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Recreating a cresting rail

I needed to replace the chair's cresting rail because the original is broken into two pieces and repeated gluing attempts by the previous owners seemed doomed to failure.

Using the original as a template I drilled the angled holes for the back spindles into a block of timber which was formed from three separate pieces of wood to achieve the necessary thickness to accommodate the cresting rail's curve.

Some band sawing, bobbin sanding and disc sanding later - I've got to this stage:

More work with a spoke shave and then the high tension of the glue up!

Windsor style chair to restore

A much loved Windsor style chair has found its way into my workshop for a little bit of restoring and TLC. The cresting rail is broken into two pieces and the H shaped stretcher assembly of the legs needs removing and reassembling correctly.  You can see in the pic that I've already turned a replacement spindle for the the back rest where one had given way. It'll be a great way to familiarise myself with the construction of the popular Windsor chair design.

Walnut Tree

And while I'm here...  next in the woody tune series is...

Keane - Walnut Tree (Who knew?)

He waited a long long time.

For Dana

JOY!! A comment on a post from last year landed in my in box this week.

Someone had seen my final term project design on the May 2012 post Cabinet-making and was interested in seeing how the big adventure had turned out.

I'm afraid I haven't taken any proper portfolio photos of  "The Dandy" yet because it is so tall and I haven't figured out how to get it all on a decent backdrop etc. So these are phone pics and a bit noisy; but you get the idea.

Here is "The Dandy" in the corner of our office:

And some detail shots:

So... There you have it. And thank you Dana for asking, I'm really chuffed at your interest.

Caroline

Wye Oak

After spending most of November creating a series of beautiful hard wood storage boxes out of three colours of woods: American Black Walnut, American Cherry and Maple. (You can see final product here) I have moved on to a new commission to design and make two oak blanket chests.

The oak that I am working with has come from Latvia via English Woodland Timber and I was amazed when I machined it into components to reveal a gorgeous warm and creamy texture to the wood. The finished products are going to be beautiful.

It's still early days but this is where I'm at with it thus far.

Wonderful oak, hey?


So.... according to Wikipedia, The Wye Oak used to be the biggest white oak tree in the US. It grew in Maryland  but was felled by a storm in 2002.

I was looking it up because I want to post Wye Oak's (the band) track "Civilian" as the next track in my woody music series. So here you go:





Oh the oaky oaky cokey..... etc

September Work in Progress

An old pine rafter from Brighton's Recycled Wood Project, chopped in two to fit in the back of the car, machined back to the beautiful pinky orange of aged pine, ready to be made into a coffee table and display cabinet for a huge Lego model of the Star Wars Milennium Falcon.

The raw material

An early dry clamp-up

Glued up and lined. 

Just need the top, bottom and sides now...