Project Information
Hours and hours I spent, outside in the sun since I have no dust collection facility, sanding this guy down to a mirror finish. It was hot, around 36° Celsius, and I'm purposefully keeping my body between the searing heat of the sun and my precious box. I'm wearing an almost full face mask, not only against the dust but to try and catch all those beads (that makes them sound small, they were more like dollops) of sweat before they dropped onto the wood - I know from experience that one blob of sweat is another 10 minutes sanding.
I finish. I'm dehydrated. I'm dusty. My arms ache. My fingers ache even more.
I call upstairs to the other half, who dutifully comes down to look.
"Kind of small for a planter" she says!
Ah - the joys of woodworking!
Anyways. I tried really hard on this one. I (hand) resawed a nice, but simple, piece of beech, and messed it up. So I (hand) resawed another nice, but simple piece of beech. I was looking for a subtle bookmatched "upsweeping" kind of look on the faces. It was kinda strange for me, too, to be dealing with thin wood for a change, let alone trying to joint them into a single piece.
I cut the legs from a single piece of oak - trying to do as much of the work on it as possible before cutting into 4 "leg" shapes. I fumed them before putting it together, so I wasn't able to adopt a "sand it later" approach to the top. But, even the though the beech doesn't change much in ammonia, it does darken a little and I wanted to keep it as light and pink as possible. I thought the oak would go a bit blacker, but it had 48 hours and wasn't getting darker.
As always with these weird angle things, glue up is a challenge. I put the "box bit" together first, using the "wrap it with sellotape" trick. That's more sanding when the 'tape comes off. And then I glued on the legs. I wasn't sure how fragile it was, so I was very careful not to crush it with that one extra turn of the screw.
I'm tempted to make a top - after all, planters don't have tops, do they!
15cm cube. Fumed oak, beech, Tung oil finish.
As always - both good and bad comments welcome.
I finish. I'm dehydrated. I'm dusty. My arms ache. My fingers ache even more.
I call upstairs to the other half, who dutifully comes down to look.
"Kind of small for a planter" she says!
Ah - the joys of woodworking!
Anyways. I tried really hard on this one. I (hand) resawed a nice, but simple, piece of beech, and messed it up. So I (hand) resawed another nice, but simple piece of beech. I was looking for a subtle bookmatched "upsweeping" kind of look on the faces. It was kinda strange for me, too, to be dealing with thin wood for a change, let alone trying to joint them into a single piece.
I cut the legs from a single piece of oak - trying to do as much of the work on it as possible before cutting into 4 "leg" shapes. I fumed them before putting it together, so I wasn't able to adopt a "sand it later" approach to the top. But, even the though the beech doesn't change much in ammonia, it does darken a little and I wanted to keep it as light and pink as possible. I thought the oak would go a bit blacker, but it had 48 hours and wasn't getting darker.
As always with these weird angle things, glue up is a challenge. I put the "box bit" together first, using the "wrap it with sellotape" trick. That's more sanding when the 'tape comes off. And then I glued on the legs. I wasn't sure how fragile it was, so I was very careful not to crush it with that one extra turn of the screw.
I'm tempted to make a top - after all, planters don't have tops, do they!
15cm cube. Fumed oak, beech, Tung oil finish.
As always - both good and bad comments welcome.