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