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:
01 November 2024
TSBAS
17 October 2024
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:
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?
30 September 2024
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:
At this stage, you'll be able to see the verticals, the doors and one of the veneered horizontal panels, yet to be machined:
01 September 2024
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...
25 August 2024
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:
...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.
16 August 2024
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.
...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:
29 July 2024
ROMANUS NUMERI
It has to be said, I'm a bit of a history nerd, period. It doesn't really matter what sort of history; I'd probably draw the line at something really esoteric like the role of Confucius in ancient China or whatever it was called then, but you get the drift. I like noodling around in the past and trying to imagine what it was really like 'back in the day' to use an oft quoted phrase.
I'm a sucker for a decent history series on the TV and there are some particularly good presenters such as Dan Snow and Lucy Worsley. Bettany Hughes does some excellent stuff as well:
...and great though she is, she does have a couple of outstanding attributes that make it very difficult for a chap to concentrate on the program for any sustained time. Another particular favourite is Professor Mary Beard:
.......who may not be quite so outwardly forthcoming as our Bettany, but this is what Wiki has to say about her:
'Dame Winifred Mary Beard, DBE, FSA, FBA, FRSL is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge'.
The Prof. has a very engaging style as she merrily cycles along the ancient Appian Way, stopping her red bike now and again at some obscure Roman tomb to read the Latin text, some 2000 or so years old. The salient point though, in case you missed it, is that she can read the inscriptions and tell us what that long dead Roman is saying to us in the present day.
Strangely, I'm in awe of her ability to decode those old texts; it's something that I would love to be able to do. Some people of my generation yearned to play the guitar and blast out all the Stones and Beatles riffs; I wanted to learn Latin and read the ancient inscriptions in Rome.
What though, (and you're right to wonder) has all this meandering got to do with wood mangling? Most of the time, I scribble all over the work in pencil to mark stuff (face side, edge etc) and it's especially useful to use sticky dots:
...to identify the corners of a drawer say, when cutting dovetail joints, but at some point the dots and pencil scrbblings have to be removed; then you're stuck! A really elegant way to mark which bit goes with what is to use a 3mm chisel:
...to inscribe some ROMANUS NUMERI, remembering that '9' is IX not VIIII as I once did!
I think Professor Beard would approve.