Woodworking

Desk Shelf / Shelves / Woodworking — No Comments
09
Sep 18

Modelling

So I was really just at a low energy setting this weekend, and it was one of the first rains of the coming winter and even just looking at the shed was making me tired, but I have been wondering about something with the design of Calum’s shelves/desk thingy, which is whether or not to put a backing board behind/between the top two shelves. It’d stop stuff falling off the back of those shelves, give a larger contact area with the wall, and stiffen up the whole carcass; but it’d change the look of the unit quite a bit and the joinery might get complex unless I cheated and used a router to carve out a rabbit for the panel.

So, what do you do when you’re too tired to go to the shed and still want to see what it looks like? Well, there’s this stuff called styrene (or plasticard or ABS or any one of a dozen other names). You know it, it’s what airfix model kits are made from, and sheets of the stuff are where you start for scratch-built models. And I had a few sheets because Paul Sellers had pointed out a while ago that it was handy for templating curves and I was planning to use it for some boxes. Then this weekend I was watching an Adam Savage one-day build doing some scratch-built modelling for fun, and thought Calum might find that fun to do (because he’s kindof young for the complex airfix kits, but he’s more than ready for scratch-built stuff) and went off and got some solvent cement and we had some fun (modelling, not sniffing solvents). I mean, he’s more looking forward to painting it, so I’m off to the modelling shop for some thinner and paints for the airbrush tomorrow, but he got a kick out of seeing it built.

BTW, ignore what Savage builds there, it’ll only depress you if you try it, remember he worked professionally doing modelling for years for Industrial Light and Magic, so he might act the eejit all the time, but the man knows his modelling, and so do you if you ever watched Star Wars in the last 20 years or any one of a few dozen movies.

So anyway, after we’d built a little boat-spaceship-box-thing for Calum, and it was after his bedtime, I did a bit more cutting with the 2mm thick styrene sheet I had, at a 1inch to 2mm scale, and built his desk/shelves unit:

It’s nice to be able to see it from all around. It’s like CAD for old people.

And then I could quickly add on the backing board I was wondering about and compare them:

I mean, messy as all get-out, if I was serious about modelling it there’d be a lot more sanding and some painting (hell, might do that just for fun with Calum later), but it’s not terrible for 15 minutes of work at the kitchen table with a ruler, scalpel, emery board and solvent cement.

I must remember to do this next time I build something and don’t have a full picture of it in my head (or even if I do, it’d be an interesting thing to see how close the model matches the final product).

 

New Toys! / Tools / Woodworking — 2 Comments
03
Sep 18

Square-off

So I recently had a birthday and bought myself a present that I’d been thinking about for a few years but had been putting off because spending a chunk of money on a small thing is usually painful and if you’re not going to be doing something long-term, a bit of a waste, but I finally convinced myself that this making stuff thing wasn’t a fad, so after some advice from the pros I went off to one of my usual sources for new tools and bought…

A red box! And inside the red box…

What can only be described by Herself as “a ruler that cost 150 euros?”. 😀

Yes, yes, I know, but you can’t feel it. This thing’s just solid in a way you have to see to appreciate. I didn’t get the combination square thing till now – I rely on my engineering try squares because the combination square things I’d seen were the €20 bahco things that are… somewhat less than accurate. To the point where I threw away the square head part of the one I had and only kept the ruler to use as a short straightedge. But this thing feels like it’s more accurate than almost any other square I have (and I happen to know from the second-hand market that this thing will last long enough for Calum to pass it on).

So, naturally, have to try it out…

And then it’s time to compare it to every other square I have. You know the routine, have a reference edge, draw a square line, flip the square over to the other side of the line and draw another line, see how parallel they are.

The starrett is, as you’d expect, perfect. The moore&wright double square (the blue one on the right) is equally perfect:

Not even a hairline gap there.

The small engineering square (which is just a cheap proops bros one) is also grand:

But the 8″ proops engineering square is not quite square…

Now I’d checked that one a little while ago, and it was fine; over the months since I must have been less gentle with it than I thought. It’s also a Proops brothers and it’s still not horrific, but now you see why the Starrett is more expensive – it’s built and certified to just a much higher standard of accuracy and takes over now as the most accurate square I’ve got.

Desk Shelf / Woodworking — No Comments
02
Sep 18

More shaping

So I decided to go ahead and shape the front curve today, since it was going to be awkward to cut and might be noisy so it’d have to be a weekend job really.

Why is it awkward? Well, the plan is to make the first rough cut with the bandsaw and then to get down to the line with the compass plane and the board is long enough that swinging it around through the bandsaw inside the shed would be awkward and would probably need the door open and the plank sticking out at some point.

See what I mean? There’s not enough room for a cat to stand in here, let alone be swung around. But, with much swearing and cursing and with the door open and the plank sticking out for at least half the cut, it got done.

I even cut the top of the side to be parallel to the floor again while I was at it.

You will notice the artisan scalloped edge, and I’ll have you know that it takes a lot more effort to create such an artistic statement than it does to just cut a straight clean boring line.

Or something.

Anyway, it’s just a rough cut, so out with the #05 to knock off the absolute worst of the knobbly bits and then time for the fun tool.

The Record #020, variously known as a compass plane, a circular plane, a radius plane or a shipwright’s plane, it’s basically just a plane for curves. That big spinny dial yoke on top pulls the bit with the blade up or down relative to the ends of the sole, and the sole being flexible, takes on a curve that you can then plane into the wood. It’s a natty little tool, and while there are limits to how curved you can go, within those limits it’s great.

Mine is a little worse for wear in appearance. Everything works, I had it apart, cleaned, oiled and resharpened everything, but it’s had some light surface rust over the summer and the enamel’s long gone (and I still haven’t figured out a good way to restore that with the kit I have or can use). But anyway, it’s more than good enough to do the job and between that and the spokeshave I soon had a smooth curve instead of a decaying sine wave.

And I hate the look of it completely. The curve itself is more or less okay, I got rid of almost all that ugly damaged bit, but that little flare-out at the point where the desk will be just doesn’t work. It looks wrong in several different ways. So I ran the plane over the entire edge to get a nice single smooth curve instead of that little flare-out.

I’m more or less happy with this. I was thinking of making that curve into a bow rather than a sweep, so that the front edge would be almost vertical at the foot (that’s what those black lines there are for, they’re not spalting even though they’re following the grain line, I was just trying to see what it would look like). I’m not sure about this though. I’m worrying about the width of the sides and the strength of the piece if I start hacking off that much, but I might just be getting paranoid.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that for now and maybe think about it again later before I cut the sliding dovetails (which will be the point of no return for the shaping I think). Next job, start to transfer the shape from this side to the other one…

I’ve already gotten the foot done (and it matches its counterpart well) and a reference edge planed on the back edge, but I haven’t finished the top straight-line cuts yet and then there’s the second front edge to shape. That should be interesting. I haven’t changed the compass plane’s setting so in theory it’s going to be grand…

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