halfchoice built projects in my shop. Yet, I’m having a damn hard time working on any of them. In my head, I keep turning my chair design over and over.

As with many of my ideas, I’m thinking of building my first chair out of Timberstrand. I’m in agreement with all of you who I’m sure are yelling that real wood - Walnut even - is what real chairs should be made of. Even though I’ve a soft spot in my heart for Timberstrand, I agree that it’s not what truly fine chairs are made of.

This chair though, is more experiment than fine woodworking. I’m using it to test my design, push my skill and see if Timberstrand shapes and dyes well.

This video demonstrates the first part of the test. Will my arm and joinery be strong enough?

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My Own Treehouse of Horror

This weekend I managed to get some solid, yet frustrating work done on the tree house.

The Treehouse.

Before winter set in I was able to get most of the sheathing done. All except for the gable ends. So, thats where I began.

This first side was a piece of cake.

The first side, the front, went easily. A few quick measurements and a track saw make quick work of accurate cuts, even when a single piece of sheathing tucks beneath both roof angles resulting in a complicated shape.

This piece, it didnt fit so well on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd try.

Alas, on the second piece of the rear side (the 4th of 6 total) I measured correctly and then proceeded to cut the piece incorrectly, and then incorrectly again, and again. Finally on the fourth try, I got it right. It turned out, I was measuring using my 26" square. While the square is dead accurate, its important to reference the measurements on the correct side or else the measurements will be off by the width of the square blade.

Thats a lesson learned & a piece of T1-11 wasted. Hopefully its now back to accurate cutting.

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Seed Bench

Another quick and dirty project...and still distracted by the gardening bug.

We needed a small bench on which to germinate our seeds indoors and then later put outdoors as the weather warms up. I certainly wasnt going to pay the ridiculous garden center prices, especially on something that might exposed to the weather! 

So ...

An afternoons work, a handful of basic tools, an old broken pallet and some pieces of recycled wood from the dump for the legs and a £1.35 bag of screws later...

Our new seed propagation bench was born.

These are the tools used, a square, pencil, gimlet (i love gimlets), screwdriver, chisels and a small saw.

Its not built to last a lifetime and its not pretty ... but, Its functional, almost free and it was a great choice to spend an afternoon!

Broken and discarded pallets can be a readily available and free useful source of wood, so keep your eye out for them!

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Boys Own Workshop

You just cant beat sitting by the log fire with a good book...

Available for FREE download from Google Books

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