Woodworking on Holidays: A tree house of note...

A four week break over the Easter period has enabled us to make a 2500km road trip around New South Wales and into Southern Queensland. Certainly more time was dedicated to building sand castles than woodworking but there were a few woody things of note.

The first wood object of note is this tree house found at the Macadamia Castle. A truly impressive multi-story tree house with multiple entry points and a upper tower fort. Although the tree seemed now deceased I was impressed but the amount of tree growth engulfing the added wooden structure. 

Phew those pews were long overdue...

Work, sickness, and family priorities have led to very little in the way of woodworking these past four or five weeks. Today however I had a break through in assembling the pews. 

The 5" makita ROS sander got a mighty work out. Prior to assembly all pieces went step by step through 120, 180, 240, shellac sealer, 240, and 320grit. It reads quickly, but it took several hours to get through all the pieces.

Repetitive drilling was made easier with a memory stick made from scrap pine. A drill press allowed me to form 90 degree holes at set points in the scrap. The scrap could then be moved along the board and used to guide a hand drill. A quick pilot hole with a twist bit followed by a counterbore with a forsnter bit.

After gluing and screwing the holes were filled with plugs. The plugs were cut using the vertias snug plug system (very nice), glued, tapped, and then flush cut.

There's still work to go; more sanding, and then the oiling begins.

Free Plan: Shaker Rocker

Given all the time in the world, one project I'd like to tackle is the Shaker Chair/Rocker. Fine Woodworking has published free plans for just such a chair on their website. I'll file this one away for later...

CLICK HERE to download the free PDF article and woodworking plan for Conover's Shaker rocking chair.

Site Statistics

I noticed today the site counter clicked over 25,000. In the past twelve months there's been a steady increase in visitors to the blog and I'd like to thank those people for supporting the site. 

The most popular posts in that time are the 6 Piece Burr Puzzle Jig, the Blackbutt Roubo, the Blog Roll, How I sharpen, various tool reviews and reports on wood shows. 

In this period although search engines became a prominent source of visitors (18%) the bulk of traffic (60%) came from referring. The most popular search was for 'table top construction' pointing to one of the earliest blog posts on the Blackbutt Table. Referrals from other sites included Lumber Jocks, Woodwork Forums, Woodworking Magazine, Cornish Workshop, Boutique Timbers, and the Flowering Elbow.

Once again thanks for the support, comments and feedback. Any suggestions or comments are always welcome. If you haven't so far, check out the The Love of Wood @ Facebook.

Up close with a pew: Joinery

Just a quick blog post to show some of the simple joinery that goes into making a pew.

With the seat removed you can see a stretcher that runs below. This stretcher joins the legs with three half-lap joints. The stretcher prevents racking (the legs rotating on the seat) and strengthens the seat.

The edging is combination of decorative curves and natural edges.

Around 1 cm of material is removed from the leg piece for the back rest to sit in. This is deliberative left short to allow the back rest to run the height of the round over above the leg.

The last few days have been spend filling in checks and cracks with epoxy. After final shaping and sanding the pieces will be connected with glue (titebond III), screws, and ebony plugs.

Wax Melter: Operational

The 8 Frame Wax Melter has been delivered and is now sitting proud next to my Dad’s vegie plot. The wax melts by the sun’s energy and drops through a filter into a collection tin below. The filter and tin can be accessed by a back door. The top is two layers of 1/8” plate glass. The timber is 3/4” Radiata pine. Up to eight frames are hung vertically. Due to the weight of the lid the hinges need upgrading.

Further thoughts on the lumber rack...

The idea of a new lumber storage rack has been revolving and evolving in the back of my mind for a while. To make it capable of holding medium to large slabs the current design is sizable - 0.9m deep, 2.0m tall, and 2.4m in length.

In my original post I was using Radiata Pine based on a design by Daniel Klauder. I'm now considering using Blackbutt Decking (65x19mm) to provide a thinner material and of course match the workbench. For a project this size around 100 linear meters of timber would be needed.

The main structural change to the design is the use of a second vertical post. This allows greater resistant to vertical pressure and spaced at ~165mm allows 150mm (6") ducting to be tunneled for dust extraction. In addition to this it will allow me places to mount electrical and lighting connections. 

The rack will be made in 4-6 vertical sections which will be glued and screwed. The vertical posts are made with spacers between the racks then sandwiched between two straight vertical pieces. These will then be bolted to lateral supports (4 in the current design, 3 and cross beam in the previous design.) This would allow it to be reduced to transportable parts.

Any feedback welcome.

Inspiration for the project on Daniel Klauder's Blog.

Another style rack from Julie's Blog.

Would you like a pew with dinner..

Serious progress is being made on the bench seats... which strangely look like pews... The main joinery is complete. Plenty of work to go however, final shaping (mainly on the back rest), sanding, gluing (with screws and ebony plugs), and then finishing... 

Chairs/benches are always a little tricky to get the right feel. (Especially for someone with limited experience). The benches a tad low but this will be corrected with the a cushion/upholstery over the wood. The backrest is posture correcting at the height I wanted to support the lowerback. Once the round over is completed this should be even more comfortable. I'm surprised at how narrow the seat is (forwards to backwards direction) meaning that my thighs are only supported between 1/2 and 2/3 the distance. The size was limited by my planner capacity but next time I would bring it forward or make it wider.

Roughing out the stretcher details...

The stretcher or cross member is essential to hold the two trestle legs securely. Using a jigsaw and belt sander I thinned the center producing a gentle curve. Looking at it now it could be thinned further at each end. 

The through tenons are secured using a solid ebony 'key'. At present they are functional but also need some detailing work with the rasp. 

Overall... average.

Auriou: Hand made by the French!

At the Forge De Saint Juery a team of eager Frenchmen hand form Auriou Rasps. Hand made includes each notch is hand tapped. On the Lie-Nielsen site there is this interesting video showing how this fine hand tools are produced. 

At $150-180 a rasp, I don't think I'll be adding one to my collection any time soon...