Post a picture of your latest project

Finished today, Mt. Fuji with cherry blossom. A signed and limited edition Japanese woodblock print by Norikane Hiroto, born 1949 in Hiroshima. The frame is made from 5,300 year old Bog Oak, with 4mm splines from the same material. Finish is a couple of coats of white polish and beeswax. Apart from the difficulty of working with Bog Oak, it was very tricky to do as I had to re-assemble the whole thing at least seven times to remove tiny specks of debris which seemed to appear from nowhere, even with constant use of the 'shop vac. This print has subsequently been re-framed with non-reflective ‘clarity’ glass; expensive but well worth the investment.

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Oak log off the wood pile made into a frame with an original water colour by famous artist, my wife LOL.

That is lovely …excuse me for asking but did you have an exhibition at Cobhall Hall, Kent. We bought two prints with a similar style there some 10 years ago.

Your frame, I am trying to learn making frames by using 1900 moulding planes, hand sawn mitres with a shooting board even cutting glass from charity shop frames!! I use kebab stick dowels or use back saws for thin butterfly corners

Can I ask your process to the end result shown …from stock prep …mitre…glue …finish please…Best John

John

I think a separate thread may be in order to discuss this, what do you think?

You may be a bit disappointed, due to Arthritis I use power tools, hand planing and moulding is out of the question for me.

Good shout on picture framing. Who’s going to kick it off? I currently have another three Japanese woodblock prints to sort out so there’ll be lots of stuff going on in that area - Rob

Not me I’m afraid, too busy setting out some wreath handrails and a Volute, then on to the pierced newel post and spindles, may get to some picture framing in the new year.

Meanwhile: https://www.wealdentool.eu/reviews/making-picture-frames-wealdens-exclusive-cutters/

https://www.wealdentool.eu/reviews/picture-framing-techniques-steve-prescott/

Experimenting with some camera/video camera mounts for the workshop

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latest and largest piece I’ve attempted to turn on my jet lathe yet, it’s about 80 cm at its widest.

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A pair of original, signed Japanese woodblock prints by Teruhide Kato (1936-2015). These were purchased in Kyoto in 2012 and have been reframed using non-reflective ‘clarity ‘ glass. On the left is the famous bamboo forest at Arishiyama in Kyoto and on the right, the equally well known Kiyomizu-dera shrine. Both prints are framed in English Walnut, with Ebony splines at the corners, the double mounts have been professionally cut.

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That’s handsome. What is the wood? It reminds me of some wood I was trying to chop down for blanks and it was very resistant to splitting but I never found out what it was.

The wood used here is English Walnut and the timber you were using which is resistant to splitting was probably Elm.

Hi All,
Just joined this forum, retired with newish pacemaker so woodwork mainly now but NO more electric welding. I am making some table lamps at the moment, but next big project is a Shepards hut when I finish the drawings.

Because of requests to see what I have done previously I have started a simple (free) Wordpress blog if anybody wants to look:

Hope that’s OK mods, if not, sorry and other abject apologies.

Bob

Welcome! A Shepherds Hut sounds like a great project. Did you see the video from Axminster a while back? Let me find it

Please share your plans!

In Feb & March the theme has been Cotswold oak bedroom stuff. The chest was finished in the early days of March after the bed, which got it’s last lick of Finishing Oil in Feb.

It’s queen-sized (5ft wide) and weights a bluddy ton. Even when knocked down into headboard, footboard, rails and slats, it’s a struggle to get up the stairs. We move soon and it’ll be a struggle to get it down again. And me and t’ladywife go t’t gym, tha knows!

At the minute, a Charles Limbert display cabinet is on the go. All frame and panels (zillions of dominoes in the framework) in maple and sycamore. It has some special purposes - use up all the maple and sycamore I’ve got (even though I’m going to stain it light oak); and use the doors to refine my stained glass skills, which are currently very basic. It’ll also have a bit of plain stringing with square end stops, in black (dyed holly and African Blackwood) as decoration.

Lataxe

As I’m currently in the process of moving house I’m without a workshop…so I’ve been roped into doing a garage conversion for the in-laws! These cabinets are all part of that…however they are now on hold as I’ve just broken my ankle :man_facepalming:t2: Suggestions for how to fill my time without any woodworking??

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Even with a broken ankle it is possible to hop on a lively manner. I could send you the collies to play with, as they will enjoy tripping you up as they dash here and there for the stick you’ve thrown (500 times per walk … er, hop).

It’s also possible to ride a bike with only one leg although you may have to find a route that involves no road junctions or traffic lights, so you don’t have to stop and put your foot down. You will develop one enormous quadricep!

You could put the riving knife and guard on your saw. :slight_smile:

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:joy: thanks for the offer but I have a 2 year old working Cocker who does all of the above lol!

Once the new workshop is built I will make sure the riving knife and guard are correctly fitted…I might even send you a picture!

In the meantime I think some research into workshop safety and joinery techniques may be a wise way to spend my time :wink:

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This is a handy summary of woodworking safety stuff.

But there’s endless info and books available - too much really! It puts you off reading it all.

As with all other matters, experience is the best teacher. You can only hope to avoid the most drastic experience-lessons!

Personally I’m paranoid about machines. Those whirring cutters as designed to, well, cut. They care not if it’s your fingers or the wood. So I have full guards, hold downs, feather boards, riving knife at all times, with proper operating procedures, and never tempt them to bite me. It only takes one unfortunate moment to bugger up your gripper for life.

There are other less obvious hazards, though. One I fell foul of is the slippery floor. A normally non-slippery floor can become so when covered in various kinds of sawdust & shavings. A crowded shed and the necessary contortions to move about exacerbate the danger. I have been bruised; but it could have been worse. An unhappy flight path of one’s head into the corner of a cast-iron table would not have a good outcome.

Another is the weighty thing. Steel-capped shoes can save your tootsie from a loss of grasp on the wooden edifice you are moving from, say, the bandsaw to the workbench. I needed to have a black big toe for a bit to learn this.

The there are the long-term sneak-up-on-you hazards. No ear protection? Tinitus 20 years later. No dust protection? Many of them dusts are carcinogenic or otherwise toxic, especially the tropical hardwood ilk full of insect-killing compounds.

Eyes, by the way, are soft, squishy and vulnerable to the chip of teak accelerating madly from where the knotty bit meets the saw blade. In the shed, I am always speccy four-eyes.

Perhaps we woodworkers should all be taken for a tour of the casualty department just down the road from Big Furniture Maker Inc?

‘I have full guards, hold downs, feather boards, riving knife at all times, with proper operating procedures, and never tempt them to bite me. It only takes one unfortunate moment to bugger up your gripper for life.’
Yup

‘A normally non-slippery floor can become so when covered in various kinds of sawdust & shavings. A crowded shed and the necessary contortions to move about exacerbate the danger’

Yup. Easy solution though; don’t let it become covered in sawdust, shavings and other workshop detritus. I clear up every night without fail and use a ‘gulper’ to clean every last trace off the floor.

One thing I hate with a passion is trailing cables; there are none in my 'shop that are an imminent menace.

Ear and dust protection? Yup, with some of these bad boys or the earlier version and one of these for my spiny days, plus some P2 masks (or similar)

I’ve also got the earlier Axminster ambient air cleaner, which comes on six times a day via an electronic mains timer. Alas this decent bit of kit is no longer supplied.

Finished the other day, one of the fiddliest, most awkward projects that I’ve ever done:

…and already in use.

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