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.