Yes I'm still alive

The past few months have been a very busy time for me, just not on the shop front. I am busily trying to finish the writing my Master's thesis, which must be complete by early May. I am really getting sick of queuing theory and modulation schemes right about now; but feel I am on the back side of this thing and its coming together. It will likely be my main focus for at least another month. Oh yeah that job thing takes some time as well, and with the travel associated with it, shop time is very limited.

Limited but not zero!!

I have been gradually picking away at my third rocking chair. We had a couple "warm" days at the end of February which allowed me to get outside and do the final grinding of the seat joints. This area is now sanded and the back braces and headrest have been attached.

This being my third chair, I am seeing some efficiencies of effort and I am finding that I am only referring to the plans for critical dimensions not techniques anymore. Someone looking at this chair would not imagine that the back braces are the most time consuming part of this chair - at least for me. In my view they are the feature aspect of this chair design, so worth the effort. It takes many hours to rip, thickness and glue up the back braces in the form. Last weekend it took me six straight hours to get them from rough-glued to ready for installation.

Back Braces ready for installation

The setup to make the cuts for the bottom and top tenons took almost an hour combined, for a 30 second cut; lots of test cuts to get it properly centered and the right size - exactly the right size!

Each end is then trimmed on the bandsaw, shaped on the spindle sander and then sanded by hand and fit to the mortises in the chair. The edges are eased on the router and then all sanded to 1000 grit before a coat of finish is applied - now they are ready for installation.

The rocker is well on its way now with the rocker stacks glued up and ready to attach to make this look more like a rocking chair. This is the final stage of assembly, but there is still lots of work shaping everything so it transitions smoothly - and comes the sanding - hours of frickin sanding...












I have also had the chance to put together a few small projects which I worked on a bit at a time.

Tea Anyone? all cherry inside, with bloodwood handles.

This tea box is for my son's girlfriend, who like many young folks today has discovered tea as a drink to be enjoyed - this is a good thing...:-)

The box is made from some curly Maple which was harvested from the front yard of my Dad's childhood home. The inside lids are from one piece of cherry left over from my Tommy Mac toolchest.

Curly maple with yellowheart veneer top.

The box top and bottom are veneered over a BB core and the miter feathers are cherry.

 This will store either tea bags or loose tea.

What's inside?

Mmm - more chisels!

Another recent project has been a storage box for my new Blue Spruce paring chisels which came in February. They have been rolling around loose and unrestrained in my toolchest, which is bad news for sharp tools.

These dreamy chisels are great for smoothing the sides of mortises or shaving an edge where a plane can't reach. The handles are African Blackwood.

The dovetailed box is made all from scraps of white oak, cherry and birdseye maple, the box bottom is a mahogany veneered BB panel.

The chisels are held in place with rare earth magnets which keeps everything snug when the lid is on.

mmmm...Beer!

 Beer Coatracks

Taphead finials.

The final small project is a couple of coat racks for the boys made to use up the last of the red oak I got from my uncle. They are a couple of coat racks which incorporate two beer tapheads I have been hoarding for years.

The bases, one with inlay, one with decal.

One of the boys has been asking about the Keith's one and could I make something for him. After lots of thought and research the coat rack was the best I could come up with.  The "hooks" are turned to look like small tapheads and I used laser-printer water slide decals to dress them up, turned out okay.

Okay back to spectrum and waveform analysis... :-(