It is finished, again,

And it is still for sale, should anyone want it.

I spent as much time as I could the last few weeks finishing the altar.  As I said I would, I decided to use shellac, my favourite finish.  Shellac has the advantage that it is beautiful, and bestows upon would a lovely amber finish which grows richer over time.   The drawbacks are that it takes many coats to build up a finish, that it is water resistant but not water proof- meaning if any water is spilled on it it must be wiped up very quickly.  Soapy water and alcohol are both shellac strippers.  Back to the upside, it is easily cleanable and takes wax finishes, which give it extra protection.  Back to the downside, when it is being applied it is hygroscopic, meaning that it picks up moisture out of the air.  Too much moisture in the air and the finish becomes milky and cloudy.  The last few weeks have been terribly humid, thus stretching out the amount of time it took to finally finish the piece.

I decided to go with a french polish- which is mostly just a method of applying the shellac- on the table.  It came out very nicely in the end. Here is an attempted photograph of me trying to measure the depth of shine.

I had to dismantle the piece into its two main components to finish it.  Here's the reredos, receiving its finish.

Beside the reredo you can see the balloon back chair that I have to repair after Frodo, destroyer of the One Ring, The Five Chairs, The Four Plates, The One High Chair, Dozen Toy Cars, got his hands on it.  Sigh.  You can also see an old bicycle.

When I said the altar was for sale a few posts ago, more people seemed interested in the kids' bike.  Anyone still interested, thirty bucks and it's yours.  Come and get it.

So tonight, I decided it would be pointless to put on any more coats of shellac, on account of A. I had put on enough, and B. I was out of shellac, and don't have the money to replace it.  Although I might if someone buy a kids bike.  Failing that, I have reassembled the finished pieces.  The altar is now done. 

At least, my part in it is done.  It still needs a few images, and a small curtain to cover the hole in the middle, where a tabernacle would go on a church altar.  But those are not my fields. My part is finished, and it has been a long time coming.

And so, the price is now $1800.00.  Anyone interested, say so.

It is finished

For comparison: the original and my version, side by side.



The woodworking is now finished. I will now put a finish on it. I think I'll go with shellac, my favourite, and do a polish on the mensa. I could try and do a few gold leaf highlights, but I have never done that before, and the only gold leaf I can afford would be the kind that looks like a candy bar wrapper.

It has taken me a long time of off and on, five minutes here, ten minutes there, to get to this point.  The wood is all found lumber, and much of it is mahogany, and some of it is something that looks an awful lot like mahogany.


Now, here's the thing: I am willing to sell it.  It isn't something I particularly want to do, but I am hard up for money at the moment, and I will let it go- once I have applied the finish- for $1700.00.  

The altar is six feet tall.  The table is about nineteen inches high, or just above knee height for an adult.  The weight is not evenly distributed, (there is no way it could have been with the large structure resting on the back of the table) so it will need to be anchored to a wall, just like book cases are supposed to be.

The buyer will have to provide their own pictures, or needlework, or whatever they wish to fill in the empty spaces for the altar, and they will also have to arrange for its transportation.  I will see to it that it is ready for pickup.  If you are interested, contact me at gladius-spiritus(at)hotmaildotcom.

So Close I Can Almost Taste It.

I have continued my glacially slow work on the altar.

As I looked at it the other day, I thought that this may be the most beautiful thing I have ever made.

What I've been up to lately.

I spent much of my spare time in the month of October building these.

Catafalque candles, used in funerals in the extraordinary form Mass.

I was e-mailed by a friend who wished to purchase some for the EF All Souls Mass around the end of September.  A quick web search turned up a design that was acceptable, and I made a prototype out of scraps I had lying around the garage.  The friend suggested a  possible colour scheme which I tried out...

..and which was quickly rejected.  We decided to go with the dark colour, with the sticks made out of oak. The buyer wanted the wood to be all new, so I went to the local lumber yard (a Home Depot, sadly.  All the good lumber yards I used to know when I bought wood regularly have all closed down)  and priced out some wood, sent him an estimate, to which he agreed.   I started buying wood and gluing it into blanks big enough for the candlesticks. 

Around this time, I mentioned to a co-worker that I had this commission, and he offered me the use of his duplicating attachment for the lathe.  That would make everything so easy and just perfect.  I wrote to the buyer and told him that it looked like everything was just hunky dory, and there should be few problems from here on in.

Problem #1:

The co-worker wrote to me to tell me that his garage is such a mess that he couldn't get into it enough to find the duplicator.  I wrote back to him thanking him for the offer of help, and telling him I would send over the crew from Hoarders posthaste.  Inside I was a little annoyed.  I would have to freehand the whole thing.

I began by setting up a couple of storysticks.  A storystick is basically a stick with the measurements laid out on it.  I hold it up against the piece on which I am working, and take the measurements off it, rather than, say, using a measuring tape every time.  It is more useful than a measuring tape, as it is more stable, and, if a mistake has been made in the measuring on the stick, it will be a consistent mistake- and in making six identical as possible candlesticks, consistency is more important than accuracy.  With a measuring tape, there would b a chance of a random error creeping in to my measurements on every individual piece.  I also set my calipers, sharpened my turning tools (since I was working in oak, I would be doing a lot of sharpening over the course of this project) mounted the wood, and fired up the lathe.

I turned the main blank round, and transferred the marks from the stick onto the blank.  The only real problem now would be variations about the thickness of a pencil line.  A pencil line is about a thirty second of an inch wide, depending on sharpness etc.  A deviation about the thickness of a pencil line is not too much of a problem, as it tends to be offset by other deviations.  What that means in practical terms is that if you are off- say, too short- by a pencil line thickness for one detail, you are just as likely to be off in the other direction- say, too long- for the next one, and the two deviations will cancel each other out.

Problem #2.

Sometimes the deviations line up in the same direction.  So if you make four lines, and are off the thickness of the line the same way each time, the error accumulates and instead of cancelling each other out, you will ultimately be off by an eighth of an inch, which is a much greater variation than it sounds.  At least for the maker, of which I will say more later.

This problem really appeared after the turning was all done and I began to glue up the candlesticks.  Two were the same size; the other four were off by an eighth of an inch or more.  I cut them apart, reglued them.  The four were now correct.  The other two were off, so I sawed them apart, etc.  I also noticed that one of the top pieces was unacceptably off.  I glued up another blank, and made a better one.  Next I had to make sure they all stood up straight.

This was tricky.  Because of the height of the candlesticks, being out of true, even by a very small amount, would create a noticeable tilt in the sticks.  This is where the feet on the sticks come in.  I can plane a little bit off here and there off the feet to make the sticks stand up straight.  Except that no matter what I do, the sticks are always tilting a little.  And then I notice that, no matter what I do, the sticks are always tilting in the same direction, depending on which section of floor I have put them, which brings me to

Problem #3.

The floors in my house are not level.  Unless I can find a flat patch in the house, I cannot true up the sticks.  I find a flat patch in the kitchen, so, huzzah, but then I realize that, with all the adjusting I had done trying to get them to stand up straight in the living room, I had more or less ruined the feet.  So, remove feet, and put on a new set.  A very small amount of adjustments later, and everything is hunky dory.  The sticks were now ready for finishing.

The finishing process actually went quickly and smoothly.  Three applications of stain (I used a water based aniline dye, dark walnut colour.  One of my gloves leaked, and the dye soaked into my skin, and it was impossible to get off.  My hand was dark brown for over a week until the skin die and flaked off.) and another five of varnish. Apply thin coats, sand in between, and voila, the job is finished.  Call up the buyer.

Problem #4

This is mainly psychological.  As a builder, I know every flaw and misstep in my work.  To me, it stands out like a sore thumb, and I see the flaws every time I look at my work.  No one else ever sees it, but I do, and it makes me a little paranoid sometimes.  I find myself thinking, he'll see it.  He'll hate it.  He won't pay. I don't blame him.

But it was all for nothing.  The buyer came, loved them, and picked them up.  He even sent me a photo from the All Souls Day Mass.

Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

Now, back to the Christmas Bazaar stuff, and the home altar, and the medieval clock, and the hope chests, and the desk, and....
 

The Home Altar: Almost there...

Progress has been glacially slow, and I am about to get to work on some other comissions, so progress will slow even more for the next little while.  I hope to have the woodwork done by Advent, and I am so very close.

I use the word "glacially" in the above paragraph to remind myself that even slow progress can lead to great things.  After all, the glaciers creeped down this way at a snail's pace, and yet they still managed to bury my neck of the woods in an ice sheet two miles thick.  I suppose I could also invoke Aesop's fabulous tortoise and hare, but I am in a race with no one but myself.

Slow progress is still progress

As promised, here is a new photo of the home altar as it currently stands.

What I've been up to lately

part three: what I, myself, have been up to lately.

So, inspired/convinced/persuaded/dragged kicking and screaming by my daughter back into the realm of the bazaar and craft show circuit, I began to think of what I could do. I needed to do something cheap and fast, if I would make any money at all.  I took stock of my materials and tools, and I had an interesting idea:  How much stuff could I make without spending a penny in overhead?

It may sound strange, but it is feasible.  I have tools, and I have a fair supply of wood, almost all of which I got for free.  I buy glue by the gallon, so I had enough for several months worth of work.  I have some old finishes lying around, so I don't need to go out and buy those.  All in all, I should be able to take a fair run at it before I need to restock with something. 

As I mentioned in my posts about my daughter's stuff, people who go to bazaars and such are looking for cheap stuff. so not only do I need to have the wood and supplies for free, I need to be able to knock them off fast.  I years past, my tool of choice for fast and cheap was the lathe, mainly because it is my favourite tool.  However, this time around I began work with another tool, my scroll saw.  I wanted to use this as a chance to improve my skills with that tool.  In time, I will get to the again, but for now, I used the scroll saw.

I also decided to use this as an opportunity to get rid of my scrap pile.  If you have ever done woodworking, you know what I am talking about.  If you sew, you have a really good idea of what I am talking about, and can extrapolate.  The scrap pile is that pile of scraps, (hence the name) that builds up in every shop.  It is that collection of pieces of wood that you cut off from larger pieces of wood, the pieces you did not need at the time, which are too big to throw out or burn, but too small to actually be useful.  Mine was getting a little out of control.  Making a bunch of small things could help tame it.   Glue also helps.  I take the scraps and glue them together, to make a piece slightly more useful.  I take the scraps from the scraps, reglue them until I can make something else out of them.  The general goal is this: when a piece of wood enters my shop, it leaves either as money, or sawdust.

So I have been making many little things out of whatever wood happens to be lying around, colouring it with some dyes I had lying around, or food colouring, or some kiddy paints.  I started by making a bunch of the things normally associated the the scrollsaw: puzzles.  I've made dozens. 

When I grew tired of puzzles, plus I was a little convinced they may not sell well- it is hard to sell children's toys made of wood in an era of xbox and PlayStation's and robots and remote control and where even shoes have flashing lights- I started making Christmas decorations.  I experimented with instarsia, which is an art of making pictures using pieces of different species of wood for colour.  In that, it is rather like making stained glass.  I have been cheating, though.  I cut all the pieces from the same piece and then colour them using dyes and stains. 

I found some patterns, and made a few creche scenes, including a few for Christmas ornaments and angels.  This can be rather dicey, however, as I do not know if the photos I found on the web come from the original designer, or if the design lies in the public domain or not.  Personally, I believe if you publish pictures of your work on the web you have effectively made them public domain, as any woodworker with a little experience will be able to use a picture as a plan, but that is neither here nor there.  I decided to try and sidestep the problem entirely by coming up with a few of my own designs.  I will try and have Younger sell some ornaments of Saints to Catholics.  I've been taking photographs, or downloading classic paintings, statues and stained glass off the web and using them for my plans.  They are actually turning out rather well thus far. 

I began with a few St Patrick designs, because, after all, who doesn't love St Paddy?

No details on the small faces.  The wood I'm using won't hold such fine details.  My first design. 

A big Patrick with a small one for comparison.  The large Patrick was an experiment, just to see how a large one of a different design would look.  I did carve some facial features.  

Other designs came from paintings or stained glass windows.  Here's a picture of Durer's Praying Hands.

And here's my version.

Feruzzi's Madonna of the Streets

My attempt.



St Cecilia.

My version.

St Mary.  I don't know the name of this picture.

My attempts.

I'll keep on working with a few more designs. WIll any of it sell?  I have no idea.  I have always been lousy at pickign what people will want to buy.  I think some Catholics might like the idea of having some saints hanging from their tree, but I don't know.

One last point:  as far as not spending anything, I may have hit a wall, as far as the scrollsaw is concerned.  It goes through blades rapidly, and I am nearly out.  The manufacturers say a blade should last a couple of hours in use, but I have never seen one that will go beyond a half hour in use.  After that, it becomes dull, tears, binds and burns the wood.  So either I buy some new blades (I can get about a dozen each of the two kinds of blades I have been using for about five bucks per pack) or I stop with the intarsia ornaments, and pull out the lathe.



Home Altar: Making a Column Part II.

Continued.

Once the blank is turned to a cylinder, it is time to begin adding the details.  Turning the details into wood is a little bit like Michelangelo carving a statue:  You are releasing the form encased within the wood. It is simply a matter of removing the wood that doesn't belong.

The first thing to do is laying out the position of the details, and then take the wood down to the proper diameter..  The details are marked out with a pair of dividers, and the diameter is measured with a pair of calipers.




The dividers leave grooves in the wood.  I have darkened the grooves with a pencil for the purposes of the photo.

 The process is continued over all the details.

Once the details are roughed in, the beads are rounded over, and the cove is cut. The cardinal rule when turning decorations is to always. always go from the high to the low.  That way, you will be following the grain. 

With the top of the column complete, it is now time to begin turning the central column.  Its straight lines actually make this the most difficult part of the entire piece.  As with the beads and coves, it begins with bring the piece down to the correct diameter at key points, and then remove the rest of the wood.

The knot was a problem, but it came out fine.  It is not as prominent as it was before, and I am not so concerned about hiding it.

With the central cylinder turned, it is time to repeat the process with the base details.

Lastly, the piece is sanded to smooth out the roughness, and bring it to its final shape.

Whenever possible, I like to wait at least a day before I decide that a piece is finished.  Using a treadle lathe is tiring, and it is only too easy to say "good enough" for a piece.  Now with the first one done, there is only three more to go, but at least this one may be used as a model.

Home altar: Making a column, part one.

Work continues on the home altar.  I decided to do a post on making one of the decorations of the altar- one of the long columns for the upper section.

The column is made on a lathe.  Turning on a lathe is about the most fun you can have in a shop.  It was so popular, in fact,t hat years ago noble men had their own lathes made, and would do their own turning for their own enjoyment and relaxation.  One of Tolstoy's noble characters is often found with his lathe, for instance.  However, a nobleman would not be turning wood: their lathes would be used for ivory.

I have two lathes: an old beaver lathe I use for turning large pieces, and my treadle lathe, which I generally use for smaller pieces.  At twenty four inches long, the blank for the column is the limit for a piece the treadle lathe can handle. 

As can be seen, the blank is made from three pieces of wood laminated together.  As I have said before, almost all the wood I use these days comes from whatever I can scavenge- old furniture, pallets, fallen trees.  The main reason is that I am broke, however, I am a bit of an environmentalist, though I avoid that word.  Let me say a word or two (or a paragraph) on that subject.

Let me begin with the case of Charles Dickens.  Dickens was possibly the greatest social reformer in the Golden Age of Busybodi- I mean, the Golden Age of Social Reform., yet he eschewed the term and actually distanced himself from other reformers.  His reason was that he disagreed with their methods, and believed they often brought discredit to otherwise righteous causes.  Although I cannot pretend to be a Dickens, the principle is the same.  I believe we should wisely use our resources and make a conscious effort to preserve them to the best of our abilities.  In that I am like many environmentalists, but so many of the environmentalists are so obnoxious they push away more people than they convince, and bring discredit on anyone who even remotely mentions the environment.  For myself, to put it bluntly, I do not believe we were meant to be Creation's Tyrants.

These days, there are quite a few woodworkers and cabinet makers who, like me, use scrap and found wood.  Essentially, we go through the garbage, looking for something that may be useful.  Many of them flaunt their source material, and their work is quite sought after in some quarters.  To my eye, though, it still looks like garbage, and I suspect it will eventually be like 1960's art pottery: a fad, expensive in its day, now worth a few pennies at a garage sale.  I do not try to flaunt my source material, but I do not hide it, either.  I try and create beauty to the best of my ability.  Perhaps I should emulate them: their sales are better. 

Moving on.

The lathe is based upon a design by Roy Underhill published in Popular Woodworking some years back.  It is a simple design.  The tailstock, visible in the upper photo on the right side of the blank, is held in place by a wedge....

...which is tapped in place with my mallet.  The whacking, unfortunately, knocks the headstock a little out of alignment, which must be tapped back into place with the mallet.  The parts occasionally break from all this pounding, but, since I made this myself, I can rebuild any part of it whenever necessary

One of the modifications I made was the addition of an idler.

The idler moves up an down to adjust the tension on the rope, to keep it nice and taught.  However, slippage is still a problem with the rope.  Roy Underhill recommends using Maple Syrup, as it is nice and sticky.  I, however, regard Maple Syrup as one of nature's most perfect bounties, and would never commit the sacrilege of pouring this precious liquid out upon a rope.  I use a glue stick instead.

With the rope nice and sticky, the blank secured, and the lathe tapped into alignment, turning can begin.  Turning is a rather delicately balanced affair on this lathe.  I stand balanced on one foot, pumping like mad with the other, while holding sharp tools to a rapidly rotating piece of wood.  It is good exercise.  Interesting note, and often a bit of a surprise to first time users of a treadle lathe:  The leg that gets tired is not the one you think.  It's the leg you're standing one.

I begin by rounding the blank.  I start near the tailstock, turn it round, and then move back to the headstock.

In the above photo, you can see a knot in the wood.  If this blank were a single solid piece of wood, I would have to cut the wood short at the knot, as structurally unsound and unsuitable for turning, and found another blank for this piece.  However, as this piece is laminated, the other boards will be strong enough for the column, and I will hide the knot by placing the column so the knot faces the back of the altar.

I continue rounding the piece until the entire blank is a rough cylinder.

Now that the blank is round, it is time to start adding the details, which I will discuss in the next post.

Christmas in the Workshop

I am not one of Santa's elves, but at this time of year I do a reasonable impression.

This year, I am making a couple of hope chests for my daughters.

As I mentioned a few posts down, when speaking of the altar, the hardest woodworking is straight lines and flat surfaces.  Any mistake will be glaringly obvious.  You may, for example, remember this piece of woodwork that was rather famous a few years back:

l

Most people, I imagine, looked at it and thought: "Big deal.  It's a flat box, nothing fancy."  Woodworkers look at it and think: "Wow!  It's a flat box! Nothing fancy!" We say that because we know how incredibly hard such simple perfection is to achieve. The very flatness and plainness of the coffin mean that the joinery must be perfect, and it was.  The corners are joined at non-square angles, and the joints are perfect.  Several woodworking magazines wrote pieces on this coffin, and more than a few tried to locate and interview the cabinet maker who created this.  While I can't say this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, I can say that this piece could only have been made by a master of the craft.

My own joints are pretty good, if I do say so.

After you cut about four or five hundred dovetails, it starts to get a little easier.

The chests are made primarily out of recycled materials, or 'garbage' as it is more commonly known.  In this case, a coffee table and a few headboards and a chest of drawers have provided virtually all the wood.  This morning I realized I didn't have enough for both the lids, and I had to go to the store and get a little wood, so thus far I have spent $25 on the chests.  I still have to buy hinges and some aromatic cedar for the lining.  Still, cheaper than buying new.

To the kids:  I'd love to get you some new computers and iphones, all pimped out with the latest gee whizzery, but I am having a little trouble 64 bit microprocessors out of wood.

Update:  Well, that just figures.  I have been watching my usual sources for wood for the lids for over a month, and nothing suitable shows up.  Yesterday I went and bought some boards for one of the tops, and today I someone tosses out a pine shelving unit.

Another altar update

I have checked the sidebar widget which shows my five most popular posts as well as my stats.  It turns out that the number one post, the first one on my home altar, is not only my most popular post, but it has more hits than the other four posts combined.  So, in the spirit of giving the people what they seem to want, here is another update on the altar.

When I last checked in, I had completed the base of the altar, or the altar itself, and was now working on the altar piece, or superstructure, as I called it then.  Work has not progressed as quickly as I would like, as my time is severely limited, but I have made a little progress. As a reminder, here is a photo of the altar upon which mine is based:

Now here is a photo of mine so far:

The top section is not yet attached.  I placed it on top and have it leaning against the wall just for the purposes of this photograph.

As I have said, the piece is much easier to make than it appears at first glance.  The main structure of the top consists of the four upright pieces and six horizontal pieces ( three straight, three with arches cut into them) joined by mortise and tenon joints.  They could also be made with dowel or biscuit joints. Whichever way they are joined, that is the fundamental structure of the top.  Almost everything else you can see in the photograph of the original is decoration.

The decorations, in a way, make the building of the piece easier, rather than more difficult.  Without the decorations, the work would have to be perfect.  If there are any readers out there who sew and make clothes or dresses, they will understand.  For those who don't, let me explain.  If you want to know how good your tailor or seamstress is, don't ask them to make a complicated wedding dress; ask them to make a simple man's shirt, with straight lines, no frills.  Anyone can make the wedding dress, but the shirt... with the shirt there is nowhere to hide mistakes.

It is the same with woodworking.  The decorations look lovely, but they are also a huge distraction.  The eye dos not rest in any one place, because the decorations draw the eye off and distract it.  No one piece has to be absolutely perfect, because no one is going to look at the piece long enough or close enough to see its imperfections.  Of course, this work is AMDG so I am trying to make it as perfect as I can, but even so, if I can allow myself some slight leeway.

I have broken down and moved away from my more strict adherence to galoot building.  I cut the moulding on the arches with my router.  Generally, I hate using the thing. It is loud, covers the entire workshop with a thin film of sawdust, and is dangerous.  That thing will take a finger off and turn it into hamburger before the pain reaches your brain. I had no intention of using it at all on this piece, but my efforts at carving moulding were not turning out well, and it would be quicker and easier to just use the router.  I hope that's the last time I use it on this piece.

I imagine I'll have to set it aside for now, and work on Christmas presents for the next few weeks.  I'll have another post about the altar when I have a little more to show.

Way too cool.

This website and the project it details appeal to me in many ways. It is about a group of people building a castle in France using only medieval tools, materials and methods. 

Apparently, the area of France in which they are building it is somewhat depressed.  Building the castle is providing people with jobs and training, and also it is drawing in tourists and school trips, so it is generating money for the local economy.  I imagine re-enactors and Renaissance Fair crowds would treat this place like Mecca.

In that, the building project resembles the old cathedral and castle building projects of the medieval era.  The work gangs and stone masons would be the most obvious ones, but they would need carpenters to do woodworking and scaffolding, who would need woodsmen and sawyers to cut the wood.  Both the stone masons and the carpenters would need blacksmiths for their tools.  They would also have glaziers, and the people who made the mortar,and the baskets that carried the mortar, or the barrels that held the quicklime, and so on, and so on, not to mention the quarry, and the oxcarts and barges which carried the stone to the work site.  All these people would also need to be fed, and to have a place to stay while building, which took years, decades and often centuries.  towns and marketplaces and farmers markets, and weavers and fullers who could make the cloth or the clothing for the workers, and would soon appear around the building site, and the building would be a boon  to the area.

Another group in a depressed area in Germany have applied for permits to build their own medieval structure, this time a monastery with a cathedral attached.  I can't find that website again, but trust me, it is out there.  I imagine they too are hoping to get in on the Cathedral effect and boost their own economy.

This seems to be a bit of a trend these days.  I suppose it started with Sam Wanamaker building the Globe Theatre in London, or perhaps it began with the rebuilding of Windsor castle following its fire some years back.

I would love to work on something like this, except there aren't any going on around here. first of all, it isn't part of our history.  Pioneer villages are about as close as we get.  A job at one of them would be great, except they are all seasonal, and the employees face unemployment for a fair chunk of the year. 

Secondly, a project like this around here, before it even began, would face municipal by laws, building codes and safety regulations.  It would have to be built with fire safety in mind, multiple exits, wheelchair accessibility, washrooms, etc, within proper zoning regulations, have to be put under various inspections. and so on.  The building would have to meet safety regulations, and- while I wouldn't advocate people putting themselves at risk- many of the medieval techniques are not exactly safe.  The workers on site would have to wear hardhats and construction boots, safety harness, and such.  I don't have a clue if the medieval crane- that's the guy in the hamster wheel- even remotely fits any safety standard.  What this means is that the illusion of a medieval construction site would simply not exist here.  Lastly, the skills may simply not exist here, even though such a project would be a way of teaching and maintaining such skills.

Even so, fascinating.

****

At the opposite end of the spectrum is this woodworking website, entitled "Woodgears- woodworking for engineers."  It's a power tool woodworking website, where, among other things, the writer for the website designs and creates his own power tools and sells his designs.  It is fascinating to see how he works his way through the problems he encounters while designing the tools, or his other projects (which include a small pipe organ).  On a practical level, this is not the most useful site for me, as I use hand tools as opposed to power tools, (in an interview he was critical of people who use hand tools, as the results are always somewhat unpredictable, and impossible to exactly replicate), plus his furniture designs really do little for me, (they basically look like stuff from Ikea) and my garage would never hold and of his tools, although I will admit there are a few Way Cool tools of his design that I could be tempted to build if I did have the room.  Still, it is fascinating to see what a determined intellect can create using the tools at hand. 

He sells his plans for his tools, as I mentioned, which makes me wonder if he is insured.    One of the reasons I stopped selling wooden toys and other projects (apart from general unprofitability) was because I was warned about the danger of someone or their children getting hurt with one of my toys and such.  I called an insurance company to ask about their rates.  They wouldn't even consider it for me, as it was too risky.  I wonder, therefore, if he is insured or not.  If someone were to get injured using a tool of his design, even if the injury were due to inferior materials or improper construction techniques rather than design flaws, he could be on the hook for a lot of money in damages.

Home Altar update

It has taken me longer than I thought, but the lower portion of our home altar is nearly finished.  Here are some pictures.

Some details and decorations still need to be added.  I will even out the colour of the wood with some aniline dyes (different from stains.  Stains are basically a thin paint, and they tend to obscure grain.)  I am using hand tools to build the piece, as is my wont.  On the whole, it is going well.

It is rather small, but if I am to stick to the plan, or at least the photograph, and preserve the proportions, I need to keep it small, or it will not fit in my house.  I am also constrained by the wood I find and the lengths in which I find it.  The longest boards I dig up are a little under four feet long, which means the longest parts of the altar have to be under four feet long.

 We have decided to dedicate the altar to the Holy Family.  Perhaps I will combine the altar with a few kneelers and the organ I am building to make a small chapel in the basement.  If I had time and money enough. I would build one of these for the Holy Family.  However, I am broke, and I doubt the landlords would appreciate us making the addition. 

Soon I will begin work on the superstructure of the altar.  I will take photographs when there is something to show.    

These things are sent to try us

I mentioned in a previous post that my little workshop has a very little budget of ten dollars a month.  Thus, if I wish to buy anything, a considerable period of savings is required.

One of the things I had my eyes set on was a toothed plane blade, which I would used to build a toothing plane.  Such planes were used by the oldtimers of yore for veneering and inlay work, and also to deal with thorny grain.  Since I use found lumber and recycled wood, thorny grain is often an issue, so I thought such a plane would be of use.  The only drawback is the blade alone runs about fifty bucks.

So I saved and hoarded, until I finally had the money, plus tax, for the blade.  And then... the motor on my jigsaw burned out.  I would like to have the plane, but I need the jigsaw.  So now, I have to save still more, buy something I don't want but need.  That's just the way it goes sometimes.

It isn't just that I have to buy this, it's the timing.  I was this close.  It's like fate, or luck, or whatever, not content with stabbing me in the blindside, wanted to twist the blade a little.

Sigh.

On the other hand, if this is the worst of my problems, I have no problems.

Table saws and clothes

h/t woodgears

As a galoot, I don't often use my power tools, but when I do, I obey the safety rules with a paranoid ferocity, as I am very protective of my ability to count to ten.  Here's a graphic demonstration of the dangers of loose clothing and tablesaws.



Any woodworkers out there:  read the instructions manual, follow all the saftey rules, teach your kids to do the same.

A home altar

This is the altar I will build.

My wife has posted over at her site that we are building an altar for our home.  She will be providing the important decorations for the altar.  This is the opening post on a possible intermittent series of how I (hopefully) built the wooden parts of an altar for our home.

The idea for building an altar came to me a few years back when i was at a party at a friend's home.  In their house they had an altar which they had made from a cork bulletin board hung over a small table.  The board had a few saintly images and prayer cards on it, while a table below held a few statues.  A few oak kneelers- quite nice ones, too, I may add- were placed in front of the altar.  It was the place where the couple knelt and said their prayers together.  As I looked upon this humble place, I thought I, a woodworker by hobby, should use my talents to build such a place for my family.

I believe God requires from us our best.  A place such as theirs would have taken us five minutes to put together. They had no skills in building, (and believe when I say that I am making an observation, not a criticism) as I do, so this was the best they had to offer, but it would not be the best I have to offer. I would build something bigger.  I went online, did a search for "home altars", then revised the search for "Catholic Home Altars", and promptly came up with this photo.

This altar is quite nice to look at, and would be good for our house. The trick to building something like this is not to be intimidated by the whole piece, but rather to look at each element by itself.  Each element, in isolation, can easily be done by someone with moderate woodworking skills.  The columns need only a someone who is competent on a lathe.  The panels could be made by anyone with a jigsaw.  The superstructure is made out of straight vertical pieces and horizontal elements held together by mortise and tenon joints, with a few columns and moulded edges for decoration. If you can saw reasonably straight, plane to a line, cut a mortise and tenon and turn a piece on a lathe, this is within reach. Unfortunately, easy or not, it would take time, and time is not a resource I possess in abundance. After finding the picture, the altar went onto my to-do list and sat there for a while.

Time passed, and I realized that my elder daughter was turning sixteen soon, and if we were going to use the altar as a family, I need to get a move on.  First step was to make some plans.

These are the plans for the altar I will build.

Fortunately, the photo is a straight on view of the altar.  Making a scale drawing of it would be very easy.  i simply traced the picture on onion skin paper, then glued it onto some graph paper.  The squares showed through the paper, thus giving me scale and proportion for the piece.

Incidentally,shortly after doing this, I mentioned this method to a coworker, who is also a woodworker, and he said to me: "You do know they have computer programs that can turn any photograph into a set of plans, right?" I may one day speak to him again.

The drawing could give accurate proportions for the, once I had decided on the basic measurements.  Here's where my problems first began.  I had thought to make the lower section of the altar the height of an average table, approximately 28 inches tall. That would make each square three inches tall and wide.  Unfortunately, at that scale, the altar would have been around nine feet tall, and all my ceilings are eight feet.  Okay then, what about 2 and three quarter inches per square?  About eight feet.  Still not good.  So I lowered it to two and a half inches per square, in order to keep the scale simple.  That gave an altar that would fit in my house.  Perfect.  Except the lower section, which I wanted to be about the height of a table, would be about eighteen to twenty inches tall, or about knee height for me. No problem, I thought. I'll build a platform and put the thing on that.

The second problem that came up was wood.

This is the wood I will use to fulfill the plans for the altar I will build.

 I needed a fair quantity of a decent wood, and I am, as I have said elsewhere on the blog, white trash.  Fortunately, my job in a shipping and receiving area means that I get many wooden pallets or skids coming through every day, and every now and then a few come through that are made out of some exotic wood which bears a resemblance to mahogany, and may even be mahogany.  I kept a few, ripped them up, and saved them until I had about enough.



Do it yourself home altar kit.  Some assembly required.

 Were exotic woods common around here, and if money was plentiful, I would simply have bought a pile of wood.  I confess, there are days when I long to do just that.  However, we are on a budget, and the amount I have budgeted for my shop is ten dollars a month.  I am actually bragging a little about that, because I am the only person I know who can run a shop on ten dollars a month.  If I were to hand ten bucks to any of my woodworking friends, they would look at it and like I had handed them so much toilet paper, and ask:  "What the heck do you expect me to do with this?"

Part of the reason why I can operate on this budget is because I am a decent scrounger.  Another reason is because I am forced to find alternatives to just buying my way to whatever it is I happen to need.  And the last reason I can get by on so little money is because of the tools I use.


These are the tools I use to work the wood to fulfill the plans for the altar I will build.

 I made a discovery years ago:  old tools are cheap.  Here's some of my collection.

My wall o' saws.  I actually built some of the saws and the mallet on the right.

,

My box o' tools.  I call it "Peter".  The wood in front is for more chests of the same plans for my daughters' hope chests



Inside my box o' tools.  Top tray: Moving Filister plane, Plough plane (homemade) screwdrivers and scrapers.  Lower tray:  draw knife, drill and brace bits, a few scrapers and a spokeshave.



Box o' tools with the trays removed, showing my planes, some of which I built, some of which I picked up at flea markets and garage sales.  These aren't just like the tools they used in the old days: they are the tools they used in the old days.

I have many reasons why I use the older tools, and I may write a post on the subject one day.  For now, let me show you what I have done thus far.

Here's the work done so far with the tools which worked the wood that will fulfill the plans for the altar I will build.

With my extremely limited time, I haven't gotten too far along, but I have made a little progress.


Columns for the lower front section of the altar.  They were turned on my treadle lathe.




My treadle lathe with the fourth column for the lower front section of the altar.  I had hoped that frequent use of the treadle lathe would, among other things, help me lose weight.  So far, nothing.




Here are the front panels of the lower section.  They need a few decorative appliques, but otherwise they are complete.  They were simple to build.  I drew out a design based on what I could make out from the photograph at top, cut out the design on one panel, and glued it to a second panel for each of the three.  I will most likely dye or stain the wood to even out the colour when finishing.


At any rate, it is began.  I hope to have it done in less than a year, barring any unforeseen circumstances.  Sadly, I have enough experience to foresee that there will always be unforeseen circumstances.  I believe I will be able to post within a month or two with pictures of the lower section complete, and then on to the top.  

Lastly, a question for the readers:  Anyone know if there's any protocol or ritual for getting a home altar blessed?

Next post in this series.