2000 Page Views

Wow 2000 page views - another 1000 in just over a month! 

Now I feel really guilty due to my lack of posts over the past few weeks. So what's been happening? ...

Not a lot on the wood working front to be honest. I have been spending my time doing a little DIY around the house, building the raised beds and getting the garden ready for Spring. Lots of digging, collecting of manure and compost preparation etc.

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The new 'Timber' has been stored away in the garden shed as it's a bit wet, not 'tree wet', but rain wet. It was soaked on the day of delivery, probably due to being stored outdoors at the wood yard, so I'm giving it time to dry out a bit. This could take some time with our damp weather over here in the UK, once Spring arrives and the sun starts to heat things up a bit I'm sure things will improve.

I did bring a board or two straight indoors to see how they might handle being dried faster due to our central heating. I had rough cut a 6ft board into three 2ft pieces for the beginnings of a project once it had dried enough. However, this resulted in deep cracks appearing predictably in the centre of what would be the core of the tree trunk.

I ripped out the cracked 2" wide centre from each 2ft length resulting in the following wastage.

After some planing I now have 'saved' the following 'good' outer pieces. Even with such wastage, the wood still costs a lot less than buying it straight from my normal wood yard. I will continue to keep an eye on these smaller pieces and put them to good use in the near future.

Anyway, more of a catch up post really, wood working will resume shortly I promise...

Country Furniture by Aldren Watson

Currently reading and enjoying Country Furniture by Aldren Watson.

After the recommendation of this post at the Renaissance Woodworker, I immediately jumped on to Ebay and got myself a copy. I wont bother giving an in depth review, but needless to say I highly recommend it if you are even vaguely interested in 'Old-School' wood working tools, techniques and furniture. The hand sketched diagrams are stunning...

Timber!!!

My first post of 2012 and I'm already breaking my 'Work with more hard woods'  New Years Resolution. OK - I'm not breaking it literally but it seems very likely given what's posted below...

We (the girlfriend and I) have been discussing having some raised beds in the garden to grow vegetables for some time and with wood being expensive - a lot more expensive than vegetables anyway, the whole project seemed like a waste of time and a false budget.  
Until I found an advert on Ebay selling 13ft long x 225mm wide x 36mm thick scaffold boards at £200 for 25 boards. That works at just over £2 per meter! According to the dealer it's Scandinavian Redwood - to me it's Pine!


The wood I used for my large coffee table top (also Pine) of almost exactly the same dimensions cost around £12 per meter!


So, the 'plan' is to build some things to sell and thus (hopefully) get the wood for the raised garden vegetable beds for essentially free. I might even make some money in the process! - At least this is in the right direction for my other resolution - 'Sell some of the things I make'.


Anyway - The work began when the flat bed truck arrived and unloaded the boards on the driveway. 

Somehow the stack of wood looked a lot bigger than what I was imagining! Nevermind using hand tools, out came an old jigsaw! I saved about 7 out of the 25 boards that some showed signs of cracking to be used in the garden at full length.

Leaving me with this pile (below) of 6 1/2ft long boards, that now had to be carried to the garden shed to keep it dry. And you think you have timber storage issues!!!

A few of the planks were quite wet as its been stored outside in a wood yard and obviously been recently rained on so I will let it dry out for a while before attempting to use it. 


It's a lot of wood as my aching back can testify....
Watch this space!...