FURNYTURE

Trip Highlights.

2006-05-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

Wow, Onterrible sure is big! We didn't hit the Manitoba border until day 3. They sure do have an unnecessarily funny-shaped province.

This distance impressed my travelling companion more than I, when he realized we had driven across Manitoba in only one day. Traffic really thinned by the SK-MB border, where it is possible to do several push-ups in the middle of the highway, before risking vehicular mishap. Note the random Saskatchewan highway trash can in the background. This is something a native Saskatchatwitchiwanian, such as myself, fails to observe because of familiarity: there are actually signs on the highway directing drivers to trash cans 2 km ahead. We would prefer it if you would not litter on the prairies, thank you very much.

This last photo is for Texas. You know who you are. Perhaps a visit to Saskatchatwitchitwain is called for in your future!

All-in-all it was an excellent trip. We fared much better than our fellow-furnyture-students whose engine seized in Dryden, where they had to have the car shipped the rest of the way to Calgary. I'm sure their characters needed the building.

I've turned a corner in my profession, and so have decided to forego this furnyture blog in favour of the next chapter: Lumber Bums, where me and "Beatrice" trade experiences, stories and gossip between furnyture school and honest-to-goodness-I'd-better-make-some-freaking-money-at-this-furnyture-stuff career. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Wish us both luck.

Ah, the flatness.

2006-05-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

I surely did miss the big sky here in Saskatchewan. We arrived safely and although the truck now sounds like I drove the shit out of it for 2,000 miles, it did not fail. More later.

Moving.

2006-04-28T00:53:00.000-05:00

I am moving. Goodbyes are moving. How did the word moving get to mean such varied things? ... such as, relating to or involved in a transfer of furnishings from one location to another and arousing or capable of arousing deep emotion.

Today was emotional. I'm really going to miss these Ontarians. They're O.K. Luckily, I had a higher than usual number of belly laughs to ease the melancholia. I am a rock. I am an island.

On the upside, I'm thinking I may need a new blog, for a new start. Saskatchewan Shop.?..or Shop-a-Rama.?..OR Swish and I may collaborate on a furnyture dish blog to trade exciting furnyture gossip...with assumed names (or names changed to protect the guilty), of course. A shop vs. school sort of blogger war of words and works. Yep, I think we have a winner. Now we just need a blog title.

Final Critique.

2006-04-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

Our final critique was Tuesday and, somehow, my life hasn't slowed down since then. I think our second year group produced some very good work this term. Below, starting with the photo on the left, is Jeremy's CNC router waste material cabinet (wall hung), Trish's veneer factory waste material boxes (wall hung), and Stan's bigger-than-the-10-cubic-feet-assignment-limit elliptical wonder dresser with pulls he designed and made himself. Yes, it rocks.

The next photo has Jed's truly modular Change Table (goes from change table to child's desk to grown-up desk just by moving a few boxes around), Martin's garage-inspired dvd cabinet, my wheat grass marquetry cabinet, Lucas' round-with-an-offset-glass-portal TERRARIUM. Hilariously gutsy and wall hung, although I took my photo too early in the day.

Next, another shot of the round cabinet, with Rob's table-cabinet, and Nari's sculptural and beautiful scarecrow-inspired cabinet to hold old photographs.

Next up is Nari again next to Leslie's extremely lovely mini-production cabinet inspired by a weaving pattern. Each identical box (with slightly curved fronts) has a drawer which holds CD's. At this point it is clamped together as it isn't assembled yet. Last is Paul-Michael's solid poplar cabinet of wonderment.

Unfortunately, there were late arrivals that I missed photos of. Notably, Lee's wall-hung squiggle cabinet. I'll try to snap some more shots at Open House this weekend.

Wrapping it up.

2006-04-24T01:35:00.000-05:00

Remember this chair? Thought I'd thrown it in the metal recycling bin, didn't you? Today I had a few hours to kill waiting for the epoxy to dry on my drawers, so I finished off my main welding project. Last week I sandblasted the frame and put a patina on it, turning it this odd, army green. I had a nice chunk of 8/4 ash left from my commercial furniture table, and it was just enough for this seat and back. In keeping with the quality of the metal frame, I am leaving the wood unsanded, and with lots of machine marks from the angle grinder and bandsaw. Somehow, it works.

My very favourite thing about this chair is that it's wonky; and because the square tubing has ripples in it from improper bending, when you set it in a gentle rock on a cement floor, the entire chair visibly vibrates slightly. Sweet serendipity.

Infinite horizons.

2006-04-23T00:54:00.000-05:00

Yes, the inside of the cabinet is frought with horizontal lines also. Here's where I was this morning, trying to decide on drawer pulls. I was swayed in favour of the brass, which will look something like this:

Meanwhile, the drawers are gluing up overnight. I opted for the stressless glue-up with epoxy instead of white glue. You get a whole hour to get things together and square; much better than 2 minutes. The downside is the 24 hours you have to leave it in the clamps. Oh well, I'm run-down and could use the break anyway. Two more work days until the critique; one more day for the third year students. Our normally jovial crew is very tense and everyone has hair trigger tempers. I cannot be my usual sarcastically cutting self, and that is very hard.

Half-blind, indeed.

2006-04-22T02:51:00.000-05:00

I only bled a little on the last corner...a result of the back of the chisel rubbing the skin off one of my fingers over the last two days. On the up side, it took me 5 hours last night to cut the pins on 3 corners, while tonite I hit my stride and cut the remaining 5 corners in a record 6 hours. And although I certainly don't want to cut anymore dovetails in the near future, my quality of fit actually did improve with practice. Because I have hand cut dovetails only once before in my life, I began with the back corners of the drawers. Normally, one would not bother dovetailing the backs of drawers -- because no one will ever see them. I'm glad I did though, because the first few sets look like they were cut by a half-blind furniture maker, while by the time I got to the drawer fronts, I was getting the hang of it.

This last photo shows why these particular dovetails are called half-blind: because the tails only penetrate about two-thirds into the face of the drawer, you will not see the joinery on the drawer face. At least, once I hit this joint home, you won't. I don't think I'll do that until glue-up, because I want the fit to stay nice and tight.

After I sleep past noon tomorrow (it's 4 a.m. -- my body clock is a mess), I'll go back in and cut the grooves for the drawer bottoms, cut the drawer bottoms to size and then start sanding the inside faces so I can pre-finish before assembly. Here's where you can help: by Sunday I want to glue up, so before then I have to decide on a drawer pull. Since I wanted something recessed or a cut-out, I purposely left minimal clearance between the drawer front and the cabinet door. So no sticky-outy-screw-on pulls. I'm torn between drilling a simple hole through the drawer face (maybe an inch, inch-and-a-half), OR using a manufactured recessed pull such as this one. The cabinet hinges and inner door catch are both brass, so something like B might work. But oval or rectangular? I'm leaning toward the simple circular cut-out, because the inside of the cabinet is as crazy-horizontally-striped as the outside, and perhaps there is already enough brass on the thing. Come on, I know it's the weekend, but I want second and third opinions!

Sometimes two negatives do make a positive.

2006-04-19T23:16:00.000-05:00

When I cut those dovetails the other day, as I was making the last pass on the tablesaw, I realized I had cut them to the full depth of the drawer face. That's what you'd usually do if you're making through-dovetails; however, I was aiming for half-blind. Oh well, I thought; I'll just make the drawer faces thicker so they still hide the pins from the front. Then I realized that I had cut the drawer sides to the full depth of the cabinet, and that if I was to make the drawer faces thicker, this would add another half inch to the length of the drawer. And then it would stick out too far.

As luck would have it, trimming a quarter inch off each end of the drawer sides would give me what I should have cut in the first place: shorter drawer sides with shorter dovetails. Egad, my two mistakes were working serendipitously in my favour! Except for one little problem. You don't just take pre-cut dovetails to the tablesaw and crosscut them. You'd get scads of ugly tearout. Tearout is when the sawblade takes splinters with it where the blade exits the back of the wood. Tearout is bad. B.A.D.

Sooooo, I had to do the most hilarious setup to crosscut those dovetails. It only took half an hour - which was far less than the couple hours it took me to mill up and cut the sides and then cut and clean up the dovetails - and so was all worth it in the end. But still, it seemed like great lengths to go to for a few little crosscuts. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. What I had to do was to cut a length of pin the shape of the negative space of the dovetails. Then I cut this length into 40 tiny pieces which I could jam in between each dovetail (e.g., little tiny backup boards to prevent tearout). I also needed one tiny half pin per side for the last tail going across the saw. I then wrapped each end with masking tape to prevent tearout on the bottom of the cut, too.

Experiences like these want me to make more mistakes just so I can learn how to fix them. There's almost always a way; it's what lengths you want to go to, to reverse the damage. Sadly, life outside of the shop doesn't often work like that.

Doves' Tails.

2006-04-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

I had a leisurely 9 hour shop day today, once again putting hardwood plugs into the bottom of the cabinet, where the base screws into it, and cutting dovetails on the drawer sides. I cut them on the tablesaw. It was surprisingly easy, which tells me I've learned a thing or two in the last two years. Dovetails used to be some unattainable, lofty goal; but I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Not to say that it wasn't somewhat tedious and that I didn't make any mistakes, but I'm happy enough.

Of course the tails are only the half of it. Next I have to cut the pins into the drawer face and back. I'm hedging my bets and doing all-around dovetails, so that if the joints on what I wanted to be the drawer front are inferior to the joints on the back, I can just call the back the front, and no one will be the wiser. Anyway, I'm doing half-blind dovetails so that the pins won't be visible on the drawer face. You can cut pins for through-dovetails on the tablesaw, but not for half-blind dovetails. So, although there was some chisel work involved in cleaning up what the table saw didn't take out on the tails, it's mostly all chisel work on the pins. BUT, the drawer sides are hard maple and the drawer fronts and backs will be tulip poplar (a much softer wood). This means I can cut the pins on the tight side and when I hammer them together during assembly (which is only done once), the hard maple will essentially squish the poplar into a perfect joint. Or so, this is the theory. I'll let you know how it works out.

In the meantime, I leave you with the cabinet I really should make one day. This fabulous design is my sister's, who made me some beautiful furniture cards last Christmas.

OK.

2006-04-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

I'm officially done whining and I swear that was my last 13 hour day. By physical necessity I stayed home from the shop yesterday to do laundry, nap and get my written homework squared away. Today was all about finishing.

I started with sanding to smooth every little blemish. It went well. The photo on the right shows the first coat going on and how the colour really snaps. I really like how it gives the marquetry depth, but, um, when it was all done and on the base, it sorta reminds me of some kind of giant Hawaiian fruit or something. Pineapple? I'm not sure. Maybe I've lost all perspective, but I think I'll like it more when the greens fade to browns and the piece loses some of its flash.

Ah well, giant pineapple or not, I did do a very good job of it. It's a well crafted pineapple, certainly. And now I have over a week to build the two interior drawers. Plus, someone pointed out that after our critique on April 25, I'll be done classes and will have three entire days to pack before the weekend. Now why didn't I think of that?

What it all hinges on.

2006-04-14T01:14:00.000-05:00

It's all slowly coming together. I made this nifty jig to route in my hinges. I had to jerry-rig it somewhat to sit on an angle because my hinges have tapered leaves. A couple layers of veneer glued on the back of the jig in the right places gave me the slight angle I needed and the door fits incredibly well.

After insetting some hardwood plugs for the screws to bite into, I am at long last ready to sand and finish the exterior. Who thought this day would ever come? I've smartly decided to wait until daylight to sand and finish so I can actually see what I'm doing. There's a bit of stress remaining, given that if I sand too thin, you can see the dark mdf through the veneer...especially on the light stripey sections. Does the pressure ever let up?

And if I didnt' have enough pressure (still haven't started building the two interior drawers), I get a lovely letter from Aunt Frieda saying she wants to fly out and drive back with me to Saskatchewan. Holy Jehosephat, Batman! I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than spend three entire days in an enclosed space with her. And I feel no guilt in admitting this. Those of you who know her will be firmly behind me. So I guess someone should tell her I already have company in the two-seater truck. I'll put that on my list of things to do. Maybe I can just not talk to her for the next two weeks?

Oooh, there are so many things on my to-do list, it's scary. Prepare some hand-ins on my commercial furniture table project....finish cabinet...complete AutoCad drawing of cabinet...finish butt-ugly metal rocking chair for welding class...cut sliding dovetails in the eight cutting board presents I am making...get boxes to pack crap into...um, PACK?...file taxes...And yet, I am considered among my peers to have it all under control. So I feel a bit silly complaining. Must. Remain. Calm.

An Open Invitation.

2006-04-12T02:18:00.000-05:00

Well, since it's 3 a.m. and I'm so wound up I can't possibly sleep for a bit, I thought I'd issue an open invitation. Anyone interested in seeing student studio furniture IN PERSON should mark their calendars for the Apr 29/30 Sheridan Crafts Open House; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Oakville Campus. Friday night there's even a real opening (I'm hoping for booze, myself, but I have to confirm). 7 p.m., although there are speaches first and you all might want to skip those. This is all assuming you're in the neighbourhood, but it'll be good times! I think someone's even throwing a going away party for me after. Aww.

The real party is on May 4 at Fluid Living in TO; starting at 6 p.m.: the third years' graduating exhibit opening. For that one, I KNOW there will be booze. Can't believe I have to miss it, but duty calls back in S'toon. Damn, damn, DAMN. I'm totally flying out next year for my classmates' opening, at which time I will take full advantage of the free bar. Heck, maybe I'll donate a keg to the cause.

Definitely Horseshoes. Maybe a whole horse train.

2006-04-12T01:20:00.000-05:00

Either I have horseshoes up my ass or all the gods were smiling on me today when I veneered the edges of my cabinet door. The plan all along was to have the wood grain and marquetry pattern wrap entirely around the cabinet. I started out by taping the long, skinny strips of veneer I'd squirreled away - cut from the same veneer layup as the rest of the cabinet - to a piece of mdf. Obviously I can't put the door sideways in the veneer press and veneer wants to curl the instant glue hits it because of the water content. So taping it down essentially turns it into edging which can be clamped up just like you would when edging sheet material.

Of course I had to mark the veneer to I know where it should line up when I clamped it. I also cut the final bit of marquetry into these pieces, which meant orienting the grain of the inlaid pieces so it would appear to continue around the corner.

After gluing and flushing down the veneer to the thickness of the door, I could see that the grain wrapped successfully, but the marquetry was still covered by tape. Ooh, the suspense!

Incredibly, the marquetry wrapped around PERFECTLY. It isn't even out by a sixteenth. On BOTH sides of the door. I believe in this I have found the best outlet for the immense anal side to my personality. Truly, even I am impressed by my organizational abilities. I am a crazy person, but for once it's working in my favour. The downside? Realizing I'd have to sand the edges by hand, in the direction of the grain. #$(&^%&*4&! Definitely worth it.

Yesterday's photo.

2006-04-12T01:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I completed the base for the cabinet. Here it is pre-glue-up. I'm amazed how much it looks like my quarter-scale model. Past that, I'm not sure I'm able to see the whole thing objectively enough to say whether it all works.

The spots are dust on the camera lens...there's an awful lot of dust building in the shop. It's gonna be a disgusting year-end clean up.

Alex had a bird in his room.

2006-04-11T00:04:00.000-05:00

But I forgot I had to add this. So this morning I got to school ahead of Swish. When she arrived, she started to tell me how Alex had a bird in his room this morning. I was thinking he was freaking out about something, "having a bird" in my experience means just that. So I said, "What about?"

Turns out he actually had a real, live bird flying around in his room because he took the screen off to stick a fan in his window since the apartment's too warm for him. No one deserves a real, live, shitting bird in their room more than he. It's got to be karma.

Speechless.

2006-04-10T23:39:00.000-05:00

The smell of Swish's hamburger soup is extremely distracting. I wish there was some way I could bottle her and take her to Saskatoon. And my photos won't post tonite. So I'm off for a late nite snack instead of a wordy blog. She is the best roommate ever! Not sure how many more 12 hour days I can stand.

Progress.

2006-04-09T23:02:00.000-05:00

An excellent shop day. I completed most of the base for the cabinet. The rails that allow the cabinet to float are a pain in the ass, but one more good day should do it.

Then just the drawers and finishing. I've decided to make them with half-blind dovetails. We'll see how that works out.

One down.

2006-04-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

One to go. Good news! Today I actually completed something! Here is "my best work at Sheridan so far", according to one of the third year students. We all know what his taste in furniture is. Anyhoo, here is the entertainment console / coffee table / bench - whatever you wanna use it for. Quarter-sawn laminated and bleached ash top floating on a lacquered mdf base. I even talked Jeremy into modelling for scale, although he is the tallest person around, so somewhat dwarfs the piece. I like it, although wish I'd thought from the beginning to put it on casters because I can't lift it myself. At this point I'd have to put them inside the recessed kick, making the piece a tad tippy, should someone perch on the edge. Oh well: next time. Now I need to guesstimate what it cost me to build it (materials and labour) and make a schmancy spec sheet for critique day.

Now I can concentrate fully on my more interesting (to me) project, the cabinet. Here's what the door looks like just out of the veneer press. Isn't it lovely with paper stuck where I low-tack glued the marquetry pattern on, and the brown butcher's tape holding the veneer joints together for the glue-up? So pretty!

Corner Edging 101

2006-04-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

Counterclockwise from the bottom:

- route a rabet using a straight bit with a bearing
- glue in a corner piece using fibre tape to clamp
- flush trim and sand

If you're really anal, you can mitre the corners. Shore is perty. These 13 hour shop days are killer. Time for a day off!!

Stripey.

2006-04-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Today I bleached the ash slab for commercial furniture. It's lovely and was unnervingly easy to do. The instructor was impressed with my progress during the strike and thinks that because I am so ahead, I could do more for the presentation, like make a spec sheet. I think it's a good idea but wonder, at the same time, why it is that I should do extra because I'm ahead? I'm ahead because I've been busting my ass and maybe I deserve a little coasting toward the end of the term, hmmm?

Here is the stripey number, gaining her legs. In fact, I'll likely mill up the legs shortly. I have decided the best course to fix the unsightly mitred back is to route in that teeny corner strip I was talking about. At least I can make it so teeny as to be nearly unnoticeable. But first, tonite I must master tig welding! Onward ho!

When that little voice inside you screams...

2006-04-02T22:10:00.000-05:00

...you should listen. I have a friend who says he lives with no regrets because it's bad karma. He's probably right. But every now and then I find that I don't listen to my little voice who knows better, and I try to learn from it.

Yesterday I spent 3 hours sanding the mitres on the back of my cabinet to get a perfect fit. Because making clamping jigs would take another 3 hours and material I didn't have, I went for the quick method, which consists of taping your joints while the glue sets. Sure, this works fine for little boxes. Did I mention I learn a lot when I mess up? It's great. Anyway, masking tape works for for small boxes because you can get enough pressure. On large boxes, not so much. Because I didn't get any glue squeeze-out, the glue took up space, leaving a rather unsightly gap where there was, in actuality, a perfect fit before. Sigh. This is where the little voice comes in. I was mostly through the glue-up and realized what was happening. The little voice said to pop the panel out and scrape all the glue off before it sets. However, the second-guessing voice told me that was the best I would get in any case and the glue was likely too set to get the panel out. Silly me, that's when I should have considered the brute force of any number of men who were about. If you know nothing about white glue, you have 2-5 minutes of working time. It's dry in the shop lately, so 2 minutes is more the timeline. Spreading the glue takes at least one minute. Fiddling with fitting takes more than that. A split-second decision gone wrong.

The day after, the joint still looks like hell by my standards. Heck, I can stick my fingernail in it in places! Tomorrow being Monday, I will seek counsel from professionals on whether I can get away with wood filler. There is, of course, another option I was hoping to avoid by having fabulous joints in the first place. If your mitres are not perfect, you can route the corner away and glue in a strip of solid wood. This is generally done for veneered pieces anyway, because when corners get dinged, the solid corner holds up better. For this cabinet though, the grain of the veneer runs horizontally around the cabinet (as does the marquetry) and I didn't want to interrupt the flow with corner pieces, even though they'd be less fragile.

So my little voice is throwing a tantrum. The flow is ruined! Why didnt' you listen to me!!?!

Oh dear. Chalk up another point for the little voice.

And suddenly it all started to look like furniture!

2006-03-31T21:21:00.000-06:00

This morning all I had were some random veneered panels. To the right is one showing how I had to put little hardwood plugs into the mdf where screws will attach the drawer slides to the cabinet. I know it seems a bit silly, but mdf doesn't hold a screw very well. I'll have to do the same for the hinges.

Then I took the plunge and glued up a corner. Actually I glued up two, which gave me two giant L-shapes.

I then joined the two giant L's and a shelf, with a pile o' clamps. The big clamps hold the corner glueing jigs temporarily on the cabinet, and the littl'r clamps actually clamp the glued mitre joint.

When I figure out how to clamp the mitred back on, I will have this loverly rectangular cabinet you see below. It will be meant to stand on end (on a 4-legged base), but for now can only lie on its stomach, in a sexy pose for photographic purposes. So far, the marquetry and grain is lining up quite nicely around the corner. Now that the cabinet is glued up and I know its exact dimensions, I can start making the door. The door will have the main grassy scene, which will wrap around the corners to the left and right sides.

While waiting for glue to dry, I heaved my giant slab of lamintaed ash to the planer. At 20 and 3/8" wide, it was an 1/8" under the maximum capacity of our super large and fabulous planer, the likes of which I will never personally be able to afford, and so will dearly miss. I had to enlist some manly help to push it through and was sweating in a most unladylike fashion by the time the top and bottom were smooth. So here is a sneak preview of the coffee table I'm making for commercial furniture class. As you can see, the storage component is an excellent selling feature.

One month left and counting...

2006-03-30T12:28:00.000-06:00

The teachers' strike is over and classes have been extended by only one week. I helped out at my last con-ed class last night, which was thankfully uneventuful. My projects are going swimmingly, which doesn't mean I'm not stressed out about them. Sometimes I annoy myself in that I worry too much instead of enjoying myself more! What's to worry about? Well, I need to glue up my marquetried cabinet without incident and then try my best not to sand through the veneer. I glued up the ash slab for my commercial furniture coffee table late last night, and am now hoping it's flat enough that I can get the targetted inch and a half of thickness out of it after planing it smooth. Worrying is so silly, because either I will get that thickness or not. There isn't much I'll be able to do about it as I'm not buying another 20 board feet of ash to try again!

There are new fun things to be excited about though. I'm going to bleach the ash slab with two part wood bleach. This fun procedure involves pouring lye and hydrogen peroxide all over the sanded slab and letting them bleach the colour out while they neutralize each other. Wheee, toxic chemicals! Luckily, I'll have help from the classmate who urged me to do this because she wants to try it out. We're going to do this outside behind the building for the fresh air bonus. The bone coloured slab should look fantastic on top of the lacquered grey base that I've already completed. The downside to my design is that this coffee table will be a bear to lug about. I'm likely going to have to find a buyer here or donate it to Swish and Leslie for their next apartment.

With the year-end looming, the drive home has popped up on my stress radar. I'm contemplating bringing a friend to relieve the boredom of a three day drive. Assuming that I'll be able to talk them into it, that is. So far the only enticement I can come up with is, "See Canada from the car!!!" Somehow this falls short of convincing.

The Cursed Cabinet Chronicles.

2006-03-27T22:18:00.000-06:00

Ah, more learning has been thrust upon me in the form of jigs that aren't square and table saw fences that don't stay put. With a cold to make my brain slightly fuzzy, I agonized over routing slots for my drawer slides, only to come in the next day and find that they didn't line up at all. Confirming that my measuring was correct, I surmised that the jig must have been off-square. Luckily, a larger bit and a different routing approach destroyed all evidence of disaster.

Today: same cabinet; cutting mitres with a sacrificial fence. I set it up beautifully and was happily cutting when I realized the fence had moved. I rolled with it and re-cut the previous pieces, ending up with a minisculy smaller cabinet and near-perfect joints. Such a close call with disaster took its toll and I was grumpy as all hell for at least an hour afterward.

I think it all has to do with getting to know your tools, because like us, they all have their unique little personality quirks. Like how one table saw bottoms out at a perfect 45 degrees, while the other goes past a full degree and has to be set with a drafting square. Apparently one should always check whether the fence is loose, too. Good advice for cattlemen and carpenters.

Another quality metal project.

2006-03-24T19:49:00.000-06:00

This bit of silliness is for my welding class. We were told to make "something" by the end of the term, so I spent $40 on square metal tubing to make a chair.

It was after I decided upon a design that I learned that our metal bending tool (photo at right) is not really designed to bend square tubing, only round, channel or flat stock. Consarnit. I decided to throw caution to the wind and forge ahead regardless. The dies were also not large enough for the radii I was after, so I achieved these ripply bends a little at a time. I see that the ripples look far more impressive (almost intentional) in photographs vs. real life. I've got most of my cross pieces cut to length (taped to the side pieces in the photo), ready to be welded next week. I'll then add some little posts to float a solid wood seat and back off the frame. I'll probably have to weld some little stops on the rockers at the front and back so the sitter doesn't do summersaults.

This is more an experiement and exercise for me than building fine furniture. I'm going for something like: "the charm of the piece is in its crudeness." Yep, a chair study of sorts. It makes me feel I made the right choice in studying woodworking.

A show for nobody.

2006-03-24T19:32:00.000-06:00

These are photos of the student show up in the school gallery. The cubes are second year projects, as are the bar stools; first year plywood chairs; plus miscellaneous works from years 1, 2 and 3. Unfortunately, the college's instructors are all on strike and them, along with most of the student body, are not around. Therefore, this show will be seen by mostly nobody. Too bad for them.

There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

2006-03-23T00:30:00.000-06:00

About half the furniture students opted to go on a 2-day field trip to NY state Monday. It was action packed. Our first stop was Wendell Castle's production facility. Very interesting, although his personal studio was more so. I've never seen so many gigantic band saws in my life, including one where the blade tilted instead of the bed. Apparently this ship-building tool comes in quite handy when you're slicing angles off 500-lb stack laminations. That kind of weight would be tricky to hold on a tilted surface. The shop dog was cute, too, and had most of the students trying to talk our instructor into one. There was one thing I observed that still has me stymied. The face shield rack had a little note on it that said something like, "SAFETY. Face Shields. I before e except after face." Maybe some random librarian out there could explain that one to me.

We also visited the School for American Crafts at RIT. Their students and faculty visited our school last year and it was time to return the favour. What a favour it was! A bunch of hung-over students nodding off through the 9 a.m. lecture on the CNC router. Oops. I can't say that I was above all the nodding, as I wasn't exactly acting my age the night before. Shrink wrapping that car at 2 a.m. was good times though! Good thing they had me around to explain to hotel security that it was all in good fun so they could let us finish. I was awfully perky and convincing. The next day, not so much.

What are field trips for though, if not for excellent student bonding and blackmail opportunities? I may never go back to using some people's real names after learning their porn star aliases. You should try it! Take the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on (or your mother's maiden name). Hey, add some frivolity to your humdrum workday or coffee break.

It was good to see the RIT shop. Some of their setup/procedures are better than ours and some not as good. They have fewer students and therefore, a bit less space. They keep their equipment finely tuned with weekly student labour/maintenance instruction, yet their shop is perhaps too clean. Reminds me of those houses that extremely anal people live in which make you wonder if they have any fun at all because they spend all their time dusting. Then there's the whole problem of tuition. They offer a Master's in Wood (neato), yet like all other universities and colleges in Unitedstatesia, tuition will run you $20-30,000 a year. Ouch.

We got to sit in on a critique of some student work, too. Critiques are always a bit awkward, even if it's with your fellow students. You have to be especially diplomatic to criticize the work of a student at another school. I just sat back and bit my nails, hoping that none of us overstepped the bounds as the visiting team. The piece I found most interesting was a dual-purpose bench in which the entire seat surface was carved into a giant wood cut. You could roll ink over the surface, flip it onto paper or cloth draped over the sub-surface and have all your friends sit their butts down to help you press the print. Other pieces were more finely crafted, but this one was interactive and fun. A great concept with tons of potential.

Three's a charm.

2006-03-18T10:36:00.000-06:00

Isn't that what they say? This time around I tried hypnosis to quit smoking. Day 4 and so far, so good, although I've had some hairy moments. Overall, I'd have to say, with some surprise, that hypnosis works as well as Zyban, without all the nasty side effects. I was hoping to have no craving for a cigarette whatsoever, but that's a little optimistic. I am hobbling around like a little old lady this morning though, due to a slight overexuberance yesterday with my favourite non-smoking "carrot": running. Although I've been working up to it, apparently I'm not ready for running an hour straight quite yet. Writing this, I realize it sounds a little odd. Most people wouldn't consider running much of an enticement; rather more a punishment.

One of the most interesting things about quitting smoking is having to deal with all those uncomfortable little things called emotions that I've been smothering with smoke for years. I'm not normally an emotional person, so when I find myself frustrated and tired at the end of the day and suddenly feel like bursting into tears, I know it's because I'm missing my faithful crutch. Luckily, my rational brain can still point and laugh and say, hey, this too will pass. Having quit before, I know to expect irrationality for a while, but to know and to experience it are two different things.

Back in the shop, the cabinet and coffee table are well underway. Monday we're going to Rochester, NY, on an overnighter field trip. I'm going to have to burn some Jim Croce for the highway...wishing I could find that Speedball Tucker song. That thar's some good road trip music.

Pros and Cons.

2006-03-14T16:00:00.000-06:00

I'm not a veneering pro, although I'm getting there. I've been busy, busy, busy on my cabinet project and am making fantastic progress. Today the pros and cons of using a differential press sheet really hit home. What the what?!, you ask? Well, the flitch of veneer I am using on the exterior of the cabinet has some definite thin spots. I'm not sure why; must be something to do with how it was sliced off the log. Anyway, a difference of 10,000ths of an inch in thickness between this spot over here and that one over there can mean that when you spread glue on your mdf, throw the veneer on and toss it in the press, the thinner areas may not adhere properly. This is how the dreaded "bubbling" happens. This would be air pockets between your veneer and your substrate, which would just rip right off if you took a sander to it. And that would be BAD.

Enter the differential press sheet controversy. It is standard practice for veneer manufacturers to use some kind of compressible mat over the veneer in the press, such as: laminate flooring underlay (actually they likely use something a little more durable). Who knew? I was advised to glue up a test sample to see for myself. The sample was difficult for me to interpret, but once the results were explained to me in detail, the benefits were obvious. No bubbling in the thin spots. The cons? Well, the foamy underlay allows a little more sideways movement, which can be considerable when you add wet glue to really thin wood. So although I had no bubbling, I had a couple minor wrinkles where the veneer tried to shift over itself. Nothing a hot iron and a little burnishing couldn't mostly fix up while the glue was still a tad dampish. I figure something had to go wrong, and it could have been worse.

I love that woodworking involves such a colourful vocabulary. Bubbling. Wrinkles. Burnish. Differential press sheet. A tad dampish.

Making my mark.

2006-03-11T00:25:00.000-06:00

I love poplar-on-poplar marquetry. To the right is the front panel of the cabinet I'm making, with the marquetry about half done. The panel is 16" x 16". Yes, it's marquetry-by-numbers, really. I use low tac adhesive to temporarily paste down my drawing. You see, I have to cut in a certain order because some of the grass leaves are "behind" other leaves. Some day if I had lots of time, I'd like to try a panel with so many leaves of grass, it would be like actually looking at grass.

This next photo shows how teensy the saw blades are that I am using. They are called skip tooth blades, size 3/0, and are actually made for jewellers. Goodness knows what jewellers do with them. I suppose they might cut metal or something. Tee-hee. Anyway, that thing beside the pencil is one saw blade and the bundles spilling out of the envelope are the four dozen blades I still have left in the 3/0 size. The other five dozen blades I ordered are all smaller than 3/0 and since I broke about 8 blades making four panels, I didn't even bother to try them out. Probably best to use those with a hand held coping saw instead of the lovely scroll saw at my disposal. I may have to invest in my own some day, although a variable speed scroll saw with a 16" arm has got to be a bit pricey.

Ta-dah! The completed panel which will be joined to the bottom of a non-marquetried panel to form a rectangle (that'd be the prairie sky over the wheat field). Yep, I'm thinking this kinda thing might go over big in the Skatch. Now I just have to cut up the mdf, glue these babies down, mitre and do some other random stuff and I shall have a cabinet.

Stuff.

2006-03-07T00:41:00.000-06:00

Today I put the start of the final oil/varathane finishes on the cherry box I'm making for someone who helped me through a crazy bit in life. It's leftover cherry from the leafcutter chair I made plus some wenge I randomly found left about the shop and have been hoarding for months (retaining bits of crazy can be beneficial). I actually made two identical boxes (7" x 10" x 5"), one of which I donated to the last student sale. It sold for $60 in about 5 minutes of being put out, leading us all to think it was rather underpriced. I don't feel too badly as I did a botch job of the hinges, which were binding and squeaked in protest. This one has the "extra" of a routed pull, although I have yet to botch the hinge job as I haven't bought them yet.

This next shot is of the full scale test sample I made for the front of my grass cabinet for studio class. It's a bit difficult to see the entire vista as I've made it into a finishing sample. Starting from upper left and going clockwise is wipe-on poly, water-based varathane, oil/varathane mix and solvent-based varathane. It's interesting how the oil-based finishes bring out the grain and highlight the line between the background and the marquetry inlays. Over time the water-based varathane seems to yield the same deliniation, with a harder finish (certainly more environmentally friendly) than the solvent varathane - and harder than a non-catalyzed lacquer - so I am as of yet undecided. Funny how not much in life is black and white. I wish poplar would stay green forever instead of fading to browns...

I keep forgetting

2006-03-05T00:11:00.000-06:00

to take photos of what I'm doing in the shop. Damn. I've had a couple of long days. I made a full scale sample of the marquetry on the front of my cabinet and used it to make finishing samples. Solvent-based varathane seems the way to go as it highlights the grain really well. Hmmmm, maybe too well. Today I laid out new veneer for the cabinet exterior, as I'd done a hack job of it the first time. Well, hack job might be a bit harsh...I just didn't do all the steps in the best order, which meant that the grain didn't track around to perfection. And what's the point of that?! I'll just use that previous set for the interior, so it won't go to waste.

Me and the rest of The Entity started looking at apartments to rent next year. Naturally, the big debate surrounds which of the three will get the master bedroom. We all agree that we'd pay more for the larger room, but does that mean that person should pay more? Should we draw straws? Numbers in a hat held by an impartial third party? You'll have to contact me personally for The Entity's definition of impartial, as it's rather risque. Myself, I'm a follower of the old adage, age before beauty. The middle child among us thinks that the person of middle age (no, not middle-aged, surely none of us are that!) should get to choose because the middle child never gets anything. Then again, being from Texas, she also thinks we should just fight for it. Swish is pretty sure that if she can lock her elbow on her overly-long arm, it wouldn't matter how scrappy I am, I wouldn't get a punch in. Leaving me thinking, "Scrappy? I'm scrappy? I'm pretty sure I'm a delicate flower? The essence of all that is feminine and demure? No?"

Bye-bye, garage boudoir.

2006-03-01T23:48:00.000-06:00

It's a miracle. I have just learned that my relatives in Saskatoon have, at long last, gotten rid of their two mangy cats. Since I am allergic, it's been uber annoying to visit, especially for the 6 weeks last July and August when I slept on sawhorses in their garage. Although it was like an extended camping trip, I wasn't really looking forward to the garage in May, in Saskatoon. Chilly. Brrrrrr! So yay!!!! I get to sleep in the house like a real, live person who matters!

In furniture news, I've expanded my family of tables for commercial furniture class with this fabulous, sleek and sexy coffee table. People at school who actually like this kind of thing (I mean modern, contemporary furniture) say it's the best thing I've built so far. Smartass.

I still prefer the design with the little squares showing under the top, but apparently that's not boring, er, I mean, contemporary enough.

Seriously, I can appreciate this style of furniture, and sometimes think it would be fun and very sophisticated to have a few pieces. Heck, I drink coffee! But honestly, it's simply not my style.

Wired.

2006-02-28T23:56:00.000-06:00

Grrrr. 1 a.m. and fully wired on caffeine. One of the con-ed students in the class I tech for bought me a coffee tonite. While that was exceptionally friendly, I'd already had a coffee a couple hours earlier. There's nothing for it but to sit back, have a couple oreo cookies and a blog to take the edge off.

Yes, I realize there is yet more caffeine in chocolate, but sometimes I'm not the brightest light on the tree.

Damn, I just realized I forgot to roll up my rim. Craptastic.

And what's new in the studio? Well, since you asked, I've been re-working the marquetry design for my cabinet. Found some fantastic photos of bona fide grass frondlets and am going for a bit more realism. I like it. Because the lines are straighter than the wavy, seaweedy-ish fronds I went with last time, I think the pattern will be a bit calmer and less in-your-face when set off against the giant background stripes.

Luckily, I had the presence of mind to try this new and exciting imagery on a full-scale veneer layup test sample. Am I ever slapping myself on the back because my test sample is not quite up to my standards. For one, the cutting order is trickier and I may have to drill tiny holes to feed the teeny sawblade through for some of the pieces. It is best to try new things at least once before going full steam ahead on your good veneer. For two, I swear the sawblade kerf is larger than last year. Kerf is another fun furniture word which means the wood cut away (e.g., made into sawdust) by the saw blade. This may not sound very important, but my goodness, it certainly is, even when your blade is so tiny the kerf is only 1 mm wide!

So after a bit o'research, I found a Canadian company that sells jewellers' blades and ordered me up 10 dozen. That sounds like a lot, but they are really quite inexpensive and I had to order a minimum of $20 for them to ship. Also, since they are so tiny, they tend to break fairly often. I ordered an assortment of sizes, so can play around until I get results I'm happy with; or, in the alternative, have a lifetime supply that I can drag around every time I move.

Yep, I am going to be watching my mailbox with bated breath, letmetellyouhuh.

Matching.

2006-02-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

I spent yesterday cutting and joining poplar veneer so it tracks all the way around the cabinet. I ended up with a little funkiness on the sides, where the grain tapers. I think it'll be interesting. The grain on the front of the cabinet is parallel at least. Now just to add the marquetry so the whole thing doesn't look completely stupid. It's pretty stripey.

Here is what I was talking about the other day. The picture on the left is the pattern I would have got with slip matching. Although it does look more landscapey, the stripes would have been smaller and closer together, thus complicating the surface a bit too much. The close-up on the right is what I went with (book matching).

Jane's got the goods.

2006-02-24T20:05:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't checked out Jane's blog lately, there's a post (a few days old) regarding the recent mustache contest judging...somehow I missed it, but her coverage of the event is inspiring. Not to be missed.

A beautiful flitch.

2006-02-24T08:07:00.000-06:00

The dictionary describes a "flitch" as being a slab of timber from a tree-trunk, usu. from the outside. A furniture maker using this word would more likely be talking specifically about that slab sliced into veneer, kept in the order it was sliced. Since the pieces are all in order, the maker is able to slip match (slide the pieces off one another) or book match (slide one piece off and flip the next over) the veneer to get different effects.

Yesterday I picked out the poplar flitch I'll be making my cabinet from. It's too bad poplar fades to brown with sunlight, because the greens in the wood are so fabulous. Sigh. I've decided to book match. Poplar veneer is often darker down one length with a partial whitish stripe next to it (the white is the new wood around the outside of the tree). Thus, if I slip matched, the pattern would be dark-light-dark-light in a tighter pattern than if I book match and put the whites together and the darks together. Note to self: Perhaps some comparison photos are in order. Anyway, book matching will yield a pattern with much larger stripes, which is better on such a small cabinet. As a bonus, the effect is similar to strata clouds, which form in uniform, sheet-like layers in stable air. Just what I need for my big prairie sky.

Tweet.

2006-02-20T23:57:00.000-06:00

The wildlife was less than squirrely tonite in welding class. This one's a Lucas / Celine collaboration. The instructor's comment was, "I hope you brought those pliers from home?"

But of course.

AutoCad isn't completely boring.

2006-02-19T14:38:00.000-06:00

For our last assignment we had to create a room with at least 5 pieces of furniture. Remember that we are only halfway through the semester. Some of my classmates did some pretty amazing stuff (including an aquarium with snails, fish and a treasure chest full of coins), but I'm quite happy with my rather traditional little bedroom.
I even created some art for the walls.

This just in...

2006-02-18T15:16:00.000-06:00

...confirming once again that there are no original ideas. Apparently there are other people out there who like to spell with furniture. Nice.

Working backwards.

2006-02-18T14:37:00.000-06:00

I went in today all gung-ho to make my full scale cabinet mock-up, based on the, um, base being the same height as that on the coffee table. The correct way would have been to make a quarter-scale model before committing time and materials to full scale. I soon discovered that the base was far too short for a cabinet of this size, and although I liked the size of the cabinet itself, I didn't like being able to see the top. Raising the entire thing up on 6" cauls did the trick, but I still wanted to see an actual base in those proportions.

Therefore, I went on to make a quarter-scale model with the correct base proportions. I mini-photo shoot followed and I am definitely happier with a higher base. I'm not entirely sure I'll stick with this exact stand in the end. It would match the coffee table, but perhaps I should put that aside and try to design for better integration of cabinet and base...definitely a conundrum...and I'm running out of time.

A day of epiphanies.

2006-02-14T22:04:00.000-06:00

Or maybe I just like that word. It was with a giant sigh of relief that I came up with a cabinet that fires me up. It'll be rectangular, BUT have marquetry on four sides which wraps around, thus elevating a simple rectangle to the level of complexity I am used to. And it'll look snappy with my grass coffee table at the year end show (snappy!)...the image is of the side-front-side of the cabinet, as I try to come up with a grassy-underwatery-feely-pattern that flows nicely around the corners. I plan to have it floating on a stand, similar to the coffee table. Ah, it is good to have something true to focus on. Goodness, I believe this should be a post in my Issues blog. Oops.

Metal Squirrel II.

2006-02-13T20:42:00.000-06:00

Ah, welding class. In addition to the newest squirrel model (check out his big nuts), I spent most of the class making and cleaning up the little cylindrical thing in front of the squirrels. The instructor needs something on which to base our midterm mark (it's difficult to mark chaos), so has requested that we each make a metal box and make it all pretty with the grinder and sander. I decided to make a little cylindrical box by welding washers to each end of a short length of pipe. Not sure what one would do with such a thing, but it was kind of riveting for a while.

Split Personality Cabinet!

2006-02-12T17:33:00.000-06:00

I think I've come up with a compromise on the cabinet front. This version involves only one curved cabinet (my fun-loving side) to contrast with the very rectangular walnut cabinet (my uber-anal side). The stand may need a little work, but I'm liking the chunkiness of it. Of course the cabinets will float slightly above the stand (my new favourite thing). Time to let it digest. This model is a little less than quarter scale.

The Entity.

2006-02-12T10:29:00.000-06:00

Being fed up with slothly roommate issues this year, Swish and I have firm plans to shack up next year with Leslie, another furnyture die-hard. I am desperately looking forward to it as I am bored of looking at this towel in the bathroom that hasn't been washed for 3 months. I sure hope it's toothpaste, although I sure wouldn't wipe my mouth on that.

We've decided that the three of us will likely become known as an entity, and last night over a pitcher we were trying to think up a name we could go by. You know, for party posters and the like. One of the more shocking ideas requires the addition of a fourth girl named Irma. That being unlikely, we could always utilize the other obvious acronym: TLC. I find both options horrrifying. It is clear that more brainstorming is required. Another round, please, waitress!

Boxes!

2006-02-10T18:16:00.000-06:00

I had my first really productive day in weeks today. What a relief. I put a few coats of oil on the floating panels for my two cherry boxes and glued them up. Now I only have to spline them, sand, cut the lids off, knock in some hinges and oil so I can donate one to the studio sale on Monday. It's certainly possible. Proceeds go to the third year's final show...at which I am confident there will be much free beer. And you thought I was doing this out of the goodness of my heart.

Better yet, I actually came up with an occasional table I can live with for our commercial furniture class. The term-long project is to design a "family" of occasional tables for a small production run (about 25), and then pitch them to the owner of a Toronto furniture store who has generously donated his time for two critiques. The first crit is of our design stage, and is a week from Monday. A lot of us have been beating our heads against the wall trying to come up with something that could be made for approximately $500 (retail for $1000-give-or-take), and, the more difficult part, actually fit with all the other furniture they sell. Those of us who are more into one-offs have been struggling indeedy. So I am pleased to unveil this side table, which has a quarter-sawn laminated oak top that can be lifted off for storage. The box could be lacquered in any number of neutral colours. I decided to make a perfect quarter scale model. My strategy is that even if no one likes my design, they can still say, "Nice model!"

As for the "family" part, this will be a modular piece. You could have a grouping of two for a coffee table. The 1 1/2" thick top is beautiful, but would be impossible to lift off if it were coffee table sized. Oh well, it's early in the life of this idea, and I may come up with refinements and customizations that could more suit a family of tables.

The little cabinet that couldn't.

2006-02-07T22:01:00.000-06:00

Today I was sucked into the black hole of rejected designs. For our cabinetry class, our major studio project for this term is to design a cabinet under 10 cubic feet. Since our parameters were quite limitless, I decided to make something of a small curio cabinet made from 3 or so small, brightly lacquered boxes on a walnut stand. Snappy was what I was going for! Plus I could really use the practice lacquering since I fell somewhat short of the mark in last term's finishing class. For added fun, I thought I would possibly throw some curved gables into the mix. Well, those parameters got a little out of hand. Like a lot of others today, my sketch was thrown out for complexity and I was instructed to tame things down. This is the point I always wonder if I'm in the right program. I'll concede I may be a little over-sensitive.

The worst of it was that even after seeking a second opinion, I got the same advice...followed up by a major re-haul of my commercial furniture class assignment, in which I thought I had at least the coffee table base pinned down. Wham! Flung to the mat again. It was at that point that I decided to keep my dining table concept (and vestigial illusions of design ability) to myself a while longer.

The most expensive coat rack I'll ever own.

2006-02-04T21:20:00.000-06:00

Since I finally finished shaping the seat on my leafcutter bee chair, and oiled and waxed the whole thing (that was indescribably dull) -- at long last I took slides in the photo studio; they turned out (phew); and I actually brought the chair home today. I'd hate to add up what it cost me to make (materials were a pittance when compared to tuition, hours, student loans, grey hairs, etc.), but now I can use it proudly in my bitty room....as a place to toss my shit. I think it likes it here.

Apparently I have new hidden strengths which cause me anxiety.

2006-02-02T23:19:00.000-06:00

Last night I was walking through the yard of our house in Saskatoon, toward the garage. It was night. I was almost at the garage when I looked down to my left and there was a tiny hippopotamus. Tiny, as in about 6" tall. He was kinda wet, and it wasn't raining, so I knew he was newly born. I wondered, with some trepidation, whether his mommy might be close by.

Sure enough, she was on the other side of the garage and I was barely able to leap a 6 foot fence to gain safe ground. There may have been another person there that wasn't so lucky, but the dream gets fuzzy on the details. I rarely remember my dreams -- maybe only once or twice a year -- so when I do, I try to look up meanings.

It seems if you dream about hippos it means you have hidden strengths; you have more influence and power than you realize. To dream about being chased signifies insecurity. Being chased by an animal means unexpressed and unacknowledged anger which is being projected onto that animal. Or, you are running away from a primal urge or fear. Babies signify innocence, warmth and new beginnings.

Whatever that means, the tiny hippo was darned cute.

S Words.

2006-02-02T12:24:00.000-06:00

I'm fighting desperately with my crappy digital camera to get some good photos of my SPOON, but not much luck. Anyway, I'm happy with it. Cherry, about 8" long. Now to find time to make another.

For some reason, I'm suddenly getting all sorts of SPAM comments on my blog! Most annoying! Even more annoying, blogger email notification doesn't tell you which post they've commented on, which means I'd have to hunt through every post to find them and delete them. Apparently SPAMMERS are so stupid they don't even comment on current posts...or maybe that's some kind of strategy I cannot grasp. I suppose it's time to add some extra comment security, like the SQUIRREL did. SIGH.

A week without internet at home...

2006-01-31T22:42:00.000-06:00

is like a week without sunshine. It's been rather dull not being connected, especially having to haul photos on cd to school to post. And how am I supposed to wind down after a long day in the shop without vomiting my thoughts onto the www??! It's just no good. Tho' I confess I secretly feel my blogs have not been quite up to snuff lately. Luckily, tomorrow's a new day! I will post a photo of my schmancy spoon for perusal. And I must write something soon on my new Issues blog, although that leads me to another confession...shhhh...I didn't really understand a thing last class. Tomorrow we're supposed to bring a "true" object in for discussion. No further explanation given. I'm not a big fan of vagueness, so this bothers me slightly. All I can think of is to bring the crappy box my dad made me...it's just a little bulky for show and tell.

Ah, and the Texas Superbowl party is coming up on the weekend. That should provide for some fantastic blogging and photo ops. Texas chili made by an authentic Texan! I'm so excited! Those of you who know me know I won't be there to watch the game.

Metal Squirrel!

2006-01-31T17:29:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of welding class last night. Fortunately, I don't have access to the guys' digital photos of the squirrel in compromising positions with other metal person- and robot-like creations. I can't decide if I prefer the squirrel as his unassuming self......or lit up to expose his maniacal squirrel underbelly...and you thought squirrels were cuddly little creatures of the forest...

Impossible Dimensions.

2006-01-30T10:37:00.000-06:00

Among the fun I've been having, I've completed a cherry spoon, started making two cherry boxes with wenge detailing, and whipped off this initial mock-up of a dining table for my sister's perusal. It's a little chunky (ok, it's a lot chunky - I'd need oak in impossible dimensions to make it), but I rather like the overall design. If they like it, I'll refine. If they don't, it's back to the drawing board for me. I figure if I can come up with something that those two will like, I could design for anyone really. Oh yeah, and I'm sketching like mad trying to come up with ideas for our next two major furniture projects, which I'll describe soon.

Skimpy.

2006-01-27T12:47:00.000-06:00

Blogs will be skimpy for about a week, following a little confrontation with the roommate, who had our internet access under his control. To make a long story short, Swish and I are getting out own account, but it'll take about a week. Oh well, less playing on the computer means I'll get more done in the shop. I have tons of designing to do!!!

I love our class.

2006-01-24T22:23:00.000-06:00

When you glue something up at the studio, you're supposed to put a sign on it with your name and what time it can be un-clamped so that if someone needs to use the clamps, they can just take them after the glue has set up. Sometimes, however, you come across a glue-up like this (in this case the "clamps" are a giant lead weight):

I'll have to reiterate as the photo isn't quite clear enough:
Don't touch or I cut you up so bad you wish I never cut you up so BAD. Out at 6:30

Welding hurts my girl brain.

2006-01-23T21:51:00.000-06:00

But first, I got this email from a good friend today...thought it was funny enough to maybe mention in my stick critique tomorrow:

Well I happened to check out your bundle of sticks today. In medieval times we would call this a faggot of sticks. Although I have no problem with the sexual orientation of said material, I do believe that Stephen Harper and his neophytes would have much to say and probably outlaw, the marriage of these elements. Beware the Christian right or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous discountenance. Did you vote?

Anyhoo, I tried my hand at welding tonite. We had a very good lecture and demos on stick (what's with sticks lately?!) welding and mig welding which left my girl brain scared and confused. Fortunately, there are less welding machines than students, so I wasn't obliged to do much more than try a couple lines of stick and make a few t-things with the mig welder. Holy awkwardness, batman.

What was truly scary was that our class of 20 was set free to try to set fire to stuff! Yikes, it was chaos for half an hour. Sparks flying and blinding flashes out of every little cement cubby. And some people find the wood shop frightening. Bah.

We only have 11 - 3 hour classes left, and no shop time out of in-class hours. So we are all trying to come up with quickie projects to try to make. For me, it'll have to be something artsy because it certainly won't have that "welded professionally" look. More like something with giant holes burned right through it...

Random shop-ing.

2006-01-22T23:11:00.000-06:00

Yes, I've been busy. Threw together this cube made of two materials for my studio class Tuesday. I'm not happy with it at all, but have no motivation to have another go at it.
I'd rather spend time finishing my leafcutter bee chair from last term. I've been painstakingly shaping the seat. It still looks a little odd -- it may look better with a coat of oil on it -- but it's definitely preferable to the cutting board it was before. I also need to finish oiling and waxing the rest of the chair, as it only had one coat of oil. Once the seat is complete I still need to shoot some slides before I can take it home. The problem is, the longer it's in the shop, the more dings it gets from general shop traffic. Such are the realities of furniture school.
Tonite I started making a spoon out of a chunk of cherry I had left over from the chair. I was inspired by the students in the class I'm tech-ing for, because for many of them, it's their first exposure to woodworking and lots of them are really excited about their spoons. Of course that got me excited. I want to make a spoon, too!! Let's just not tell them that I'll be doing some of the shaping on the giant belt sander instead of using a chisel. Shhhhhh...

These are not cubes!

2006-01-17T16:17:00.000-06:00

Today we had a 6-hour critique on our cubes that are not cubes. 6 hours of discussing whether each piece "infers" a cube. I did a bit of a cop-out by reinventing one of my projects from last year and spelling the word "CUBE" with the linear pieces of poplar we were given. My crit went better than I expected and I got lots of useful suggestions for the next time I spell things out of wood...and trust me, there will be a next time.
Last year's PLANAR project...
So just when we thought we were off the hook with the artsy-fartsy assignment and we could actually start making some furniture....noooooooooooooooo! We were given yet another cube assignment! This time, the goal is to produce an actual cube, but out of mass. So basically a solid cube out of any two materials of our choice. Following this were a million questions such as, "If you use two types of wood, is that one material or two?" (Answer = 1) or "Do screws and nails count as one or two?" (Answer = 2). Our class likes to search out the very remotest limits on any given assignment, so it's hilarious to watch the teacher try to pin us down.

Be sure to check out the photos I've added below to the karaoke post. Good times!

Oh yeah.

2006-01-16T00:55:00.000-06:00

And the guys are having a moustache growing contest. Remind me to tell you all about it sometime...or I'll just post photos from the judging. You can get the gist from Jane of all Trades latest post (see my links to the right). Our group has the most amazing class spirit...we always have something up our sleeves.

I had the time of my life.

2006-01-16T00:41:00.000-06:00

Oh, Karaoke.
This was the song the boys closed out karaoke night with at the pub across the street from school tonite. It was fantastic. Apparently there are a few attention-loving crooners in my class; all male. Loved it. Me and Texas (one of the other 'chicks') sat back and enjoyed the show. This blurry photo pretty much says it all.
Of note was Jake and Paul-Martin groping each other on the dance floor to a cheesy slow dance. Now that's hot.

Even better was the Bohemian Rhapsody.
By 2 a.m., some of us could only see out of one eye. Hey, I've been there.

On the plus side, I've done some actual work in the shop. I've got 5 cutting boards nearly ready for sliding dovetail breadboard ends and have shaped a seat for practice...pending actually starting on the seat of my high chair. It eerily took only about half an hour using the grinder and a 24 grit disc...with some hand sanding to finish it off. It can't be that easy, can it?

I am going to LOVE Mondays, since I only have to be at class at 1 p.m. Of course, kareoke night every week may turn out to be too expensive to be a weekly event. So sad.

Childhood.

2006-01-14T22:16:00.000-06:00

My favourite pre-school entertainment used to be watching Nic & Pic on tv. Because my sister was already in school when Nic & Pic came on the air in the 1970's, years later when I told her about them, she was certain I was making them up. It was only when a third party verified their existence that she believed me. And now, thanks to the www, I have concrete proof that two mice travelled the world in a hot air balloon and helped other cultures solve their problems. I feel all warm and fuzzy. You can just sense the intelligence behind those beady little rodent eyes.

Craft on the Streets.

2006-01-11T14:33:00.000-06:00

I'm still feeling a little rough around the edges. I inhaled a little sawdust, as advised, and that helped a bit. I tech'd my first con ed class last night where they all got down to carving spoons...and now, of course, I want to make one. I have a nice chunk of cherry left over. Nice. I'll just add it to my list of things I want to accomplish this term. My list is a little scary, but I was just granted advanced standing in drawing, and so have one less class to worry about. More shop time! Yay! That's 5 classes a week as opposed to last term's 7, so I'm laughing. I'd be laughing harder if I wasn't so annoyed by our first studio assignment, which is to build a cube that isn't a cube. A structure that infers a cube, for goodness sakes. An assignment like that sure lights up the pressure-to-be-brilliant meter.

However, this term's instructor line-up seems quite good. This morning we met John Bentley Mays, former Globe and Mail art critic, who will be leading us through in-depth discussions on craft and design issues. Other than writing, he claims to be an amateur in everything, saying that cheekiness will get you a long way in this world. I think he's definitely right and resolve to work on my cheekiness with more gusto. I have this perception of myself as being cheeky-deficient...perhaps that's a misperception, I don't know. 90% of our mark in the class will be on a "notebook" that we develop based on the class discussions. The notebook can take any form we want and does not need to include writing. He actually claims he's teaching the class so he can learn things from us. He doesn't want us to write essays, he wants to hear about life/craft on the streets.

So of course I've started a new blog, as this is my media of choice for poo-poo intellectual discourse. Betcha can't wait for me to get started poo-poo discoursing.

Blogger's Block.

2006-01-09T20:33:00.000-06:00

I think I'm all blogged out from last term's overindulgence, where I wrote obsessively to de-pressurize from the stress of trying to finish all my projects. It was a good semester and while I'm thrilled with my 4 A+'s, 2 A's and a B+ (not sure what happened with that last one), I'm hoping I didn't burn myself out over-achieving. I feel completely under-motivated at the moment and am crossing my fingers that I'll perk up after the first week of classes.

In the meantime, of course, I'm coasting along...organizing my little world, as that's what calms me down. Since I got back to Ontario, I've watched some good movies (Napoleon Dynamite; Shaun of the Dead), bought an actual mattress to replace my air mattress, subsequently re-arranged my room, spent an evening playing Scattergories with friends and yet another evening enjoying 'wing night' at the local pub. I've splurged extravagantly on a tv tuner so I can watch tv in my room on my computer (assuming I can conquer the evil software demons who, so far, are allowing me pictures but not sound). In all this time pissing around I have yet to make one sketch for the dining table my sister and brother-in-law want by the end of April. Then there are the ottomans Swish and I were going to make for our apartment and all the cutting boards I want to make for friends back home. Oh, and carving the seat of my bar stool so I can actually take it home. Nah, instead tonite I'm ripping all my cd's to my computer. Soon I will have all manner of entertainment options at my fingertips. This is important when one is under-motivated. Blah.

At least other people I know of are making great strides. My friend back home is just completing this beautiful little machine called a Stirling. You apply heat to one end and the cogs turn and wheels go 'round...cool.

80's flashback!

2006-01-02T21:33:00.000-06:00

One of the fun things about my visit to Saskatoon has definitely been the commute between my sister's house (to visit) and my friend's house where I've been staying. You might ask how driving from one end of 33rd Street to the other at least twice a day can be fun? Well, I owe it all to my sister's questionable choice of radio stations: 98.3 FM. Yes, someone out there still plays Toronto! I try to enjoy the Cars, but they give me creepy flashbacks of my first boyfriend who, upon reflection, looked like a rat. Tonite I was rocking down to Black Velvet...if! you! pleeeease!

Yep, I suppose I could change the station. Could it be I'm just lazy? Masochistic? As my sister explained, doing housework is terribly boring until she turns on 98.3. Only something more boring could possibly make housework seem nearly interesting, I guess. At least the time flies. I think I'll soon have my fill of re-living the 80's, but for a brief two week stretch of commutes, it's working for me.

The Wrong Side of 35.

2006-01-01T21:18:00.000-06:00

It's not so bad. Turns out I'm still nimble enough to haul my nephew up the bunny hill on his sled a few thousand times. What a cutie pie. "I would like to go again, Auntie," singing the Sound of Music soundtrack in the car and actually getting a word right now and again. I'll sure miss Mr. Stickyface when I go back to school.

Then we replenished our toboganning calories having another turkey dinner. Birthday turkey! Like we needed a reason...I have yet to get my Saskatoon Vietnamese food fix, but tomorrow we're hosting a "German Clog-Your-Arteries Fest" for a couple friends at my sister's house. Savoury stroodle with cream chicken followed by kuchen for dessert. Since kuchen is really just German for "cake", I'll clarify to say that it's a cottage cheese pie with enough cream (in the filling and the dough!) to give your heart hiccups. I'll be needing that healthy Vietnamese fare to help me come down off the fat buzz.

And now, sunshine and flowers.

2005-12-30T18:03:00.000-06:00

On a more pleasant and positive note, I've been given this lovely photo of the walkway I installed last August. To give credit where credit is due, I should say installed with the help of my bitch (you know who you are). Cudos, bitch. I couldn't have done it without you. Oh goodness, this karma thing is so difficult to get right.

I suppose I deserve it.

2005-12-30T17:42:00.000-06:00

Perhaps it's all bad karma for getting my brother-in-law an X-rated martini glass for Christmas...the kinda thing one is expected to buy in arts school..but Aunt Frieda is pushing me to the edge. We had a little discussion this morning that caused a dark little anger cloud to follow me about, kinda like that dirty kid in Peanuts cartoons. Apparently she has a workbook on grieving that I should go through, to help me get over my break-up this summer. I told her it obviously bothers her more than me and she should be the one reading the book. Goodie for me, but she's wearing me down. For the love of chocolate, can't she let go of one thing in her entire life??! Would it be so terrible to enjoy the time you have on this planet instead of bitching about every little thing that happens regardless of whether it has anything to do with you? Not to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I can feel it coming. I'm going to be reduced to yelling at an old woman in a wheelchair. Maybe I'll stomp out and kick her car, too. Wait, is that negative visualization or healthy fantasizing?

Old dog. New trick.

2005-12-28T19:07:00.000-06:00

Aside from a brief 3 hour stint when I was about 12, I have never babysat. Even the time I was 12, the children slept the whole time, so I'll venture that technically it doesn't count as actual child care. Today, I babysat my 2 year old nephew all afternoon. This is rather an achievement for me, judging by the quantity and variety of instructions my sister had to impart before we dropped her off at work.

Sprout and I had excellent adventures. I had planned to take him to visit my friend at her Mexican store, but when she mistakenly gave me the wrong directions and we couldn't find it ('I can't see it anywhere, Auntie"), I was forced to the fallback plan of aunties everywhere: MacDougall's french fries and ice cream. After that, he would pretty much do anything I wanted. We visited his parents at the library, where they'd double booked themselves with nary a care for their offspring. Then back home to play in the new, fluffy snow. Cheese and crackers and a movie rounded off the afternoon. At least they had the decency to pay me off with a hazelnut Ritter Sport, bless their hearts.

As I approach the wrong side of 35 at lightening speed, I quietly ponder what other unknown skills might be within my grasp. Sky diving? Dancing the Tango? Aircraft maintenance? Stand-up comedy? Which reminds me of my love of cats and that joke, how do you make a cat sound like a dog? ... Dip it in gasoline and light it on fire. WOOF.

Turkey!

2005-12-26T11:26:00.000-06:00

In preparation for us all stuffing ourselves, my brother-in-law is pictured here about to give it to the butterball. He makes cooking a turkey look so easy, I'm amazed. An antihistimine and a single beer had me zonked out on the couch for an hour in the afternoon. My Christmas spirit doesn't extend to cats. I'd like to say it was a great time, but my allergies had me breathing through a straw all evening and that gets old pretty fast. On the upside, we had a guest for dinner, causing Aunt Frieda to be on her best behaviour...which had us vowing to invite a stranger over every year! And now, I'm ready for my breakfast of cold meat stuffing...mmmmmm, pork fat.

Boobie fing.

2005-12-24T18:55:00.000-06:00

Yesterday my sister and I took my nephew, Sprout, swimming at one of the local community centres. Being a braless sort of family (no, that's not a typo and I don't mean lawless), Sprout had never seen a bra or a bikini before. He was quite fascinated by my bright orange "boobie fing", and keeps wondering when I will put it on again. He has now learnt the word "bikini"; important in a family which uses words like "preface" at the dinner table. Ah, being in Saskatoon is always educational whether you're 2 or 35.

Spa-a-rammmma!

2005-12-22T11:38:00.000-06:00

And now for something completely different. I arrived in balmy Saskatoon yesterday afternoon. Oddly, it's warmer here than in Onterrible. Thank goodness. No worries, for it will surely be cold as all heck before I leave.

Having dyed my hair a terrifying black a few days ago and then getting an equally horrific hair cut shortly after, it seems that pampering is in the air. So when I got to my friend's house in Saskatoon last night, where I will be sleeping while I am in town due to the prevalence of cats at my sister's, I looked closely at myself in her very bright bathroom mirror. Horror of horrors, the state of my complexion was desperate. "Nic", I yelled up the stairs, "Do you have any of that clay on hand?" And proceeded to spend a blissful half hour hiding in the bathroom looking like this:

Ah, good times. Tomorrow we're off to the local swimming pool, where I will spend quality time reading Laurie King and chatting with my sister in the hot tub. Spas on a budget. It doesn't get any better than this.

Classy shots.

2005-12-20T10:29:00.000-06:00

As promised, here are the bar stools made by the rest of my cohorts...in no particular order...

Jeremy
This hexagonal pattern is based on cellular bulging in the human retina.

Lee
Jed (it folds!)
Shane
Lucas
Stu

Martin
BMF = Bad MotherF#%*&)@#

more...

2005-12-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

Stan
Trish

Nari (this is one of my favs)
Paul-Michael
...he should totally make Xmas cards...

Leslie
Dan

Stefan
Rob

Critiquey-tiki-tiki.

2005-12-16T15:05:00.000-06:00

More critique stuff...I managed to corner the tech who said the seriousness of my piece was fighting with the fun part -- for further explanation. It's funny, because in contrast to my instructor who thinks the chair is too literal, this guy thinks it's too abstract. He said if you take off the top silly bit, you'd have a lovely high backed stool...and maybe I could have rounded the pieces or made the whole thing more flower-like. BUT, he also said the piece is successful, especially once you know the story behind it. He said he could totally see it in a furniture society book, with an explanation next to it...the explanation being the part that's required because of its obscure concept. Still, quite a compliment.

Maybe I'll eventually corner my instructor from last year who was in third year critiques that day and see what he thinks. I have this niggly feeling that he would have talked me out of the whole idea in about 10 minutes (because of its literalness -- he prefers abstraction -- and because it was way too complicated to make). Finishing it did take heroic effort, but I'm still glad I did it. And obviously, the interpretation of it being literal or abstract is a crap shoot depending on who you talk to.

Tonite Swish and I are off for some holiday cheer at a woodworking cooperative. Networking, girls, networking! Never mind that, I may try my first oyster...if I can work myself up to it. As one of the scariest people I ever met once said, "Strive, strive, strive!!"

Photos of all my classmates and their bar stools soon to come!

It's all over but the sleeping.

2005-12-16T09:16:00.000-06:00

Yay! History slide exam at 9 a.m. was the last of this term. Had an extra bit of stress this morning making sure I got into welding, which only has 15 spots total. Thrilled to say I got in! My schedule looks fantastic with Friday off. More shop time rocks.

I fly to Saskatchewan next week which gives me a few days to make some last minute Xmas presents. Out of wood, of course. But first, I'm going to relax. Possibly won't get out of bed at all tomorrow. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Slurry.

2005-12-14T19:45:00.000-06:00

There were several furniture students looking rough in AutoCad class today after drinking our faces off last night post-critique. I was somehow in my billiards "window" for several hours...leading Dave to conclude that I must have spent four years in a correctional facility learning the sport. Yep, I surely did kick his ass but good. Of course that led me to feel cocky and a bit scrappy, for which behaviour I apologized for today. One of us decided to run home at 1:30 a.m., fell on the ice, and now cannot decide whether his glasses are in a snowbank or somewhere in the depths of his messy room. A good time was had by all, though today we are mostly concluding that beer is not the anther. I mean, answer.

Lost comments.

2005-12-14T11:10:00.000-06:00

I've been bemoaning the lack of comments on my blog, until a couple people mentioned that they posted comments which never showed up. So I realized I had changed a comment setting that I shouldn't have...all fixed now, so feel free to resume commenting. Unfortunately, those two comments appear to be lost forever.

The critique being over at long last, the last week of school for me remains busy with an AutoCad drafting assignment due tonite, a design project due tomorrow (I'll go into the shop tonite to pull something out of my butt for that), a photography slide critique Thursday and a Furniture History slide exam on Friday.

Not too much was said in the critique about my chair. Or at least not too much that I can remember. Unfortunately our guest critic cancelled at the last minute. It was said that perhaps my chair would have been more successful if it was less literal and a more abstract interpretation of my concept. I agree but am still glad I made something so ridiculous, because it is so unlike me and sometimes we should all try new things. This ridiculousness spawned an entire discussion on crafts and design in Canada, so that's complimentary. One of the best comments was that my craftsmanship is fighting the expression of fun...interesting...I'll have to chat with that guy a bit more when I have time. Most agreed that my seat should change and most agreed that my craftsmanship is impressive for a second year student. I'm looking forward to learning how to carve a bum impression, but for now desperately need a break from the shop and even more desperately need to do laundry.

The Critique.

2005-12-13T22:53:00.000-06:00

Click on photo to enlarge and see the dusting of pollen from the anther.

By the skin of my teeth.

2005-12-13T00:11:00.000-06:00

I made it out of the shop at 11 p.m. tonite, an hour before we were all to get kicked out so we could get good night's sleep before the critique. Somehow I got all the little mechanics working. I'm choosing to live with the seat for now and get suggestions tomorrow morning...because that's what a crit's for, right? I think after Xmas I'll work a little on curving over the front and sides more. As well, I may take the opportunity to use the lancelot (a chainsaw blade on a grinder) to carve a bum impression! Exciting stuff. For now, I threw a coat of oil on the cutting board seat so it won't stand out quite so much.

I'm not quite getting a full night's sleep, although I'm doing better than the last few days. You see, I still had to come home to felt the anther. So now I'm completely ready for tomorrow. By way of further explanation, anthers look like this:

Cliff hanger.

2005-12-12T05:17:00.000-06:00

The day started out pretty great. I got to school to find my chair as I'd left it: all clamped up: It needed a couple more hours and then I put one coat of oil/varathane on it to have it look uniform for Tuesday's critique. It looks fantastic!

Then on to the seat. First I tapered all the pieces on the jointer table, using a little trick a Wisconsin fellow taught me last summer. That came in very handy, as the tapering jig for the table saw could not remove such a tiny amount.

Then I glued up the seat in two halves, so they would be small enough to cut on the bandsaw afterward.

Marking out what I would remove with the bandsaw...

...and after sawing and some preliminary belt sanding...

...I was aiming for something like this.

However, all that took all freaking day. And although it kinda looks cool in the photo, as soon as I laminated the sides onto the seat (to hide the spring action below it), I realized it looks like there's a giant cutting board on my chair where the seat should be!!!! Which led me to the point I'm at now. This point usually comes when I've finished a project, after the high of completing something. I then start to think about the hundreds of hours I've spent working on it...and soon am thinking, "What is the point to all this effort? What is the purpose of my life anyway?" But thanks to cutting board seat, I'm on a downer sooner than later.

I know this just means I need to resolve the seat and all its issues. And that's what the critique should be for, right? But would it be better to show the chair without a seat, because it looks really pretty, but wouldn't work as a head bonker (because that mechanism requires a seat)? OR have a working head bonking chair whose beauty is totally eclipsed by the hideous bum rest? Oh, gosh, I am so torn. I've been working so hard just to get the chair working. It would be far easier to explain a head bonking chair to a stranger if the chair actually worked (we have a guy coming in as a guest critic). What to do? What will I decide? Oooh, the suspense must be killing you.

All glued up.

2005-12-11T02:57:00.000-06:00

Having previously glued up the sides of my chair with white glue, I conferred with Swish on gluing up the middle bits. We decided on 4 separate glue-ups, as the things is so complex and has so many freaking parts. Perhaps I should re-think "challenging myself" quite so much. Then just before we started (um, that was 1 a.m.) I came to my senses. It was either spend the next 6 hours gluing and waiting for glue to dry, chiseling off squeeze-out...OR use toxic epoxy and get the whole thing over with in an hour. I decided upon the epoxy.

Wow, was I ever glad I did. We had an hour open time and yet the stress hit me hard. I put a piece on the wrong way and luckily Swish noticed at the last minute so we could take a side off to switch it up. Our helpful Texan classmate pointed out that it's a testament to the accuracy of my joints that you could put the thing together with a piece backwards and hardly notice, but I'm still glad someone did.

I spent the aftermath shaking and generally feeling sick from the adrenaline (it took us half an hour), but at least it's over. White glue has a 5 minute open time, so we couldn't have just taken it apart to switch that piece up, as it would have already set up. My goodness, glue-ups are my least favourite part of this whole business. I confess I was swearing like a good old boy from a small Saskatchewan town...even quoting Ray when he was trying to unplug that potato harvester in the mud. Nothing I can repeat here, of course.

So now it's 4 a.m. and I'm unwinding with a little blog. The seat of my chair is still in the chunky blocks of wood in that photo from a few days ago. I have tomorrow and Monday to get that together and I may spend another hour tonite working out whether I will taper those pieces to match the taper in the seat before I lamintate them all together. Sometimes my perfectionism annoys me almost as much as it annoys other people.

Uh-oh. Giggly.

2005-12-09T00:58:00.000-06:00

I'm getting really giggly from lack of sleep and overwork. I had to explain to people today that no, I'm not drunk, I'm stressed out. It's a disturbing habit for people in my family to smile when they're angry. I don't do that (often), but I have other inappropriate tics, such as being a little crazy at times like these.

I had the funniest conversation today with one of my instructors. I was explaining that I was going to use epoxy to glue up, as suggested by my other instructor, who assumed I would need a cavity-filling glue to shore up my shoddy joinery. I also said I thought I'd use band clamps (those orange belt things in my previous photos). That's when he said, "Band clamps are for amateurs." I found that tremendously funny (see giggly, above), as well as taking it personally as I tend to do with such comments. He also suggested I glue up in sections and use white glue. Apparently he doesn't think I need a joint-filling (and very toxic) glue, so that, at least, was an unspoken compliment. As you can see, I glued up the sides of my chair tonite using white glue and angled wedges for the bar clamps (as band clamps are certainly for amateurs). Apparently they do not provide perpendicular clamping pressure; instead, it is more a pressure on 45 degree angles to the joint. Now we can't have that.

Of course now I'm totally thrown off schedule. I didn't make the fancy yokes today. Instead I jumped right into sanding and gluing. Heck, a little more procrastination on the yokes is welcome anyway. I somehow got enough sleep last night to realize on my walk to school that I needed to put a finish on that silly middle rail to keep the glue from sticking to it (and how would I finish it if it was trapped by the yokes anyway? Did that, too, tonite, but Phew! that was a close call. Obviously my lucky day.

A close-up of my rocket-science spacers, some of which I half glued up tonite also. Kind of balances me being half un-glued.

Oh, I am sooo going to need a holiday...

2005-12-08T02:19:00.000-06:00

...and a manicure...and a facial for all the sawdust that's lodging itself in my facial pores. Then there's my last-week-before-critique diet. Today's vegetables consisted of a banana and my emergency jar of artichoke hearts. That's just pathetic.

I quit the shop at 3 a.m., having spent 9 hours fashioning and mounting 4 tiny spacers for the chair back. And yet I'm thrilled to bits. That was truly rocket science. Good thing I have super-power endurance. In fact, I'm feeling so cocky I think I may take the time to do a really good sanding job before I glue up. On tomorrow's adgenda is making the bulbous spacer that the middle rail slides through (it will be similar to the one on my mock-up in the photo). I have to build up a similar piece on the rear bottom stretcher, too. If I put in another superhuman effort tomorrow sanding, I will be ready to glue up Friday afternoon!!
Today's progress shot...

The Window is Open. A Crack.

2005-12-06T00:45:00.000-06:00

To laminate or not to laminate? That is the question mark. For a change of topic, I got my lamination assignment back in my Materials and Techniques class. I freehanded the curve on the form and when I was done, I realized it looked like a certain punctuation -- so I hurriedly turned a sphere to hang from it. Creativity got me the 9/10 because my laminations were not actually up to snuff. Shameful, glaring gaps between the pieces. Gasp!

I know you want to hurl if you see another bar stool photo, but I was in my "window" tonite in the shop! Tackled those intimidating lap joints behind the seat and won. This is a change of design from my original mock-up so that the verticality of the rails won't be interrupted when the chair is seen from the back. Hopefully I'll be in the zone again tomorrow, because I still have to cut lap joints on the lower rail. Would have been nice to do them all at once, but I'm just not that confident and thought I should give up and go home already at 1:15 a.m. before the window fell on my head.

FYI, those chunky boards off to the right are the extra wood I had to buy today for the seat. I have a lovely piece left from my original board, but it's too thin. I need to have an overhang around 3 sides of the seat (to avoid finger pinching as the seat drops) and since I cannot laminate a piece across the front (gluing end grain to end grain is a serious no-no), I am going to hollow out the bottom of the seat, leaving an overhang of end grain at the front. Not so good either, but the lesser of two evils. The shop tech thinks I might be ok, although he took a mallet to my mock-up seat to illustrate why my plan might not be so stellar. It only cracked and since I won him over with my argument that it's unlikely anyone will take a hammer to my cherry chair, I'm going to proceed as planned. He cracks me up. I love that he actually did that. Makes me want to be a teacher some day and try to smash people's stuff!! It's fantastic! To quote Cohen, there is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in.

It stands. Alone.

2005-12-04T23:04:00.000-06:00

I don't want to jinx myself by saying I think I might actually pull this off, but with a week to go and the main structure mortised and tenoned, I'm not feeling quite so panicked. This project has given me a great appreciation for planning...mostly because there were certain things I wasn't smart enough to plan for. Instead of making all my mortises the same size, I pretty much made them all different, thus requiring different jigs and more importantly, milling up new tenon stock for every size change. That's just silly. On the plus side, I got lots and lots and lots of practice making jigs and milling up tenon stock! Goodie for me.

Speaking of Goodies, I ate nearly a whole bag of them myself today. No, I'm not proud of it. Stressful times call for food that's really bad for you, right? Polished off a jar of baby gerkins in the last coupla days, too. Mmmmm, gerkins and licorice. Well, not together maybe.

All-in-all a very productive weekend. Here's the final progress shot with the three middle rails clamped in position. Next I have to figure out exactly how I'm going to:
- lap-joint them in place (I have a vague idea);
- how to mount the middle rail so it can move up and down
- buy more wood and make a seat
- mount a cross bar under it for the springs to sit on (more mortising! yay!)
- loosely felt a bag that chalk dust can sift through
- try out the springy wire I bought for springyness
- fashion the little doo-dads that will join all those upper pieces together (maybe yet more mortising! wheeee-hah!)
- oh, almost forgot the glue-up!
- and surely I won't have time to actually put a finish on it before the crit.

Goodness, suddenly feeling panicked again. Perhaps making that list wasn't quite so clever. I'm going to go breathe into a paper bag now.

Aliens get hot under the collar during 12 hour shop days.

2005-12-04T01:20:00.000-06:00

OK, these aren't actually aliens. It's a group of students all set to clean that nasty toxic sawdust (toxic from the mdf) out of the school's dust collector on Friday.
The girls get cross-your-heart tape wrap over our suits. Sexy, no? Um, NO.

And Swish and I had our first tiff today, fighting over a teeny 1/2" router collar that lets you mortise through an offset jig. Yeah, kinda hard to explain without pictures. Lots of jokes about make-up sex, although we're not lesbians, yet somehow half the guys in our class wish we were. That makes no sense, although neither do 25-year-old males for that matter. Mmmmm, long days. Having a fantastic time. Here's my bar stool all trussed up as of 11 a.m. Saturday morning.

The Crunch.

2005-12-03T08:53:00.000-06:00

We're down to the last week and a half before our bar stool critique. Whether I'll get my leafcutter stool done is a bit sketchy. It's been an odd semester where I feel like I've been working in slow motion. There's nothing to do but put in some extra-long shop days!

Blueberry tea anyone?

2005-11-30T22:58:00.000-06:00

Today wasn't a total write-off (cakes aside). I finished my tiny Mackintosh bar stool for Friday's history class. Koochy-koochy-kooo. Now what the heck will I do with it?

Barn's burnt down...now I can see the moon.

2005-11-30T22:13:00.000-06:00

That's one of my favourite sayings (Masahide) and as I was enjoying a big piece of cake 10 minutes ago, I realized it perfectly sums up my evening tonite.

Last night Swish baked and iced a cake for one of the guys in my class. He turned 21 today...and Swish is a cake-baker kind of kind person. He even knew she was going to bring a cake for him today...and all kinds of people around the shop waited patiently for him to arrive so they could have some...but he was a no show. On my way out the door at 10:30 pm, I decided I would take the cake with me and then bring it back the next morning for our 8 a.m. class which said birthday boy is always at bright eyed and bushy tailed. Mmmmm, 8 a.m. cake. I knew he'd love it. I admit I tried to talk some of the late night studio slags into twisting my arm so we could all have some right then, but Ontario boys are polite to the point of nausea and there were no takers.

Moving on to the point, I had to drive my truck to its parking spot and as I loaded up my backpack, set my old cake tin on the hood for but a moment. Being tired from my evil long Wednesday, I failed to check whether the lid was securely fastened before I picked it up...and the cake landed "Happy Birthday Phil" side down on the pavement of the parking lot. There was naught to do but flip it back onto its cake rest and haul the remains home so my roommate could beat me with it. Since she was indisposed, I had the wherewithal to examine the disaster and note that, hmmmm, there was only a bit of gravel on one tiny side of the mostly de-iced cake. Ah, the moon. How sweet it is.

What furnyture making is really all about (shhh!).

2005-11-28T23:04:00.000-06:00

I had high hopes to finish mortising all the side joints in my chair tonite. Untillllll I noticed that my layouts weren't exactly accurate. Oops. Actually, they were accurate but I had offset some of my mortises to the wrong side. Not all of them, mind you...not sure how I messed up some but not others. It's a mystery. Swish has her own theory, but nothing I can repeat here.

Luckily, someone told me last year that what furnyture making is really all about is learning how to fix your mistakes. It's true! Like last year when shaping my table legs and I cut right through one of my mortises...and then just glued that piece back on. You can only tell if you know to look for it. In tonite's example, I just glued my floating tenons in place, sawed off the excess and sanded them flush. Essentially, I filled up the hole I had dug myself into. Hmmmm...I am vaguely recalling a fable about another ass who did the same thing. Anyhoo, the shoulders are wide enough to cover up this gaff, so I'm laughing...aside from the extra couple of hours all this head scratching took. Must. be. more. careful.

Truly, this is karma kicking me in the pants for being cocky about my history project.

My name is Celine and I am a vegetable addict.

2005-11-28T17:39:00.000-06:00

Swish made the comment tonite, as I sat down to supper, that it's hilarious how when I pig out on food, it's usually Greek salad instead of something hideously bad for me. That got me thinking about how I've changed, yet people's perceptions of me may lag behind. I know my family back in Saskatchewan teased me that I'd come home at Xmas pasty white from my own bad cooking. Heck, my own perceptions of me often lag behind my actual behaviour, so that's not so weird. Anyway, she had to snap this photo.

I didn't actually eat the entire bowl; just half. And I realized that I've come a long way, baby. Stuffing my face with vegetables by choice is a relatively recent event in my life, having spent the first 30 years as a chocolate/sugar junkie. I guess I've worked hard to search out fruit and vegetables that appeal to me instead of buying ones that don't and then throwing them out when they rot in the fridge. Like how I don't like apples or oranges so now only buy things like pineapples and watermelon. I don't like green peppers either, so although they're cheap, I splurge for red or yellow or orange. I can't compete with the recipes on Amy's Home for Dinner blog (still meaning to try her famous zucchini loaf), but in case I've inspired you to stuff your face with garlic-y goodness, here's my friend Nic's best Greek salad in the world:

Cut into big chunks:
- 1 cucumber
- 2 peppers of any colour
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 purple onion

Smash, then dice at least 5 cloves of garlic (big ones!) and add to a measuring cup with:
- 1/2 cup (maybe more) of olive oil
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (aim for this to be about 1/3 of the liquid)
- 1 tablespoon oregano and 1 teaspoon basil (fresh if you can get them but dried is jusssst fine)
- stir and toss with veggies

- crumble large chunks of feta over your giant bowl and bring the whole thing to the table to amuse your roommate.

Ahhhhh...procrastination.

2005-11-28T16:59:00.000-06:00

That's it. I'm an odd procrastinator. I procrastinate, but in order to feel less guilty about it (denial is a special gift which runs in my family), I usually do something else productive while I put off doing the thing that I really should be doing but has me freaked out for some reason or another. So although I made a beautiful little half scale chair, I realize now that I'm about to return to mortising my bar stool, that half the reason I did a really good job on the little chair was to avoid working on the big one. Yeah, there are some convuluted thought processes going on in my chipmunk brain that don't sound quite as logical when I write them down. So what else is new.

Setting the bar.

2005-11-27T17:37:00.000-06:00

Having two chairs to make in the next little while, I wanted to get the least fun one out of the way so I could get back to concentrating on my leafcutter bee chair. Friday I got a good start on my half scale Mackintosh bar stool for history class and by Saturday night was nearing completion.

Today I glued up. Of course I still need to make a seat, ebonize and oil it, and then write up a justification of why I wanted to make the Mackintosh Argyle chair into a bar stool. The short of the story is that today's tea room is the pub -- and most importantly, I had no better ideas. I really wanted to lower the back but it was tough enough selling this idea to the instructor...she would have me do nothing more than raise the seat. So it looks kinda stupid and cute all at the same time. Glad I didn't waste money buying wood and making a full scale chair. Some day I may make the original with no changes, just for me. For sure I couldn't have made this full scale in 3 days anyway. Sadly, only one other person is finished their history project and most have not started. So I remain an over-achiever who must endure razzing from the peanut gallery. Setting the bar can be trying, indeed.

Brrrrrrrr...it's cold.

2005-11-24T20:31:00.000-06:00

Winter has officially arrived in Oakville. It was bound to happen. As usual, minus 8 feels more like minus 25 because of the gale force winds and humidity. Oh well, snow means our planned class Beerboganning trip can go ahead!

In other news, I've just reached an all-time food low. I really need groceries and Swish just bought ice cream and offered to put her apple pie in the oven. No, Jimbo, I already had supper! She then left, telling me that although she expected it to need an hour in the oven, the box said only 15 minutes and so it would be out in 5. Unfortunately, I think she read the "already-thawed" instructions because after running up and down the stairs to give it another 10 minutes for the last hour, I grew bored and just took it out. Then I had some rather undercooked apple pie and ice cream. Yum. Heck, I've eaten worse, although that was mostly in the midst of serious home renovations with nothing but chaos around me. Hopefully she'll know what to do with her half-baked idea when she gets home.

I feel very clever and afraid at the same time.

2005-11-21T12:08:00.000-06:00

Yes, it took me around 7 hours to complete four little mortise and tenon joints on Saturday, but after I was done I felt extremely clever. At this rate, it's a good thing I've been calling in sick one day a week at the De-poo for three weeks in a row, and subsequently had to quit my job because that was not acceptable to them...becausssse (yes, I'm getting to the point) now I have way more time to work on my bar stool!! Yay! Apparently I'm not sad at all about quitting. Au contraire. And no messy hassles trying to get time off for my Xmas trip to Saskatchewan!!! I'll be poor, but I may actually meet my deadlines for the two chairs I have to build in the next 3 weeks. Scary.

Bye Yahoo!!

2005-11-19T11:30:00.000-06:00

As part of my organizational campaign to revert to my maiden name, I have had to change my email address. And email provider. Merely because Yahoo! wouldn't let me have furnyture@yahoo.ca. Their loss. But holy crap, it's a major pain in the ass to change email providers. I had to finally go through my inbox and decide what to keep and what to toss.

I won't post my new email here because I don't want to wave a red flag at spammers. If you really need to get ahold of me, just send one to my old addy and you'll get a vacation response with my new one. I'd send out a blanket change of addy notification if it didn't mean I'd have to spend hours replying to people I haven't talked to in years anyway. So many things to consider when making a major life change like this...but what would we do without email? It's horrifying to think of reverting to paper letters and stamps and actually walking to the mailbox. Makes my hair stand on end just to think about it.

I think the worst part of it all is that I'm so used to Yahoo! Now I have to get used to the look of a whole new email program. The print is smaller and the layout too busy. Sigh. Hard for an old dog to learn new tricks.

Now all that's left to do is to figure out what other internet services I've subscribed to or are a member of and log in to them all -- assuming I can remember all my passwords and logins, etc., etc. -- and change my email addy there. Yeesh. I suppose I'll get to it eventually, but for today, I've wasted quite enough time when I should have been in the shop hours ago.

Technophobe.

2005-11-18T23:06:00.000-06:00

Luckily, I have a brother-in-law who is somewhat computer savvy. I've now got some decent slides of most of my furnyture, have scanned all the slides and, with tutelage, have reduced the image sizes so they won't take ages to view on the web! I feel so competent! Check out my portfolio (link at right) for snappy new images. Not much else has changed.

Late night blogging / angst

2005-11-18T00:13:00.000-06:00

Blah. Long day prepping for the Silent Night Auction at school. Lots of windexing display cases and putting labels on things.
Bidding kinda sucked though, so I hope they made some decent cash. It all goes to scholarships, which gets me thinking about whether I'll be able to afford to come back next year. Sigh. I'd love to, but is it worth another $15,000 in loans? Hmmm.... Perhaps not, excellent program though it is.

But enough negativity! I have tons of work to do in the next 4 weeks. Two chairs to build and a bunch of other silly homework. Must. Focus.

And I really want to go to the Furniture Society's conference in Indianapolis this summer. Supposedly a really good time. The society's international and apparently started by a Saskatchewan guy...hmmm...was it Mike Hosaluk? Must look that up.

Highlight of the evening was finding the perfect present for my brother-in-law. My classmate from Texas had to twist my arm, but I guess I should do my part for the scholarship fund. I try really hard to find him a gift each year that makes him nearly pee his pants laughing. Pretty sure I've hit the nail on the head with this little number. Now just to see if they'll let me take it on the airplane...

Old enough to know better.

2005-11-16T21:39:00.000-06:00

But I do it anyway. Like say I'm out helping a friend with his AutoCad homework, and his roommate pulls out a bottle of JD and offers us shots. Damn hospitable of you, Jason, I say. And we had a great time talking about Catholocism and Taoism and the Cowboy Junkies and other theological concerns...until this morning when my shrunken, dehydrated brain was knocking about loosely inside my skull...

...and I remember that I shouldn't be drinking like I'm 20 because I'm not 20 anymore. Poor little dum-dum. And so I didn't get anything done today. All the stuff I planned to do, like shoot more slides and help out making sushi trays for the auction tomorrow night and my design homework...all that got shelved in favour of a few more hours of sleep.

But then again, I am having a fantastic time. I have years of responsible living ahead of me when I re-enter the real world of working stiffs. Might as well enjoy it while I can. If I didn't live it up a little, I wouldn't have any silly stories to tell my nephew when I'm old.

La technique.

2005-11-13T21:45:00.000-06:00

I tried out my forms today to route the finished curves in my bar stool rails. To my great relief, the forms worked.

Here is a front leg in the form, about to be trimmed on the router.
That done, there was nothing but to start cutting up that beautiful piece of cherry. Since my pieces are only an inch thick, I resawed the entire 2" thick board after cutting it roughly down the middle around the layout of the curved pieces. The resawing took some muscle. And patience. Phew. But at least I have some thin cherry that, even if it's not thick enough to use for my other pieces, will be fine for making a box and maybe some cutting board detail stripes. I'm thinking Christmas presents here. Let's just hope the whole mess doesn't warp to hell on me! Here's a picture of that beauty before I took it to the saw.