week 13

 This week my dad and I went to buy the wood. We decided to get red oak which looks similar to cherry but i was a little more red so i decided that i liked it better than cherry. We went to Southern Tier Hardwoods and the place was awesome! they had really cool wood that I didn't even know existed! my favorites were purple heart and bloodwood. My dad also taught me that the way good wood is sold is by the "board foot" which is a volume measure that is one foot by one foot by one inch. I also learned that the different thicknesses of woods are measure by quarters (.25 inches) if you buy planed wood a 4x4 (4 quarters) piece of wood will end up just under an inch thick because when they plane it they are taking off material. So, overall it was a productive week and I can't wait to start building!

 This is purple heart, and yes, that is the natural color of the wood

 this is bloodwood

Week 12

Being a huge nerd, I decided to make my coffee table into a "golden rectangle" which is a math phenomenon named by the ancient Greeks. The ratio of width to length is 1:1.618 , this ratio is believed to be the most pleasing to the eye which will hopefully make my coffee table look really nice. I decided to make the length of the table 38 inches because it seemed like a reasonable length for a coffee table. Also if I make it bigger then the width would also be bigger and I didn't want it to be too wide. So dividing 38 by 1.618 a got the width to be 23.5 inches. Now, the is much too tall for a coffee table so instead of using that for a height I divided the width by 1.618 getting 14.5 inches for the height. Thus, making my coffee table a golden rectangle in every view except looking straight on in the front. I drew out the different sides so that you could get a better mental image of the dimensions. I'm having some malfunctions uploading the picture from my phone right now so i'll fix it next period when I'm in the small lecture hall

Week 11

this week I looked up how to make new wood look old and I was really surprised with the results. What I found was to let steel wool sit in vinegar for a while until it rusts and in a seperste container make some tea. First paint the tea onto the wood and let it dry. Then do the same with the rusty steel wool mixture, the tea has a small effect but the steel wool makes a big difference. I'm planning on doing this with a shelf that I want to make. Here are some pictures from the specific post that I found. 

week 9

    I forgot to post last week because it was spring break so I wasn't very focused on school work. however, this week i researched hidden screws and how to hide screw holes. The reason I researched this was because I knew that there was a way to hide screws when making a deck but I wasn't sure how. It turns out you can buy or make a jig that has an angled hole in it. You line the hole up with the edge of the board so that when the screw goes in, it goes in the board on the side, that way the next board will hide the screw. I thought that was really cool because decks just look so much nicer when there aren't little screw heads everywhere. While I was researching this topic I found a way to cover screw holes even when making furniture and going straight through the front face of the board. When you set the screw you have to make sure it gets seated into the wood so that there is a hole above the head. then you take the same material and cut out a circle the same size of the hole. The way this is done is with a special bit that is shaped liked a circle so when it drills, the material in the middle stays there. you take out the circle, jam it into the hole, and when you sand it, the dust will fill in the lines around it and it will be virtually invisible.
        below on the left is a wood plug and on the right is a deck with hidden screws.

week 7

This week I looked into how I would mill my own lumber but all that I could find was how to make my own home made mill which would run about $400 and still take a long time to put together and get working right. Then I had an idea about how I could make the shelf piece mentioned in my last blog post. On my plans I accounted for the shelf coming out about 6 inches from the wall. This means that I would need a 6 or 7 inch diameter log to process. This is a lot smaller than i was thinking so really I was thinking that there was a problem when really there wasn't. My first option is to see if I can find a circular saw blade big enough to cut in on a table saw. (either my dad's or the school's) If that doesn't work out then the school has a very large band saw that I think would work if I made a jig sort of like a wedge to keep the log steady while I cut it.      
In case you didn't know, the left picture is a table saw and the one on the right is a band saw.

week 6

This week in Metals we had to decide what our personal project for the rest of the year would be. So, i decided that I want to make a coat rack that hangs up on my wall. For the pegs i"m going to use railroad spikes and at the top I'm going to make a wooden shelf. I'm a really big fan of wood that came directly from a log, like wood that still has bark on the sides. That's what I'm planning to do for the shelf the problem is i don't know where i can find a mill to cut my own piece so I might have to order one. If i can't find where I can get one then I'll probably just get a nice piece of wood to use but either way I'm hoping it'll come out nice!

 

Here's an example of the type of board I was talking about just in case you didn't know exactly what I meant.

here is the model that I made of what I'm hoping the rack will turn out to look like

week 5

This week I researched some good ways to make jigs in order to get better fitting joints. When making joints, usually you have to cut slots or indents on a table saw. If you didn't already know, a table saw isn't a very accurate machine if you're trying to get two things to fit perfectly together. But if you have a jig and you cut all of your piece on the same jig, they should all be exactly the same. I'm thinking that i definitely want to make a jig at least for my tenon joints on the coffee table. From what I found, jigs are pretty easy to make, you can pretty much slap a couple pieces of wood together and no matter what, if you use the same jig, all the cuts will be identical.

 here is an example of someone's home made jig

week 4

This week I looked up the process behind bending wood. Bending wood is an incredible thing and if done right, it looks beautiful. It's a crazy concept because you take a total solid, brittle material, and bend it into beautiful shapes. What i found is you put your pieces into a steam box, an hour per inch of thickness, then after that you put it in a jig that you make to bend them into your desired shape. Clamp them down and wait for them to dry, theoretically when it dries it will stay in that shape.

 here is a picture of a really cool chair with bent wood

week 3

I spent this week reading a book that is all about wood working. It had a lot of useful information! for example it mentions how wood is sort of alive, meaning that with the moisture content in the air, wood expands and contracts. So, when making something out of wood one must keep that in mind. This week i also talked to my dad about how i would go about making a coffee table, what joints to use where, how to connect the legs to the top, etc. My biggest question was how to connect the legs to the top. He said that he has a bunch of these brackets that are in the shape of a Z. you cut a slit in the leg for the bottom part of the bracket to slide into and the top part of the bracket gets screwed into the underside of the table top. these brackets are really cool because since the bottom part just fits into the slit in the leg, it allows it to expand and contract without damaging the piece! Overall it was a pretty productive week, I have robotics 6 days a week and I'm the president so when I'm there I can't really work on this project because the competition is coming up so I'm expected to be working on the robot. I do have wood working tools at home, table saw, band saw, etc however, if I open the garage door to let the saw dust out I'll freeze to death and if i leave it shut I'll cover me, my dad's, and my mom's Harleys in saw dust and they would have none of that! So until the competition is over (march 22) I plan on just doing research which isn't so bad because it's gonna be good for me to know a lot about woodworking before just jumping right into it!

week 2

This week I started to think of what kind of wood i want to make my coffee table out of and what I want to do with it when I'm done. There's also the question of whether or not i want to spend money on the wood. Mrs. Krieger had suggested maybe using old wood, so basically recycling wood from something else. I really like that idea but my sister is planning on moving out sometime within the next year and she asked if I would give it to her when I finish. obviously I said yes, how awesome would that be if she actually used a piece of furniture that I made?! however, my dad said that he wants it for the family room so I told them whoever pays for the materials will get it. But, 'm sure that my dad will pay for it and keep it in the family room until Meghan moves out and then let her take it. So with the money taken care of, i would really like to make it out of some really nice cherry wood because I've always really liked the look of cherry.

Here's a picture of a jewelry box made out of cherry wood, so can you see why i like it some much? It's beautiful! so anyways, since i now have the means to pretty much do anything i want with this project I'm super pumped for it!

Joint Research

2/6/15

I spent this week researching different types of joints to make with wood. I ended up finding a lot more than i had expected! I never realized how many different types of joints there are. plus, ontop of that i found of several ways that i could reinforce each joint for example using a hole and a corresponding dowel. I decided that for the coffee table (my final product) i'm going to use mortise and tenon joints to connect the legs to the top piece.

I haven;t decided if i'm going to put a side piece a couple inches below the top piece but I think I probably will. I'm also thinking about putting cross pieces between the legs for support. Also, for the top piece I want to use two different colors of wood and alternate them so that there is a variety of color. BUT, i have a long way to go before I get there. To start off, I'm just going to practice making the joints that i know i"ll be using.

-Brendan