Thursday 26 January 2012

dust!


Why oh why didn't I make one of these 20 years ago? It only took 10minutes to make and it works beautifully .
I do a lot of sanding using a rotary sanding machine with the wood held in the vice and despite the sanding machine being connected to an extractor there's  always dust that flys up into my face. So I made this little hood , connected it to an old vacuum cleaner (one that I picked up from outside a bank that had left it out for the bin men - recycled!) and it works very well.

Monday 23 January 2012

check for squareness...


A tipette this morning! A good way to check if your box is square  - measure across the diagonals. I try to get mine to within 0.5mm of each other. It's a very satisfying smug sort of feeling when they come out spot on!

Saturday 21 January 2012

jewellery box progress


The base of the jewellery box is covered with moire - glued on and cut to size.
Moire , so far as I understand, is not a fabric itself, it's a pattern on the fabric - a watermarked or wood-grainy sort of pattern. The fabric itself can either be silk or a man made fabric like rayon or polyester.

Friday 20 January 2012

best laid plans

A loud crack - a whole day fixing it...
The rack on which I store all my sheet material hangs from the ceiling. It's a great place to store stuff if you've got the height. The glue joint suddenly decided that enough was enough and gave way with a loud crack. I'd only used scrap wood and hadn't really built it well enough so I only had myself to blame.







It took all day to unload it, fix a splint and reload  - but at least it's tidy now...

Tuesday 17 January 2012

creeping cutters

How can router cutters decide, halfway through a job, to creep up out of the collet! it defies all rules of logic and physics!
I know some of the reasons - dirty shanks, damaged shanks, insufficiently tightened collets, even blunt cutters I think but it still remains one of life's little mysteries.

Monday 16 January 2012

Jewellery boxes for next Christmas

An eight foot board with boxes 'mapped out' and ready to cut up.


This is the result of going off in a different direction. Lots of box pieces all roughly cut and waiting to emerge like a butterfly...

I really must get back to the jewellery boxes I started...

Friday 13 January 2012

Tullie House jewellery box


I started the day in one direction and ended up going in a completely different direction. I'm making a jewellery box for Tullie House so I'll take pics of that as it progresses but yesterday I was ambushed by two huge planks of burry oak. For some reason I just took it into my head to dig out these planks and start to map out a large box for a photo album - also due for January...

Thursday 12 January 2012

Maintenance


What joy! What unalloyed bliss! 2012 has finally got underway with a bit of serious maintenance of my machines. And what a difference a well oiled and greased planing machine with new blades makes. Something like the difference between cutting a loaf of bread with the back of the knife and the sharpe side.
New years resolution: Maintain machines more frequently....
I know I should but when there's boxes to make...
Happy new year faithful readers. The life of a boxmaker goes on..