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