wood gloat

two bits of wood gloatage

first up i spent a large part of saturday getting my chainsaw thing on ( my day job is in rights of way so i’m pretty handy with a saw) round at my freind miles’s (miles_hot from UKW) who had a load of spalted beech and sycamore both fiddle back and normal to reduce – plus some yew and a cherry log. Despite being hot and dirty work it was a craic and his Mrs did us proud with some amazin food at lunch too

anyway at the end of that miles generously gave me four or five lumps of sycamore roughly  18″ sq by 2″ thick – some serious platterage there me thinks

then on monday I went to yandles to resolve my scrollsaw saga (UKW readers will know that I had a bleddy nightmare with my new record scrollsaw – the first one had a jumping feed, while the replacement was damaged in the box – third time lucky and yandles set this one up and ran it to be sure.)  anyway the nice men at yandles gave me a load of wood free to compensate for my trouble so i now have more offcut bits for tea lights, key fobs, light pulls,. xmas baulbles and 1/2 oak for scrollsaw work than you can shake a stick at – plus three nice bits of 1″ thick yew. A big thunmbs up to yandles but thumbs down to the quaility control at record power

My “to do” list

One of the main reasons for my starting the journey out of my comfort zone making round things into “flat world”  is that having got married and set up home we need a number of items of furniture and the only way we can afford decent stuff is for me to make it.

Thus I have a rather large to do list which i will post here to motivate myself to work through it.

Workshop stuff

• Assemble new lathe (done, hooray)
• Hang up air filter (ditto – yay me)
• Build tool storage cabinets and boards
• Rebuild workbench
• Sort out dust extraction

Flat World

• Gates & Fence – to stop the dog getting out (again)
• Bedside Cabinet – a “commision” from my mummy
• Bedside table – for myself to stop the dog sticking her nose in my morning cup of tea
• Xmas Sleigh
• Under bed storage – to stop the dog chewing MBGitW’s shoes
• Table top-  for Mother in laws sewing table to be done before xmas
• Childrens mobiles
• Possibly wardrobe – still debating whether to make it myself or commision a UKW freind
• Sewing table – to store MBGitW’s sewing machine and ancillary stuff and provide a surface on which to use it
• Games table – an end table incorporating   numerous board games , long  designed by MBGitW and myself but not a priority
• pendulum clocks for craft fairs – scrollsaw work.
• there was also some talk about a swing seat for the MiL but I need to check with the FiL before i do anything on that.

Round World

• Skeleton clocks
• Fruit Bowl – long requested by MBGitW
• Xmas Baubles
• Things for craft fairs including light pulls, doorstops, keyrings, bowls, clocks, scoops, coasters and mushrooms

oh my where to start ??? Well I intend to follow the advice of Mary Poppins on this one and “start at the beggining, a very good place to start , and continue until I reach the end then stop” but then you know what they say about good intentions – it is far more likely in fact that i will start about three things at once and muddle along till they are all done with much profanity and flying wood along the way.

It is also virtually inevitable that the to do list will grow as i go along and thus i’ll never actually reach the end , and also that i’ll wind up snared in diversion that never made it on to the list because they looked like a good idea at the time.

Hello world!

Hi folks

this blog will hopefully chart my development from a relatively unskilled hobby woodworker to master cabinet maker extrordinaire (hmm right )

As a little background I have been wood turning since 2001 but have only recently started building stuff that isn’t round, largely as a result of the influence of my fellow members on www.ukworkshop.co.uk . Having got maried and set up home I finally have the space for a decent workshop in what was previously a single car garage – the car has been relegated to being parked on the lawn (if they werent meant to live outside they wouldnt be waterproof)

I’ll put a workshop “tour” up as soon as i figure out how to add pictures.