Progress?

Ask and you will receive. Its Christmas come early this year. Last week I jokingly asked Graham if I could borrow a small child to do my sanding. Lo and behold at the start of this week, we get a student on work experience who helped me do a spot of sanding at the start of the week. They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to though, as I broke this one after about 2 hours of sanding when he gave up and asked to be excused. Hmph, try camping out in the sanding room for the third week in a row is what I say!

This week I’ve finally got to use the lathe and do a little wood turning which is much fun. I’ve found its quite important to go quite slowly and gently, as otherwise you end up taking out a much larger chunk than you mean to, and we all know there’s no going back from that.

We've also been busy making a veneer hammer - its not perfect, but its probably the only thing I've made during my bench skills sessions which is remotely any good. And that has nothing to do with the construction, but more with the fact that the wood (burr oak, if anyone is interested) is soo pretty.

After three weeks, I can safely say I've used every single sander in this joint, including big bertha and various made up ones using drill bits!

My veneer hammer.

5,000,000 hours of effort and an equal amount of swearing to produce the first step in my cabinet.

The lathe.

With woodwork, as I guess anything else in life, there are good days - like yesterday when things slowly come together and everything seems to be working (more or less). And there are bad days. Like today, where I've spent 10 hours trying to fit two shelves and attendant runners into my cabinet and even then they've not come out too good. For the record, I don't think something as "simple" as that is meant to take that long.

Some handy tips from this week though:

An accident with the sander and some veneer.

–       Use eye protection (and preferably wear clothes without pockets) when on the lathe as the shavings get everywhere!

–       Be careful when sanding veneer, as you might end up sanding through it into the plywood underneath.
–        If you feel like you are fighting against the machine all the time, chances are something is wrong (eg the blade needs changing). Take a step back and reassess the situation before proceeding.
–        Support your wood as it goes through a saw (whether it be the table saw, cross-cut saw or band saw), especially if its a funny shape. Use packing veneer or blocks of offcuts in the right shape to ensure that the cut is even all the way through.

Sanding.

When you think you smell something burning, you probably do. That one was the dust extractor blowing a fuse. I would like to maintain I had nothing to do with it (just happened to be passing by at the time), although it does feel like I've been camping out in the sanding room over the last two weeks.

Sanding has been one of the many unpleasant tasks that I am slowly trying to come to grips with (routing is still number one on the list). To be fair, sanding is less unpleasant with a gas mask on (sans slug - and don't even get me started on how that got in there! Needless to say that it was pretty unpleasant) and merely falls into the tedious category. Which is why I like to do my sanding in the evenings, when the room is empty and I can do a little jig and sing a little song to liven up the process without someone asking me if I am in pain/convulsions.

Despite this week being short (4 days! Yay!), its been a busy one. Apart from the sanding, routing and general project work (which despite all this does not really seem to be going anywhere), we've been doing a little brick building, making coopered boxes and learning how to use bendy ply to make curves.   All fantastic stuff, if a little knackering. Now if you'll excuse me, I might go for a wee walk in the woods.

The trick is glue sizing  first.

Brick build all clamped up. The gaps miraculously disappear on sanding.

Sanding the brick build into shape.

My brick build and coopered box. I was particularly proud of my brick build until I ruined it by sticking a base on it. It would have been alright if the base fit.

Laminated bendy ply. Better than routing.

Sticking various routed bits together, and sanding them down.

Dovetails.

I must admit that this week has been rough. After two whole days of routing and a full day of sanding, I seem to have not gotten much further on my project. On top of that, we've had the neigh impossible task of making the dovetails in our apprentice boxes by hand. I've found the process pretty demoralising, as despite all the will in the world, I just can't seem to make mine flush.

My head knows that one does not become an expert woodworker overnight, just because you happen to have enrolled in woodworking school, and that it will take time for my skills to develop to an acceptable level. It also knows that for someone who has only this year picked up a saw, hammer and plane I am doing pretty well just keeping up with the course and bashing these out on target. But head and heart don't seem to be communicating too well at the moment, and so here I am a little down on myself for not getting them perfect. Because they should be. And God knows its not for a lack of trying.

Thankfully though, a trip back to civilisation this weekend and some time off to attend a lovely wedding has given me a bit of space to reflect on all that I've achieved in the last month and to remember why I am doing all of this. So despite the grubby chimney sweep fingers, and the aches, pains and scrapes I've accumulated in the last month (my little hands are sadly still sore and swollen  notwithstanding the impromptu hand massage at said wedding - a long story which I will save for another day), I find myself looking forward to the start of another week. Although if I never have to do another dovetail again I won't be too upset by it!

Some sawdust and glue to fill in the gaps. 

Accursed dovetails

Machines.

So I've finally overcome my instinctive fear of bandsaws, when I get introduced to an even meaner, scarier machine - the open table router. Its a horrible thing which sucks up end grain and spits it out, leaving one's precious timber full of unsightly gouges if not careful. After about 5 hours on the blasted thing I'm just about able to do a run without too much of a palaver, and even then its still a pretty unpleasant experience.

Routed cabinet tops - only a million more to go without cutting my fingers off

Work on my project is plodding along. I've got various bits cut out and have run out of wood about 1/3 into the process, most of next week will be spent on the bandsaw and router but hopefully once that's finished, the most difficult bits will be done.

Bench skills this week have focused on more joints - different types of mortices and tenons, and lap joints. I'm still more than a little dissatisfied with the standard of teaching/tutoring on the course, but trying to make the most of it. I may be a total beginner, but even I can sense that spending a paltry 2 minutes teaching us how to sharpen our tools is just not going to cut it (again, thank goodness for the course I did with John Lloyd).

A relatively successful fox wedged mortice and tenon 

Apparently sawdust and glue helps mask any less successful joints made - didn't seem to work in my case

Ps - the claws are back, together with an assortment or minor scrapes and bruises. Ho hum.

Trees and such.

Week 2 and I'm slowly settling in, getting more used to the madcap, ad hoc method of teaching and feeling less at sea. We had a jaunt in the forest this week for purposes of tree identification (less fun for those who forgot their wellies, i.e. yours truly). As Anselm says, its slightly ridiculous if you're a furniture maker but can't identify wood unless it comes in planks. Fair point, although I think it will take a lot more than a lovely 1 hour walk in the woods before I can safely claim to be an expert. 

Say hullo to this lovely beech tree if you see it in the forest

Scale drawing of my project

 

Working on various joints, cleats and strengthening keys

Elsewhere in the news, we've been busy starting work on our respective projects. A day or two (or three, but who's counting) was lost in preparing full scale drawings and quotations/cutting lists, but then with no further ado or fanfare, we were launched straight into it. There's been a bit of a race for wood, and rather than wait until I've got all the right pieces, Graham, my tutor, has suggest that I just get on with it and start making the side cabinet for now. I haven't gotten very far as yet, but I can tell you one thing, its going to be a heavy fucker once its done. Don't even want to think about carrying it up to the attic where it will live!

This week for our bench skills we've been looking at various joints (rub joints, dowels, biscuit joints, tongue and groove and loose tongue) and accompanying strengthening keys. Its definitely taken me a while (and three passes) to get there, but the end results haven't been to bad - my loose tongue joint was, well, loose (unintentionally!) and my butterfly keys could have been cut neater, but all in all I'm not going to beat myself up too badly about this one.

School.

School

I still have all ten fingers, for now. Right, now that is out of the way, here’s a quick round-up of my first week.

The bench tools we've made in the first week

It was strange driving in on the first morning. That coupled with my kindly landlord’s enthused caring, has made me feel 15 again. Truth be told, I wasn’t too impressed by the first day. The tutors were slightly scatty and disorganized and spent more time telling me they didn’t have time to teach me things because this was a condensed 30 week course than actually teaching me things. Quite frankly I would have been happy if they had knocked on an additional week or two to the course if that meant some teaching actually got done. There was very limited instruction, and for a course which targets itself at people with no prior woodworking experience, it felt like the pace was set by those who did and those without just sort of muddled through the day trying to keep all fingers and toes intact. If it wasn’t for the short courses I did over the summer with John Lloyd, I would have been completely lost and not known the business end of a plane from the other, much less how to use it! Personally I found John’s method of teaching much more to my liking - he was easy to understand, methodical and detailed, with little nuggets of wisdom tucked away in almost every action. Still, its early days yet, and perhaps the teething problems of the first week will go away as things progress.

Scale model of my chosen design

We’ve spent a lot of time this week designing and coming up with our pet projects for term 1, on top of the small bench tasks we’ve had to do. Its 1 part frustrating and 3 parts fun – its really hard to think of ideas which are good, but at the same time original and which are aesthetically pleasing to boot. In the end, I’ve had to just go for pretty. I am hoping that with time, the process becomes a wee bit easier. At the moment I've got my work cut out for me and am trying hard not to get too stressed about everything - it feels like I'm trying to learn a billion things at once, from drawing to design, to actual carpentry, which is more than a little daunting. That said, there have been moments in the workshop when I've got my headphones in and have got stuck in to whatever it is I am doing at the time (whether it be drawing, planing, sawing or the like) and life is good - its just a really sweet spot to be in. 

Didnae fash yourself.

Greetings earthlings. I know its been a while since my last post, mostly because I've been rather slack on the crafty front over the last month, concentrating on the more mundane and boring stuff like trying to get a visa and a driving licence.

Knitting baby booties, cute as they are, doesn't really add to the sum total of craftiness

Visa now got (sadly, not the driving licence, at least not yet), I have re-rooted myself up to bonnie Scotland where the scenery is beautiful but its oh-so-quiet. Although I've mentally tried to prepare myself for this, arriving in the little village (picturesque as it is) with only 1 co-op, 1 post office and 1 cafe (but 2 pubs you'll be pleased to note) after the hustle and bustle of London town was a bit of a shocker to the system (try getting a supply of Chinese groceries here? I think not). I've also run out of my Fringe boxset after only two marathon days, so am a little bit concerned that cabin fever may hit, especially if I don't get a driving licence and a car soon!

Am a little bit apprehensive about the start of school on Monday - in the past month, it feels like I've been waiting in limbo, and during this time I've consciously tried to avoid thinking about the future and what it may hold, but there's no avoiding it now. Part of me feels extremely underprepared for this, and I've got an inkling that it will take a long long time for this feeling to go away, if ever. Will keep you posted on how things go in the next instalment, but until then - here's some pictures of the view.

Gifford village and its woody walks

North Berwick's beaches