Saturday, December 11, 2010

Snowed in and wood settling

Well hello again. Woke up today to an unpleasant sight. You're looking at about 8-10" of snow there and there is no sign of it letting up.
My plan for the day was to rough mill parts for the Cherry cabinet and go to work at the part-time for the rest of the day conveniently getting paid while I let the wood settle a bit. My car, however is going no where in this snow so I'm snowed in with nothing to do ha.
I figured I'd chat here a little bit.

Put a new blade in the band saw this morning. I love the feel of a new band cutting so smooth and easy.
This is basically the yield of the whole plank pictured yesterday. It may not look like much, and it may not be, but beyond cutting off sap there was very little waste after joining and planing the stock... perhaps 20-25% Which is pretty damn low for this kind of work!
Pictured there is the top, bottom, and sides of the carcass. Also the frame members for the door. I still need to find the back panel frame parts, mullions (pieces separating glass in the door), and the horizontal partition or "stage" as I like to call it in these kinds of cabinets. Finding the partition is going to be the trickiest. Usually I get it from the same plank as the carcass which was not possible in this case. I wont be able to find a "perfect" match but hopefully I'll find something that looks good.

I've always had mixed feelings about Cherry. It's every where. Whenever you talk to people who aren't "bit by the wood bug" they only seem to care or know about Oak, and Cherry. I've seen a lot of "bad" work in Cherry. A lot of misused perhaps abused Cherry. So many woodworkers go on and on about how great it is (many of whom are the misusers). It's gratuitous.
All this gives me poor connotations with the wood. However Cherry IS nice and CAN be used to much success. It's relatively light and sturdy. It works very well and has little blunting effect. It has potential for a variety of finishing choices. It has lovely depth of color (when not stained [as it should be ;) ] ). The wood even smells a lovely soft sweetness. The trees themselves are romantic sights in bloom and bearing fruit.
It seems a lot of these connections are lost in much of the work I see in Cherry. I would love for this piece to come together and for an audience to be able to sense these things, the "nature" of the material. Perhaps, if it is a success, they may wonder why other work in Cherry isn't like this? ... That may be a stretch but it is nice to think about and perhaps wish or strive for.

I have a sudden craving for some cherry lambic.

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