22 April
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So, after the whole resin-casting-a-mug thing, it’s fair to say that the shed was in need of a cleanup…

Turns out, sanding resin will actually leave a bit of residue. Also, the shavings are starting to pile up again…

And the bandsaw is getting buried…

And the shop vac wasn’t actually vac-ing much either. So I started there, and checked the drum for the vortex separator, but it wasn’t even a tenth full, so I took out the filter from the shop vac…

And sure enough, there’s the problem:

Totally clogged with fines.… Read the rest

01 April
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In Humour
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So, one of our team at work went on holiday to Peru and left his mug behind him in Dublin. And was scheduled to return on April 1.

So what happens next is entirely his fault.

(COL-PROD was a work project thing which won’t mean a thing outside of work)

You know, it’s harder than you think to shatter a mug using a wedge from the inside out so it doesn’t look like some heathen just belted it with a hammer…

Foamcore mould, held together with packing tape and hotglue.… Read the rest

13 March
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In Resin, Woodcarving, Woodworking
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So, y’know when you have an odd idea and you can’t be sure if it’s good or terrible?

The oak carving is going okay. But depressingly regularly, while cutting away the background, a piece of the foreground chips off. Sometimes I can fix it with CA glue, sometimes I can soften out the edges so it looks like it was supposed to be rounded instead of oops-broke-a-bit, but I kept wondering about how well the box would hold up if it’s this chippy, and also while I like the way it looks, well, most of the appeal of this sort of stuff comes from the medullary rays and the lines of the grain you get when you rive oak, and the flatsawn stuff just isn’t as pretty.… Read the rest

11 March
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In Baby blanket chest, Tools, Woodcarving, Woodworking
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A (rare these days) workday evening half-hour in the shed, so onto the side panels.

End vice, does’ foot, holdfast, all the hold-it-down-on-a-flat-surface tools I have and it still jumps about if I’m carving towards the edge of the bench. Now I know why Peter Follansbee nails his work down to a large pine board before carving.

The joys of having a lot of good material and elbow room 😀

Still, the new gouges did well enough, the carving was a bit easier than before.… Read the rest

10 March
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In Baby blanket chest, Tools, Woodworking
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…is that you have to sharpen lots of gouges.

After noticing all the chipping out I was getting, and some awkwardness with the v-tool work, I took the entire carving toolroll out and took the grinder off the wall.

Then I pushed my luck by squaring the ends of the gouges and v-tools on the side of the stone. Don’t do this, it’s not a great idea for anything stressful and figuring out what qualifies as stressful isn’t clear.… Read the rest

03 March
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In Baby blanket chest, Woodcarving, Woodworking
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The title is annoyingly descriptive of the process, but on we go. Unwrapped the boards, and discovered silicone will stick to CA glue and oak…

Chopped the last line of the outline with a third gouge (this one was in-canel, so I chipped out waaaaay too many pieces on the back of the box before getting to grips with it).

It looks a bit confused because you have a few lines crossing but those areas are going away so that’s okay.… Read the rest

25 February
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So V-tool work done, time for the vertical gouge chops that make up the design on the box. After ten minutes of sharpening and stoning and stropping of course.

Chops one and two. I kindof wanted this to be more pointy at the top, but I didn’t have a gouge of the right curvature and size. Anyway, do this for all the boards...

Yes, you need the Peltors. Small shed, loud echos.… Read the rest

24 February
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In Baby blanket chest, Desk Shelf, Woodcarving, Woodworking
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So the resin tests came out pretty damn good. The idea of putting the reflector under the resin worked quite well, and most of the colours came out well (the crimson guitars stains didn’t really pop but that was more down to the dark background – the way the red especially looked over the reflector suggests it’d be lovely over poplar).

Crimson guitars stains in walnut

Calum picked out a few he liked as well (the ones with crosses beside them in pen).… Read the rest

21 February
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In Desk Shelf, Woodworking
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So, like I said last time, there’s going to be some resin in the desk shelves for Calum. Because, you know seven year old clients, they’re all about the bright colours. And the North Atlantic. So, onto ebay and ordered 3kg of clear resin (I won’t need that much, but I want to do other stuff too…) and then pigments… well, Peter Brown had a “using household things for resin pigments” so I thought I’d try lidl acrylic and tempura paints and some other stuff…

And I also was thinking walnut is dark so any resin is going to look like it’s in a hole in the ground, but there’ll be an LED light above the walnut shelf, so what if I had a reflector under the resin?… Read the rest

17 February
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In Baby blanket chest, Desk Shelf, Tools, Woodcarving, Woodworking
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More shed time today, and I spent the first half of it fettling the middle shelf in the desk. Straightforward, if repetitive process – assemble, check what’s too tight and what’s too loose, cut or pare the shelf a little narrower with saw and chisel, reassemble, recheck, repeat until the dovetail joint that was horribly stressed by the shelf being too wide:

…is no longer stressed, but just snug:

And doublecheck all the other joints to be sure nothing else is opening up.… Read the rest