Projects from woodworking school… part II

If you tuned in last time, I had shared  my first woodworking projects from woodworking school. I’d started out an absolute beginner, but now I was warmed up after using some hand tools, power tools and being introduced to stationary tools.

Here is the second installment of projects from woodworking school.

Mallets-a-plenty…

Our next project was another mallet! But this time turned on the lathe. We started with rough oak or ash and milled up blocks of wood, then glued up the mallet blank, in my case as with many others I chose to glue contrasting veneers between the blocks of wood.

Everyone designed their own mallet shape. While most people winged their design, I chose to follow the specs I had drawn with only minor changes.

I’m sensitive about the way things fit in my hand. I didn’t want any sharp edges digging into my palm so I went with a more traditional looking mallet.

 Tea time…

After the fun time at the lathe we got back to learning to cut joints using stationary machines and a Tea Box design.

The Tea box project

This was the only project we did using metric measurements.

This view shows the joinery very well, the box has floating panels as the top and bottom, the sides are keyed miters, and there are dadoes cut to fit the dividers. Again it was a slip joint top, but in practice a tea box that has a hinge would be way more convenient.

Dramatic lighting was unintended and perhaps not the best for illustrating the final product. I finished mine with a dark stain. Most of my classmates opted for a clear finish. 

This project introduced us to cutting miters and keys.  We also had to fit our panels into the grooves we cut, and make stopped dadoes for the dividers.  We had an overhead pin router for that task- but a regular router would do the trick.

The exam for this module was  cut a scrap of wood precisely with holes, dadoes, grooves, curves, and chamfers follwoing a plan. I was disappointed that the resulting “part” was not a piece of a bigger design- it was just a random test part that got thrown into the scrap bin. Missed opportunity, I say.

There was a bit of free time at the end of this module– for those of us that had completed our tea boxes. I was always exactly in the middle when it came to how fast I was in relation to my classmates.

I chose to make  what I thought would be used as a cat bed, but turned out being a storage solution for mitts and scarves. The cats didn’t like the strong smell of pine. Some people had enough time to make a second tea box.

I put this together relatively quickly. I wasn’t too worried about getting it perfect.

I also needed a laptop tray so I cut a scrap piece of 3/8″ plywood to shape during free time. I was already finding woodworking to be quite convenient. Need something? Make it!

Now that we were geared up and ready to build more…

We hit the classroom and learned furniture styles. We took three field trips to museums and to furniture stores in our city. Some hit the antique districts, while others visited the contemporary furniture stores. We got a quick rundown on the history of furniture, the different styles, the parts, and the decorative features. It was humbling to see the sheer number of hours that went into some of the furniture designs.

We also learned about the golden ratio; proportions that are the most universally pleasing.

The final for this module was to give a presentation on your favourite and least favourite furniture styles including photos shown via projector. I hate presentations and this was the second one I had to do in under 5 months. It went well.

Group time…

Our next module was the first project we split off into groups. Each group was to make their own unique set of 3 nesting tables. One group had to make their nesting tables out of laminated plywoods that would have bent legs, one would have fluted tapered legs (my group), one would have beaded tapered legs, and there was one other group I think but I can’t recall what the challenge was. I didn’t document these tables very well, so here is the one picture I do have.

The tops are not yet on and the tables are upside down- but you get the idea. My group was the slowest and finished the tables only after the module had ended.

Working in groups presented a lot of challenges. For some groups there was a clear cut leader, some had too many leaders or none at all. There were some personality clashes and others were solid units working happily along.

In my group we had one major problem- discussions were ongoing and constant- it seemed any decision that we would reach would then be brought back into question later on. It frustrated me that we couldn’t just agree and move onto building- it wasn’t surprising that we did not complete our tables during the allotted time. It’s not that I don’t play well with others, but I’ve always gravitated towards working in solitary situations, so checking in with people was a bit alien to me.

Shop visits…

Interspersed throughout these stationary machine modules and over a span of a couple of months we visited 7 different shops as a class. We visited a luthier, an aerospace operation, two separate cabinet makers, a one man shop, a furniture restorer, a contemporary furniture shop (that had a prominent storefront), and a custom built-ins shop. We wrote reports on each of these visits. I was quite pleased with the variety of shops we visited.

Flying solo, building a tool box …

It was time to move upward and onward. It was time to abandon the buddy system and work independently. Our next module using stationary machines had us complete three more projects.

First was the tool box. The sides were rebated together then keyed. Many in my class made box joints instead.  The technical drawings we’d made had the top and bottom rebated into the sides, but this didn’t allow for wood movement- so as a class we decided to make the top and bottom fit into grooves.

We had seen other tool box designs made at our school that were much more appealing than this one- but ultimately it does the job.

As you can see the rebates would have bought us more storage space, but making the top and bottom floating panels was a better choice in terms of wood movement.

The runners for the drawers consisted of a spacer that had a groove run along it, and a runner glued into it. The drawer sides were then grooved to fit onto the runners.

I made some minor mistakes, but none that ruined the project for me. Installing hinges was unexpectedly fun!

In this project we learned how to fit a drawer. We also learned how to cut out the false front of the drawer from the tool box “front” to glue it onto the drawer creating a continuous grain pattern.

And then came the leg and rail…

We drafted the leg and rail with straight legs but in reality we had to either turn the legs or taper them.

The rails were to have haunched mitered tenons.

Exactly what the pieces looked like when cut.

Here was the leg pattern I chose, it’s pretty ordinary. We cut grooves into the insides of the rails to later fit cleats or buttons that would secure the top to the leg and rail assembly. The top was to be completed in later modules.

In this project we learned how to make mortises, mitered  haunched tenons and how to fit tenons. We also found out how important having a marking system for staying organized is! We had milled five legs just in case something went awry and I can almost guarantee that we all needed that spare leg by the end of the project.

A cabinet of sorts…

We rounded out the module by making a clock case.

The clock case

There are Mitered rebates for the top of the clock case, and a raised panel door.

This was our first time drilling holes for adjustable shelving- a surprising amount of things can go wrong when drilling those holes for the first time ever.

The finished product. Meant to hang on a wall, but I also made the door a bit offset from the case so that it could rest on a table and be opened without scraping the table. 

In this project we learned mitered rebates, how to cut coves on the table saw, rail and stile joinery, and how to fit a door to a case by abandoning the cut list and following relative measurements.

Revelation…

At this point I started to feel like a woodworker. I’d learned some things! I’d become familiar with some serious machinery. Not to mention my head and heart were fully into woodworking; I was already feeling pretty passionate about the trade. And I was only mid-way through the program!

Stay tuned to see more projects I built at woodworking school- among other shop talk. Happy woodworking.