momentum

 My crazy, hectic schedule has left little time for the shop
but I manage, nonetheless, to find a few moments here and there

I've discovered that my new travisher makes a great scrub plane for curved surfaces
with it I can hog away material at a phenomenal rate 

this walnut splinters and tears out so fast when paring
I have to be very careful as these joints will be highly visible

tenons; not so much
but it is exciting to split the pencil line on such a small piece!

I'll keep the crest rail solid till after glue-up then finish cutting the hole when there's less chance for failure



and just for giggles, I put together this little video to hone (start learning) the process of video shooting and editing with my new GoPro HD
enjoy:)

harvest

oh bless you holy band saw
oh slicer of endless curves
wherefore would I be without you

morticing; you've seen this before

I'd still be sawing those friggin legs
that's where I'd be

cutting tennons; you've seen this too

in addition to all the cuts for the legs I forgot entirely about the crests
and the back slats

ok, so this is new

so much resawing
and none of it straight

instead I am creating the crest rails
each one has to be fitted to its individual chair
every blurb in the geometry amplifies by the time it reaches this point
so I had to devise a way to measure and translate each chair at critical points

a metal ruler slipped through the mortices makes a great curved straight edge
and a platform to begin all the measurements
because the tennons are in plane with the slats I could also fine tune the mortices with a chisel and rasp

with this many compound angles and gentle curves and abrupt directional changes
I don't even know how you would lay this out from a drawing alone
there are steps that can only occur in the midst of the process

transferring those observations onto a curved rail  presents yet another challenge

when that tennon slides home and the opposite falls into place and the legs are slowly drawn into their sockets and there's no weird popping or creaking
all those hours of layout become gold

all that's left is to join the back slats to both the seats and the crests

and just in time; Peter Galbert's hand made travisher has arrived

this little gem is exquisite!

I took a couple quick passes on the first seat

wanting to add some interest to what was previously rather blah

and I really like the major change to the saddling

I want a pony!

what I really wanted was a horse
but there just isn't space in the garage

last time I did one of these chairs I clearly recall
how much fun it is trying to do draw knife and spokeshave work with a bench vice

so I borrowed a page from an antique Schwarz magazine

made some shavings

checked for wind

created piles

and made more shavings

this is how you know if you got it right

and there it is
twenty hours from slab to tool

another couple for handles

I'm ready for those chairs!

one small step

busy is good
money-making busy
but it does detract from creative busy
that which does not earn money
at least not often
 

the last hibiscus bloomed this morning
coinciding with the third chair being joined
six morticses for the crests
and six for the back slats
are all that remain

a shaving pony is my next little adventure
and my travisher should arrive soon
so the real fun can begin

I have some new ideas for the shape of the seat
hopefully making the side view more interesting
and the exposed joinery will make them all the more dynamic

vision

There are two ways to see a piece; one with your eyes and one with your hands...

This chair has tested my limits of vision in both senses, a curve feels right but looks odd, and another is visually perfect but has a tactile bulge.

I sit now, astride the piece, atop my saw bench. All the pressure is off the legs, but the joinery is tight. I can work all the parts as one or separately.

Now comes the music, Muse has been mine for the day. The rhythm matching my tools.

This is sweeping work, from simple form, to overall shape, past little details, I see now only the lines, the connections, transitions, breaks, the piece becomes.

Oh yea, and there's a rock...

terror

That moment, you know you have to cut, you've laid it out, measured, remeasured, scoured the web for any other alternative, checked the books, the magazines and the blogs. Faced with the terrifying prospect of completely and irrevocably butchering that very expensive piece of wood, when do you decide to cut?

Once scrambled, you can never get the yolk out of the whites.

Ah hell, it's just a piece of freaking wood!

Wait though, what if you made an error, how do you correct it at this point?

What if that joint isn't beefy enough?

What if the grain just isn't going in the right direction?

These thoughts are the cancer of woodworking, if you don't overcome these fears, face those demons, you'll never get a damn thing done!