Thursday, October 29, 2009

jumping around


More shaping! Yes this time the aprons and stretchers.


Here's one of the stretchers. They're getting a concave curve at the bottom and convex on the top. The bottom on the long side has about a 1/8 - 3/16" amplitude... maybe 5/32" heh and the top curve about 1/16". People should be able to see the bottom curve. From that and the grain graphics the top one is sort of inferred or exaggerated but there is a little curve there to be found upon a closer look.


This is one of the aprons that go above the stretcher and directly below the top. The bottom has a slliiight concave curve. This is the one that I'm really interested if anyone will pick up. I can just pick it out when it's not against a straight object... maybe because I know it's there? eh.

I'm kind of playing around here having a bit of fun with it. It's a little odd in that normally when I think of playful things they are more exaggerated, bold, or dynamic. In the past I've done a couple "bold" pieces; now I'm doing almost the opposite and quite enjoy it. How subtle can one get? Where are the lines between sight, presence, perception, and something being unacknowledgable? Maybe I'll learn something, maybe not. Whatever, I like it.

Moved on to clean up the rebates of the frames. Oh, I meant to share the shoulder plane(s) earlier. Hmm Well this is the 2.0 version. The first one I made I figured that the wedging force was too far from the Point of Operation (PO for some POO for others). So, I just made the shaving hole so that there would be more body material over the blade on the new one.
I got workable results with the Shedua and satisfactory results with the Kwila. Perhaps I'm not adjusted to this plane 100% or perhaps there's some room for improvement or maybe there's a reason there are mostly brass bodied shoulder planes out there. Whatever the case may be I couldn't find much useful information on the web. If you're interested in making one of these don't be afraid to ask about it though I wouldn't consider myself an expert just yet.


Well now over to the veneer I cut a little while ago. In both narrow planks I cut there was a slight color gradation to slightly lighter in the Oak and from a slightly darker, redder in the Nara. This is kind of annoying as I don't have both sides of the tree because flitch cutting isn't very popular. Book matching gives you fighting prismatic effects. I have become kind of paranoid of this because I start noticing it everywhere and it's bothersome to me. Maybe I'll get over it some day but for now I'm making things more difficult. After a quick call to my classmate Craig I decided I wanted to place the darker parts at the outsides of the top where it meets the frame. On one side I can use a wider piece and utilize the natural gradation the other side is the tricky part. It's mainly luck to find a darker streak on one of the light portions (or other way around) that's thick and straight enough to make a joint with. I got one with one of the oak pieces but I'm even harder pressed with the Nara due to it's irregular grain.
I only needed two joints with the width of the veneer but now I have 4 in the one Nara panel I got to and six in the one Oak I got to! I hope it turns out well! I'm not biggest fan of the idea of cutting up bigger pieces to re-assemble them, I kind of have a little Nakashima "syndrome". In this case I don't really have the "luxury"... even if I did my machines are on the small side.

Enough yakkin for now, till next time.

3 comments:

Nick Brygidyr said...

dude thats a sweet lookin' shoulder plane!

ive actually run into a little problem with my cabinet...when it comes to color. i used up all the soft maple for the posts and bends and the door..i do have another plank of soft maple but its very oddly red! i mean when i plane it, its not so red but, still, its not white like the stuff the rest of the cabinet is made of.

im scared of not being able to get the veneer for the top and bottom to be in harmony with the rest of the cabinet....

OH WOOD!

Anonymous said...

That was the main reason why the white oak was removed because the color changed through the board when cutting the veneer. When I tried to line up everything in the end, it didn't look good. If I were to use white oak again, I would go after the widest board available with a nice cathedral down the center just like you did on your previous cabinet. With certain woods, I have stopped fighting to get that straight quarter sawn look, it may be because I too have a little nakashima in me.

Nicholas Nelson said...

Ahh yes I can get a feeling of your, or our, struggle heh. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed as I haven't gotten much time in the shop to work on it.
Yeah ideally for me I like a bit of flat-sawn in a wide rift plank. It's a nice organic break up of a "pattern". That's the other thing I dislike about translating too many strips of veneer... the closely related pattern. It just rubs me the wrong way.