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DWE's Woodwork Page
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I only did two years of woodwork in school and we were never taught how to
do joints in any systematic way. So I went on a basic woodworking course at
West Dean which gave me enough to
get started. West Dean is a most excellent place for all sorts of courses.
So far, I've done woodwork, framing, lino printing and leaded glass work.
As soon as I came back from West Dean I practiced my mortice and tenon joints
since we only had time for a demonstration of how to do these while we were
there. I think I got the hang of them.
A table
It was a good job that I had practiced my mortice and tenon joints since one
of my first projects was a table which needed eight of them. The reason for
making a table rather than buying one was the usual problem
of finding a table in a shop of the perfect dimensions.
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| Tenons
After marking out with a knife and a marking gauge, saw away most of the
wood and finish off with a chisel. You will need to cut off the shoulders of
the tenon as well - I don't have a picture of that.
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| ... and the final product. BTW the far leg is fixed at right angles to
the base. It's just the perspective that makes it look askew (honest).
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Trevor the Trebuchet
While on a Belle France
cycling holiday in the Perigord I visited Castelnaud which had a full-sized
trebuchet from a design by
Konrad Kyeser. In the gift shop they were selling models of this. I had
to get one.
Note tube of chocolate mini eggs in the first picture - they are the perfect
projectile.
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My next project was a blanket box. For this, I wrote a separate
page.
Art box
A simple box for storing large drawings. You put in pieces of hardboard to
act as separators. The box is made of MDF and jointed with biscuit joints.
Clamping a round table
A friend of mine wanted a table repaired. The problem was how to clamp the
table since the curved edge made the clamps slip off. The solution was to
cut some wood to the correct shape and use them as buffers.
Stools
Friends of mine were off to the States and asked me if I wanted some wood
they had. These were blocks of mahogany about 3x3x26 cm. I said "Yes,
please!". I didn't quite expect to find that there were more than 5000
of these blocks.
What's really interesting about these blocks is the variety in the wood.
Some are hard and solid, others light and soft. After finishing with a few
coats of Danish Oil (and matt varnish for protection), the wood looks quite
spectacular.
So what do I do with all these blocks? The original owner was to going to
make a big wine rack out of them. Then my friends acquired the blocks and
were going to try their hand at parquet flooring. My main use is to join
the blocks together with biscuit joints and then make stools and tables from
them.
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A small table
Tables need longer legs than stools. So if I am to use the blocks for these
too, I have to join them together. I also bought a simple lathe that is
powered by a standard drill. This is ideal for simple work such as making
table legs.
| The blocks are not quite the same size. The cross sectional dimension
varies from 31 to 33 mm. Initially, I just joined them up and let the sander
get them level. This is really tedious and sometimes the blocks don't have
square edges, so your "board" is not very flat (unless you sand it to
submission).
So some preparation does pay dividends. Since I can't afford a thicknesser
and my planing skill is not so good that I can get a perfect 30x30 mm
cross section each time, I designed a jig that would fit my hand plane and
help me get my desired cross section. In the end I got tired of all the
planing, so bought a cheap powered planer and built myself a bigger jig.
Ideally, I still want a thicknesser/planer (and enough room to store all
this kit! - the kitchen is not big enough).
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Top for rubbish bin
The top of my rubbish bin broke and I couldn't get another red one (needed
to match colour scheme of kitchen). So I decided to make one using MDF and
some bright red gloss paint. Most people don't realize that it's home made
and think that the top is made of plastic.
Yin yang boxes
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This is an ongoing project and not a huge success. I joined a number of my
blocks together and, using a template, tried to cut out the required shapes
using my small bandsaw. To be honest, my bandsaw is not up to much and the
blade tends to wander a bit. Many of the mistakes are having to be fixed
with filler and much sanding. This is very tedious.
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Waste paper bin
I'm very happy with the outcome, but I don't think I'll be doing this again
in a hurry. Too much like hard work.
Another small table
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This time it's round.
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Segment Table
Light Pulls
Yet another use for the mahogany blocks.
Dafydd Wyn Evans / IoA / dwe@ast.cam.ac.uk
Last update 18 January 2011