My plate is clean: Final Clean Plate Sneak Peak

I've told a lot of friends and acquaintances during the last few weeks that this July has been the busiest time I've ever had, as far as I can remember. Now that we've reached the end of the month, I've finished all the projects I (over) committed to, with a day or two to spare. Among these, of course, is the 14-foot Clean Plate dining table. The picture below is from about a week ago, and should give you a better idea of its overall size. But in order to see the finished piece, you'll have to check it out at the Empty Room. All I can say is that it looks gorgeous, and I'm happy and proud I had the opportunity to do it. I'm also proud of the fact that my dad got to help me with it this past weekend. We hadn't worked on many projects together since my first couple, so it was an interesting experience coming full circle almost ten years later with this more massive piece. Check out all the wood shavings in the picture below; Jean and Renee, sorry for all the dust.

For now my proverbial plate is clean - sort of - for a while, but I'm back to work on a new chair next week. Should be interesting. You can follow my progress at the shareyourchair blog.

Oh, and if you haven't heard anything about it, be sure to stop by Mosaic Community Development this weekend. On Thursday there's a Tweetup, Friday there's live music/food, and on Saturday, myself and the other Just Rest artists, Leslie Iwai and Kjell Cronn, will be doing demos/workshops from 11am - 2pm. Learn more at mosaiccd.org.

So I guess my plate isn't as clean as I thought. That's alright - I like it that way. Adios.

Turning you on: An (over) simplified process for using a lathe

Last week I posted a couple pictures of an in-process project that involved making some display cases with spindles. Now that I've finished that project and caught up with (most) of my July work, I thought it would be both informative and cool to show some of the simple process for producing a spindle on a lathe. In doing so, I've omitted several pictures to get to the fun stuff (isn't that what we all want?). Check it:

Step 1) Cut a length of wood that is straight and square on the ends. If it isn't square when you start the lathe, you'll cause yourself irritation and potential eye injury trying to get it centered. If you've ever done ceramics, this process is very similar to centering the mound of clay on the wheel, except that if you don't do it right, you can't just remound the material - you'll waste an expensive piece of wood a tree died to give you. You might not think it, but the harder the wood, the easier it is too turn; soft wood chips and tears more easily, perhaps because the grain/wood fibers are not as tightly bound to one another. Generally, harder woods (maple, walnut, cherry) are much more expensive than softer woods (pine). Actually, come to think of it, perhaps leafy tree wood is softer than coniferous wood - something to think about at a later date... back to getting lathed:

When you have a length of wood that is square on both ends, mark an "X" through the center of both ends. You'll use these to center the piece on the lathe. If your "X" is off-center, you'll end up wasting a lot of material trying to make a cylinder, and probably split the wood or take off giant chunks as described above.

Step 2) Once you have the wood centered and attached to the lathe (again, there are steps here, but I'm trying to keep this relatively brief/simple), you attach your tool rest (a metal bar you place your chisel/knife against, which acts like a fulcrum) about 1/4" from the edge of the wood.

(Step 3) For my project, I was cutting spindles, but wanted to keep the ends of each square, so I cut a very shallow groove around the perimeter of the wood, about 1 1/2" from each end (see photo). If I hadn't done this, I likely would have splintered off a chunk on each end; cutting the groove helps keep the ends square. If you're going to turn the entire length of wood, this wouldn't be necessary.

Step 4) Next is the fun part - turning. Turn on the lathe (obviously). Place the tool firmly agains the tool rest and gradually move it toward the stock of wood, taking off bits/shavings of material very slowly. Proceed down the length of the material, cutting a little more with each pass, until you've turned a cylinder. Pretty easy, huh? It really is.

After that you can use all sorts of other chisels and knives with different ends to create different grooves and cuts in the spindle. For this project, I was given some general direction from the client, but they wanted each one to be different. This, combined with the "rustic" or "handmade" look they wanted, made the job incredibly easy. Typically I would sharpen my knives/chisels frequently, as well as sanding the piece with sandpaper from 60 or 80 grit all the way up to 600 grit or higher. I'd also wear a respirator, safety goggles and ear muffs (safety 1st!).

I should mention I've been doing this for a while now, but am nowhere near a pro. There are people who do this - and only this - type of woodworking as a passion, and produce some amazing things. With the exception of Christmas ornaments and baby rattles, turning is something I usually incorporate into a larger piece, rather than make as stand alone objects. If you want to see cool pictures of way better turnings, or learn more about the process, check out the Loess Hills Woodturners Club, a local club based out of Iowa. Of for more photos, check out the American Association of Woodturners.

Getting Lathed: A new project

I was recently commissioned to make 5 simple, pine display racks for a local artist. I sometimes do these projects to supplement my income a little and challenge me to interpret someone else's designs. They tend to be pretty simple, direct and good practice for my own work. In this case, the artist in question is also someone I highly respect and admire, so that's a bonus too!

The artist gave me dimensions and a general guideline for the pieces, which will eventually be painted nice and fancy and used to display some ceramic figures. The display rack (that's the best description I can give it) is 26 1/2" tall, 16" wide and 10 3/4" deep. I couldn't find any wood that was 16" wide, so I had to use one of my favorite tools - a Dewalt Biscuit Joiner (not edible) to join two 8" wide boards together for the back, top and bottom.

The fun part came in creating the front spindles. The artist wanted the pieces to look handmade and folky, which I sort of interpret as "rough". Therefore, I wanted the spindles to look kind of beaten up and chipped. I chose basswood - a soft wood often used by old men to carve boots, horses and the like - because I knew it wouldn't turn very smoothly on the lathe, and lo and behold I was right. Check out the lathe in action - the piece is turning really fast (not sure of the RPM, so just accept that "really fast" means "really fast"). The section to the left looks stationary because it's already been rounded. But the section attached to the lathe on the right side is still square, so it looks blurry - that's the "really fast" in action.

I plan to post a short video of my rusty old lathe in action pretty soon. A few recent conversations with the folks at Silicon Prairie News and ACuriousParty have inspired me to buy a video camera. Can you say Woodworking Podcast? Giving me wood just thinking about it!

It's all in the cut

Although I'm an extremely amazing designer and craftsman (please note sarcasm), I'm still learning quite a bit. That's actually one of the reasons I like doing this kind of work. Isn't it hard to learn new things when you're no longer in school?

For a very long time I had assumed that I knew what "quarter sawn" lumber was. I thought this meant that the wood was milled in exact quarter dimensions, such as 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, etc. I also thought this "style" of cut was sort of the opposite of dimensional lumber, such as one-by-fours and two-by-fours (which are actually only 3/4" and 1 1/2" thick).

However, I just stumbled on a great little article, which includes simple explanatory drawings, that highlights the difference... it's all in the cut...http://www.allwoodwork.com/article/woodwork/plainorquartersawn.htm

Clean Plate table sneak peak

I celebrated the majority of the July 4th holiday by not hanging out with friends and family; not relaxing in lawn chairs; and not blowing myself up with black cats and M-80s. I did, however, witness a pretty impressive fireworks display in the 2500 block of S. 49th St.

Most of my weekend was in fact spent on my back screwing... boards that is. I took advantage of an extra day off work to finish fabricating the first part of the Clean Plate table. I affixed the side rails to the 4 gorgeous solid walnut legs and created a sort of interior skeletal structure from poplar (a very straight-grained, durable wood).

I joined enough planks to create a full top that screws onto the structure from the underside of the table. In the picture at right, I'm using bar clamps to join the pieces laterally, and squeeze clamps to keep the board from buckling upward under the immense pressure of the clamping. This will also ensure that the piece will remain a flat surface after the glue dries.

Drilling up through the poplar structure into the underside of the planks will accommodate any expansion or contraction that may result from changes in temperature and humidity; this also makes the top look like it's resting on the legs and side rails, without any fasteners, which is a "cleaner" look.

The next phase will involve a pretty extensive amount of sanding on the top. This is the part of working with wood that I wish I didn't have to do. Not only is it hard, tiring work; it's also very dirty and not particularly good for one's health. I wear a professional respirator (those paper masks are worthless, btw), but still come home with nostrels full of brown dust and my eyes feeling slightly irrirated, like I'm wearing contact lenses that are past their expiration date. It's worth the work and risk to health - check out the contrast in the richness of the section of wood that has been sanded and coated with linseed oil and the section that has not - it's pretty dramatic and makes me excited to see how the top will look when finished. Hopefully that happens by the end of the week. Time is running short... Elle starts the move-in to Empty Room August 1.