Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue #91 i Australian Wood Review

New generation woodworkers It’s natural for things to change. We’re familiar with an older generation of craft-based makers and we know there are tradespeople who have moved from traditional materials and techniques to the digital and fabricated. However there’s now also a new generation who are discovering crafts, but not necessarily from their ‘forebears’. Recently I’ve met some younger makers who interestingly come from trade backgrounds but have gone more into the ‘art’ side of crafting things. Coming from apprentice-based training, Anthony Kleine and Mark Cedro (see p.54) are transitioning from commercial cabinetmaking into producing limited edition work. Joel Rodgers and Tom Rooney also have trade backgrounds but are now designing and creating their own furniture lines, albeit with digital and CNC tools, see p.76. Andrew Daniels, once earned his…

My daughter, Tiffany, kept her favourite pieces of jewellery in her bedside table’s drawer, cushioned in their original bags or boxes. I edge-joined some project left-over boards and built this small cabinet for her jewellery. With the dual mounting design, she can choose to leave it on the wall or place it on her dressing table as the need arises. Design As she prefers to keep the jewellery in their original holders, I included only three storage shelves. French cleats on the back and a recessed handle on the top give flexibility in how it can be placed. Finally, to add some elegance to the cabinet, I used the knife hinges to hang the door. Knife hinges are often seen in cabinets built by James Krenov. There is little margin…

Finishing a piece of furniture with soap is no stranger than covering wood with a bug excretion (shellac), tree sap (varnish), bee stuff (wax) or rendered flax seed (lacquer). All finishes seem odd when you consider their sources. So when I first learned that soap was a traditional finish for floors and furniture on light-coloured woods in northern Europe, I was intrigued because of what soap is and is not. Of all the things that will harm you in woodworking, finishes are at the top of the list. Take a look at the material data safety sheet (MSDS) for lacquer thinner. Now do you have the courage to spill the stuff on your skin or inhale it? I don’t. I’m not a safety nut. Woodworking is dangerous, and I embrace…

Diary listings are free. Mail to: Wood Diary, PO Box 3893, Loganholme DC, Qld 4129 Email to: linda@woodreview.com.au Note: Listings are correct at time of publication but may be s ubject to change. It is advisable to check details with the organiser before visiting. For more events and news sign up to AWR fortnightly newsletters at: 3–16 JUNE Veritas Downunder Tour Canadian technical experts present 12 events around Australia www.maxis.com.au 4 JUNE Wood Review Writers Festival Carbatec Brisbane, 128 Ingleston Rd, Wakerley www.woodreview.com.au 11 JUNE Gippsland Woodcraft Group Open Day demos, raffles, door prizes 843 Maffra-Rosedale Rd, Nambrok, Vic Graeme Turner: bluey@internode.net.au 12 JUNE Hand Tools: buying and using The Traditional Tools Group Brush Farm House 19 Lawson Street, Eastwood, NSW www.tttg.org.au Enrol: www.macquarie.nsw.edu.au 11–12 JUNE 2-Day Sales and Demonstrations…

Using veneered panels in your woodworking projects has many advantages. Firstly, because the core material is a manufactured product, you can to a large degree ignore the traditional constraints of solid wood movement. This alone can open up construction and joinery options that would otherwise not be possible. Secondly, it allows the use of stunning layout patterns from the veneer, from simple slip and bookmatches to more complex geometric patterns such as radial matches and even floral marquetry. Finally, there are resource and sustainability benefits, as a simple figured board can cover a vast area when sliced into veneer, as well as the fact that there is a 100% yield from a veneered log. Covering the exposed edges of veneered panel products is not just an aesthetic requirement, but often…

For smaller projects I like to use a wax finish – it gives a great polish that not only nourishes the wood but also leaves a wonderfully tactile surface. Gilly Stephenson’s is a Western Australian business that produces a clear cabinetmaker’s paste wax that I’ve found to be ideal for this purpose. Based on beeswax and carnauba wax, this is a very easy polish to apply. With appropriate surface preparation, sparing application and diligent buffing, you will achieve a finish that is pleasing to both the eye and the touch. I also like to use this product for my steel machine table surfaces. A light application achieves two purposes. Firstly, it makes the tables slick, which assists with the machining process. Secondly, here in the humidity of Queensland, it helps…

Anyone wanting to do some ‘unplugged’ woodworking will put a handsaw or two high on the list of required tools, and when most people think of small saws they will be imagining a saw with a short blade stiffened by a steel or brass spine. Thanks to the internet and woodworking magazines, we seem to be adopting the North American generic term ‘backsaw’ for these types of saws, which, for a general name, is as good as any. Tenon saw? Dovetail saw? What’s the difference, and what do the names mean, anyway? The short answer is not much, partly because there are no consistent definitions and partly because there is so much variation within categories! Photo 1 shows the four tenon saws I regularly use. They are of quite different…

Whenever you introduce curves into a project the level of complexity rises sharply. I recently made a nine drawer serpentine front dresser. The three middle drawers had a convex curved front while the side drawers had a concave curved front. The drawer fronts were constructed by laminating layers of bendy ply and then covered with veneer. I built in solid wood edges so I had solid wood to dovetail into rather than plywood. Choosing a strategy There are three ways I know of to address the issue of dovetailing a curved drawer front as shown in the diagrams. The first option (fig.1) is to bandsaw the curve from solid and leave the back of the drawer front square with the drawer side. In that case no modification of technique is…

Line, Colour, Texture Andrew Daniels, From A Seed Andrew’s work speaks volumes for itself in terms of passion and flamboyance, but talking about himself he is understated and modest. Where did he learn to do all this? ‘Oh I just played around, checked out a couple of videos’, he said, making it sound if it was the most natural thing in the world. How did he get started? ‘I was given a tablesaw one day by a guy up the road and just started making bits and pieces. And then I bought a lathe to make some legs for a table and that was that.’ But there was more to his change of direction. Life before turning was that of a wedding photographer, 13 years of taking up to 3000…

The first time the Lost Trades Fair took place the response took everyone by surprise, not least its founders, Glen and Lisa Rundell. Even three years later they still marvel at the ever-expanding interest in a weekend event that takes place in the small Victorian country town of Kyneton. Some ideas simply take flight. In its first year 500 visitors were hoped for but 7500 turned up, doubling the town’s population in the space of a weekend. Traffic froze and cafes ran out of food. Staged in a small building behind the museum, the fair outgrew itself almost from birth. The following year 16,000 people flocked to the much larger venue of Kyneton Racecourse and leading up to the 2016 event there was every indication that attendances would grow again.…

Walk into a wood-based manufacturing space and once you would have expected to see a familiar layout: panel saw, thicknesser, jointer, sanders, spindle moulder, power tools, racks of clamps and hand finishing areas. Overhead and interspersed there would networked systems for dust extraction, air and electrical power. Enter the new age of plywood manufacturing and instead there is light, room to move and just one lunch/office/showroom space that houses a combined boardroom and sample table with a keyboard and computer. And one machine. Our world is increasingly inhabiting an online space with global connectivity between smart phone and tablet users stationed all about in cafes, bedrooms and even on foot. Joel Rodgers and Tom Rooney, both 26 and buddies literally ‘since babies’ are working in the digital space. Computer aided…

Teeth and pitch. Despite 40 years of metrification most of us still talk about teeth per inch for saws rather than using the European system of defining tooth width (e.g. 10tpi in the imperial system equals a pitch of 2.5mm in the European system). Teeth per inch seems easier to conceptualise to me, but it’s really just a matter of what you are used to. Rip or crosscut. Saw teeth are optimised for cutting either along (ripping), or across (cross-cutting), the grain of the wood. Rip teeth are filed straight across, so that each tooth has a flat face and trailing edge, creating a series of miniature chisels or more accurately, scrapers. Rake angles. They also have ‘negative rake’, meaning the front edge of each tooth is sloped back a…

As a showcase for both the value of recycling and the beauty of finely crafted woodwork, Create From A Crate (CFAC) is truly a phenomenon. When Ward Petherbridge instigated this combined competition and exhibition over 20 years ago, turning pallets into furniture, turnings and artworks was to many a new and even strange concept. ‘Back then there were a few trendy inner city bars doing things with cable reels and pallets and shipping containers, but now it’s mainstream’, commented Ward when recently interviewed for this story. Flash forward to 2016 and using recycled materials is now an accepted norm for makers who work with wood. In fact, Ward says, people now even refuse furniture that is not made from upcycled, salvaged or sustainably sourced timbers. Pallet furniture has now become…

Simple forms can be a great canvas for decorating. The bowls shown here are varied by using and combining a few techniques that I’ll show you here. Turning the bowl blanks I set about producing a number of bowl blanks that would clean up at 150mm dia x 50mm (photo 1). These would be fixed to the chuck with a wood screw. As a lot of the timber I use is green, and the fact that even dry timber will distort after machining, I prefer to rough turn the blanks, and allow them to dry to about 12% moisture content. I first shape the outside of the bowl using a 12mm bowl gouge, then turn a spigot measuring about 55 x 5mm for remounting in a four jaw chuck. Lastly…

I had the great good fortune to visit Sam Maloof’s workshop twice in 1980 and 1981, while I was living and working in Los Angeles. That was my introduction to his chairs, and, in particular, to his well known leg joints. It was not until about 1984, while I was living in Germany, that I was able to use that experience while designing my own chair. It was my intention to use Sam’s joints when the time came to build my first prototype. Although I did not know it at the time, it would be 1990–91 before that happened, because, at that time I had not made a single piece of proper furniture in my life. I had to learn to be a woodworker first. The Maloof joint for the…