15 July
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In Desk Shelf, Woodworking
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Long week. Lots of hours in the office and zero hours in the shed till the weekend. One of those weeks. But, the post kept coming in… Granted, the clamps were a lidl special (but I’ve been using some for the last year and they’re really quite handy – I could use a few more f-clamps and one wooden parallel clamp to help with morticing and I think I’m good after that). And the poppyseed oil is food grade from the local indian shop, so no drying agents, but for a light oil finish it might be useful. Worth a try at any rate. AsRead More →

08 July
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In Desk Shelf, Shed, Tools, Woodworking
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You know the five minute jobs I mean, the ones that take three hours and nearly set things on fire, like your hair, a pile of sawdust, solvent-based finishes, that sort of thing. Today was their day! Started off with a quick job I’d been meaning to do for a while. That panel saw is junk. Uncomfortable handle, not sharp, can’t be resharpened thanks to induction-hardened teeth… Basically, a waste of shed space. Blade was kinked as well. One of Spear&Jackson’s lesser models, that. So, out with the angle grinder, hack through the rivets (because who uses screws when attaching plates to handles, that’s soRead More →

02 July
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In Shed, Woodworking, Workbench
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It’s entirely possible only other people who do woodwork in tiny, tiny sheds will understand the unbelievable awesomeness of what’s on my bench at the moment. I even gave it a coat of BLO&turps since I have no idea when I’ll next see it that clear again. Now I just need to tidy up down by its right front leg so I can stand in front of the end vice and I might be able to plane the sides of the bookshelf project without swearing too much… Also, I need to have a rule in the shed that I will never ever ever ever againRead More →

30 June
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In Shed, Shelves, Tools, Woodworking
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Still working on sketches for the next project, and it’s too hot to do very much (we’re Irish, we melt somewhere between 24C and 26C and we’re topping out at 30C now so of course we’re all draped over a couch, only moving if we hear the ice cream van…) Sketchup and me and curved surfaces is an unfamiliar territory, but the way you draw it is fairly close to building it that you make a rectangle, match it against other shapes, cut off the excess and shape any curves and so on, so the actual process is like a long-winded finicky walkthrough with your brainRead More →

29 June
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In Design, Shelves, Stringing, Tools, Woodworking
With 2 Comments

So asking on UKworkshop about that clamping problem I was thinking about with the shelf/desk project led to the conclusion that housing joints won’t work and tapered sliding dovetail joints are the better choice. That will probably mean some router work because of the precision needed – I could probably make a tapered dovetail joint that wouldn’t pull out, but one that would be precise enough to maintain the shelves against racking would be beyond me. So a new router bit, get that router table out of storage and actually assemble it (I basically picked it up in Lidl intending to use parts of itRead More →

27 June
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In Shelves, Woodworking
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Well, that empty In Progress… list lasted a while, didn’t it? Though I actually went back through my notebook… …and every project in there bar this one is marked as Done or (in one or two cases) marked as Won’t Do, What Was I Thinking. This one will be a small bookshelf for Calum. Well, small to you and me, but not to him. The idea is this will have his books and toys and assorted child-related detritus now (he’s six and between kindergarten and vorschule so just learning to read and write at the moment) and we figure he really won’t have “homework” in the traditionalRead More →

24 June
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In Finishing, Locker, Woodworking
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Time to complete the locker. The door got resawn down from 1″ to about 3/8″ thick using the bowsaw and the large ryoba when I got too annoyed at banging the bowsaw off the wall on every stroke, and resawing remains the most boring annoying thing ever, but you while you can thickness plane 3/4″ off a 1″ board with a scrub plane, it’s a pain in the fundament to do so. Roll on bigger bandsaw. Once the door was then planed down and fitted, which was mainly just faffing about planing until the edges of the doors matched the doorframe, it was time forRead More →

17 June
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In Finishing, Japanese Toolbox, Woodworking
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We had to run off to a graduation on Friday, but when we got back I spent a rather rushed half-hour in the shed. Thing about that sort of thing is that it gets… messy… So first things first on Saturday, clean up a bit… Right. Next, trim up the other end cap, and set the locking wedge position and glue it in place… And yes, that is the finish starting to go on the box and the key; and I have jumped the gun there a bit and I pay for it later. The finish by the way, is half danish oil and halfRead More →

13 June
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In Finishing, Japanese Toolbox, Locker, Woodworking
With 0 Comments

So I was a bit sneaky this morning and went to the shed for ten minutes before heading off to work. I’d prepped the part for the end cap on the toolbox last night but because I’d clamped up the base I couldn’t glue it on without risking either it or the base shifting when clamping. So this morning I went out, took off the clamps from the base, made sure I had clean gluing surfaces and glued up the end cap and clamped it. And of course, as you’re in a hurry, everything gets irksome and fiddly. Why on earth did it choose thisRead More →

12 June
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In Finishing, Japanese Toolbox, Locker, Woodworking
With 2 Comments

So the camera battery complained about being empty on Sunday and it got a few hours in the charger, but then come Monday, it said it was flat again. Hmmm. A replacement knockoff has been ebay’d. However, the fabrication of the handles and the glueup got missed. It wasn’t that hard, cut a piece of beech to width so it fits in the end of the box, then make a 1cm deep cross cut in the middle of the piece and chisel out a curve in it, then give up because the piece is too small to work on with the vices I have (IRead More →