The Great Escape!

I haven't produced a blog entry for while, but having read the title of this one, I know exactly what you're thinking......

It's coming up to Christmas shortly and he's been at those bloody mince pies laced with quantities of dubious alcohol as a forerunner to sitting down in front of the telly to enjoy Steve McQueen on his (Triumph) motorcycle attempting to jump over barbed wire fences.

Close, but no cigar!

Although I'm looking forward to the Christmas films (I'm a sucker for Miracle on 34th St as well) this is actually about Japan, where I've just been for approximately the last month or so.  I'm not going to blather on as there's a vast amount on t'interweb about the country and I've also produced an account of our adventures in 2012 (covering several blog entries)

However, there's e thing that’s worthy of a blog entry, a souvenir purchased in Kyoto, which happened to be a pair of fittings (a 'kashira' and 'fuchi') from an ancient sword, possibly made the mid-Edo period, so maybe around 1750. Both of these beautiful, matched little fittings formed part of the complex handle on a katana and had been, over the centuries, never more than 200mm or so from one another.

Having travelled half way round the world, the fittings arrived safely in the UK but on Sunday last (8th Dec) I took the kashira out to the 'shop and being a complete and utter numpty, I tripped on the garden steps and the little iron pommel, inlaid with gold, spun off into the undergrowth!

The next three hours was spent, in freezing, windy conditions, on my hands and knees doing a finger search through the grass and flower beds but despite my best efforts, it was nowhere to be found and I was, as you can imagine, fairly pi$$ed off!

It had disappeared; gone (or so it seemed) forever.

I looked again in the evening before dark fell, but there was still absolutely no sign of it, so I gave up, decided it was lost and sensibly had a beer.

The next day, I went out to the 'shop, up the same steps and happened to glance down....

....and there, where my finger is pointing at that rock, was the kashira, face side up with the gold glinting in the sunshine!

'Gobsmacked' is an accurate description of how I felt at that precise moment, because I know, absolutely, that it wasn't there the previous day as I'd swept that ground with my fingertips at least six times on Sunday.

How to explain it?  There are strange tales and legends that surround Japanese swords but perhaps the little kashira has a Shinto 'kami' and decided that having successfully made 'The Great Escape' from my clutches, a freezing cold night in an English garden was much less preferable to being right next to his mate in a nice warm display cabinet:

....so 'please, pretty please, could you find me, pick me up and put me next to my pal?'

Maybe it was even the spirit of the blade's long dead samurai owner who knew exactly where it was and moved it during the night so I could find it the next day? There is though, a far more plausible explanation and that is that my 'furry friends' have been up to their old tricks.

I rest my case m'lud. 

TSBAS

 Some further progress has been made on this interpretation of one of Jim Krenov's 'Owl Cabinets', namely the small drawer has been constructed and fitted:

My drawers have always been a bit 'hit n'missy', sometimes they fit reasonably and other times I could quite cheerfully drive a tank through the side 'clearances', so this time I followed to the letter the excellent series produced by Rob Cosman in Canada on making and fitting them.  I don't agree with the ridiculous, clunky, inelegant North American affectation for thick sides, so in the one recently made, they're are a gnats knacker (or cock)😂 slightly under 6mm, co closer actually to 5.5mm. The sides are made in Paduk and the drawer base is in Ash to match the top of the drawer box, as is the front (handle yet to be made and fitted). Note the through dovetails on the front which is an unusual way to make joints for the front of a drawer, but to me it looks quite effective.

Although I've tried at least six times to upload a video clip, I've failed miserably but I can assure the readership that the drawer slides in with the merest push with a grubby finger on one of the corners.

You may though, be wondering about the title of this entry?  Anyone who reads this stuff won't have access to the background info, such as the stats....but I do!  I've been surprised and somewhat chuffed that by far the greatest number of 'enthusiasts' of this drivel hale from Singapore, with, it appears,  thousands of avid followers crammed onto that small island. 

In appreciation, I reckon you lot ought to have a proper, good old British knees up at some hostelry of dubious reputation (or even Raffles) somewhere along the Orchard Rd and perhaps I could suggest a name?

'The Singaporean Blokeblog Appreciation Society'.

Please though, don't bill me for the drinks. Or the dancing girls.

Cheers!    

The 'Owl' Cabinet: Progress Deux

There's been some progress on this project and remarkably, even miraculously there doesn't thus far appear to have been any spectacular foul ups and those who for some odd reason dip into this dirge from time to time will know that it happens with some regularity! There are other more succinct, anglo saxon phrases that could be used (are very frequently are) but they're beyond the remit of the 'Blokeblog'. Google however, is your friend😂 

First and foremost, the rebate for the back panel was machined; not too onerous a job:

The round corners need to be 'squared' out and the back panel, once completed is dropped into the rectangular recess.

Second and foremost, I've been pondering on the drawer box and how to install it into the cabinet.  It looks simple, but the application of some brain cells will soon tell you that it ain't! 

After much deliberation in which more that a few of the aforementioned brain cells were extinguished I've decided to make a dovetailed box to hold the drawer:

If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you'll notice that there's something odd about the shovetails; at one end there's regular spacing but at the other the pins remain equal but the tails gradually increase in width towards the middle.  These are quite straightforward to cut but tricky to work out the differing width of the tails.  Cunning n'est pas?

To give me enough time to glue the whole thing together, I've used 'old skool', slow setting Araldite which takes all the stress and angst out of a complicated glue up.  This took just over an hour to glue and had I used any other sort of adhesive it would have set long before.

It's 'icky' stuff so you need to get prepared:

...but the final job has gone together really well.  There was a small gap on one of the shoulders which has been pulled up with a Japanese sash cramp:

It's now residing somewhere warm for the epoxy to set properly overnight, so the next few days will show if the dovetails look presentable.  Or not.

The 'Owl' Cabinet; Progress

 As mentioned in a previous post, another Jim Krenov cabinet, or interpretation thereof is under way.  Thus far, by some miracle, there don't seem to be any horrendous gaffs that have been committed and it's pretty much gone together as planned...and it does take a lot work with the little grey cells!

JK's doors are always the hardest thing to make, so I started with them and as I'd never made a set of 'sail' doors, I made a prototype in pine, shown in the second pic.  This is one of the Ash panels being planed:

 ...using my little convex sole maple plane and couple of ancient 'rounds' to get into the tighter part of the curve. Jointing is by Dominos (quick and easy) but here I've used some mock green 6mm mdf doms:

Both doors are shown, with the mock pine door on the rhs. Dominos are also used for the main construction, with the horizontal ones being machined wider so adding a degree of 'slideability' 

when all four sections are assembled:

At this stage, you'll be able to see the verticals, the doors and one of the veneered horizontal panels, yet to be machined:

Shaping on the vertical panels is done in much the same way as the doors:

...but this time I used a straight edge to guide the planes, which made life a lot easier. Then it was simply a question of refining and finishing the curves at each end:

If you look at the following pic, you'll see that the doors sit into a stopped rebate at the front of each vertical side and the veneered top and bottom are 'wrapped around' which took a bit of sorting out to machine:

...but I got there in the end leaving a few mm all round for the eventual fitting of the doors. As mentioned earlier in another enthralling post, I hate fitting brassware but strangely, the Brusso hinges shown dropped into their recesses absolutely spot on:

It's all come together quite nicely, so I'm moderately chuffed with the progress to date.  However, over the last couple of days I've pondered at length just how the hell JK made and fitted the drawer assembly:

It looks very simple, but it's fiendishly difficult to make, fit and assemble into the cabinet.  Having worn out a load of brain cells over the weekend I think I've worked out how he did it and moreover the sequence of events to construct it and fit it into the cabinet. My version won't be exactly as shown above but in essence, fingers crossed, it will look very similar. 

Treasure Box; Deux

 Sometimes, deep down, you get a feeling that something's not right or won't work and such an insight happened the other day about the current little box, details of which were outlined in the last enthralling episode; I knew that faffing around cutting another hinge slot simply wasn't going to work!

As a result, all the holly banding was drum sanded off and I decided to try and use a wooden hinge aka Rob Cosman as I'd made a few of his boxes fairly recently...

As I'd never done any veneering using end grain 'oysters' this was a new departure for me and as a consequence there was a bit of a 'learning curve' accompanied the many and varied cock ups which which were too numerous to detail, even by 'The Blokeblog' standards. I was determined that this job wasn't going to end up as bandsaw fodder, so I simply soldiered on and sorted out the mistakes, errors and general goofs as they occurred. 

It was finally done today and despite all my reservations, it hasn't turned out too badly.  Fortunately SWIMO likes it and has accosted it for her watches.

...and once the lid's been opened:

The overall effect is acceptable, though the holly, although excellent to work with is fairly unforgiving of any discrepancies in the jointing and is also very difficult to keep anywhere near clean.

At the end of the jour, I'm glad this little box has been dun n'dusted and 'er indoors has found a suitable use for it.

Onwards and upwards.

Mismatch! I hate hinges.

 After finishing off SWIMBO's 'Treasure Box' I've been noodling around in the workshop for the last few days making another little box, this time using some Laburnum 'oyster' veneers: 

...first used on furniture in the early 16th century. I had one little bit of timber which was sufficient to just make enough 'oysters' for a small box which 'er indoors has again purloined.  Never having used this type of veneering process before it was an 'interesting' experience and one I don't care to repeat!

All things being equal (which they usually aren't in any of my wood mangling procedures) the little box went together quite well.  I decided to use some Holly that I acquire from Stourhead years ago as an edge banding and also as a feature to mask where the top had been separated from the box; all pretty standard wood faring stuff.

The only hinges even worth considering for any half respectable box are Andrew Crawford's smartHinges which although hideously expensive are ridiculously easy to fit, just requiring four passes on the router table, one for each leaf.

The caveat is that you have to fit them properly! 

Each machined slot has to be precisely 42mm long and if there's any deviation from that exact measurement, the lid simply will NOT match the top.  The issue is that the slots are made on the router table, but each pair is machined in a different direction; two left to right and the other pair right to left.

A 34mm spacer needs to be made to set the slot lengths and of course once the table has been set up, trial slots can be made, ensuring of course that you check to see that they're exactly the same length. 

I made the trial slots, but being a complete an utter eejit bereft of all remaining brain cells, I neglected to check the lengths and assumed, as you would, that all was 'hunky doodly.' It wasn't though as one was less than 0.5mm too bloody long, which had the effect of 'corkscrewing' the lid when it was fitted.  You can faff around with this sort of fitting and adjustment til the cows come home, but in the end I decided to fill in the errant slot:

...and re-machine it again, this time a gnats cock less. Fortunately I haven't fiddled with the router table so the 'set' will still be fine. 

On a brighter and more positive note, this weekend I started a much larger job:

...which will be an interpretation of one of Jim Krenov's pieces, 'The Spalted Owl' cabinet though my one will be made in some outstandingly figured English Ash with a stand in Paduk.

Although it's much larger, it'll be a bloody sight easier to make than this sodding little box!

Treasure Box

After a fraught few months in which this job (on more than one occasion) nearly became bandsaw fodder it's finally done n'dusted:

There were a whole load of trivial, niff-naffy things that conspired to make to make it increasingly more irksome to complete, so ultimately I had two options: walk away from it or pass it bodily through the bandsaw.  I'm glad now that I decided to walk because now it's all complete, it looks quite respectable.

The marine brass hasp was expensive but worth the outlay.  However, it was very crudely polished and had to be take apart and re-finished using some of SWIMBO's diamond grits on a felt bob in a small Dremel drill; that took a complete day!  The polished M4 domed brass nuts complete the finished hasp once it had been re-assembled.

The drawer boxes were made in some very acceptable Victorian mahogany, dated roughly at about 1860 and the fronts are Birds Eye Maple, epoxied in place.  One of the intensely annoying bloody niggles was that they had to be fitted to the openings at least thrice and the second time was after they'd been polished so that had they to be done all over again! Thankfully, a touch of candle wax after polishing eased the fit so they all slide in quite nicely now. Drawer pulls and slim wedge for the hasp made in African Blackwood.

The underside consists of a couple of plinths in Bog Oak:

 

...secured in place with some maple buttons and No.7 c/s brass screws. I'm not convinced though that I used quite enough buttons to do the job; a pundit who shall be nameless thought that I could do with a few more!

I fully intended to sell this thing but whilst I was doing the final wax polishing, SWIMBO sauntered into the 'shop one Saturday morning just to see what was going on.  I mentioned in passing that I was going to flog it 'cos I was bloody fed up with it, whereupon she immediately said..."you'll do no such thing as I'll have it. It's now mine!"

Being of reasonably sound mind, I didn't have much choice in the matter, so it's now been found a spot on top of her:

...English Walnut chest of drawers that I made for her a few years ago. Suffice to say that it's already got a few 'treasures' located within and I dare say that a few more will find their way into the interior in due course.