• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Post a photo of the last thing you made...

Dr.Al said:
In case you haven't been paying attention, I've been a bit frustrated by my woodturning ineptitude. To help me get some practice, today I made some round-ish bowl blanks (I say "round-ish" as I was too lazy to change the 19 mm blade that lives on my bandsaw so I just kept chopping off corners until they looked close enough):

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The two big stacks on the right are from a few pieces of 80 mm thick Iroku that I was very kindly given by @Malc2098 🙏 when he visited a couple of years ago. I hadn't come up with any uses for it yet so I thought I'd chop it up and round-ify it for bowl practice. I've heard Iroku is particularly nasty to breathe in, but I always use an air fed mask when turning (and wear a lab coat to cover my arms etc) so I'm not too concerned (I also used the air fed mask while bandsawing it up). I might chop some of the smaller ones in half in the other way as I suspect it might be easier on an inept woodturner to have a shallower aspect ratio.

The ones on the left are cut from some other bits I had lying around. Clockwise from the bottom-left they're 60 mm thick Cedar of Lebanon, 60 mm thick English Walnut and 70 mm thick mahogany-ish stuff of some sort (cut off the end of a "Mahogany" lintel I bought in Ironbridge Antiques a few years ago).

I'm a great believer in "practice makes permanent", so by the time I've turned all that lot into bowls I'll either have got the hang of bowl turning or all the bad habits will be so ingrained that I'm a lost cause :ROFLMAO: More likely I'll quickly become thoroughly fed up with the whole idea and will give most of them away while they're still blanks :)

In the unlikely event that I end up with some decent bowls out of it, I can see our local GWAAC shop getting some donations!
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Remember those bowl blanks?

Last week I turned the first (Iroku) one and it went miles better than the previous two attempts. The outside surface hardly needed any sanding at all (I started at 120 grit and spent less than 30 seconds on each grit). The inside needed a bit more work (a few minutes with the 80 grit) and it still isn't perfect (I got hungry so decided to just go through the grits and call it done!). Nevertheless, it feels like a big step in the right direction.

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Half a dozen small bowls and platters in Oak, Swiss Pear, Olive and Greengage turned fairly recently:

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These are all offcuts from boards used for other projects which are too good to bin or burn. The greengage blank was donated by the late 9fingers a few years ago and is one of many from the bits of timber he gave me.

These are going to be donated tomorrow to the Stars Appeal at Salisbury District Hospital to raise funds. Fun as they are to produce, how many of the damned things do you actually really need at home? Two or three I'd suggest and any more than that get given away to a good cause - Rob

Edit - Olive turned a few years ago, hence the dark aged colour
 
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That does seem like a very good answer to the problem that you want the pleasure and satisfaction of making things more than you personally need the things. Plus some lucky shoppers in Salisbury are going to be very pleased with their purchases.
 
AndyT said:
That does seem like a very good answer to the problem that you want the pleasure and satisfaction of making things more than you personally need the things. Plus some lucky shoppers in Salisbury are going to be very pleased with their purchases.
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The Stars Appeal regularly have craft fairs in the canteen (items made by staff and pateients in rehab) etc at the hospital where all sort of odds n'ends are sold and with Christmas now looming large on the horizon (chrimbo cards spotted in Tescos the other day) it seemed like a good time to let the hospital have some stuff - Rob
 
Very nice Rob & something I can aspire to.

As I think I said earlier in this thread or perhaps on another, I'm fully expecting the better of the bowls I make in my practice run to end up in the local GWAAC charity shop. The shabbier ones will stay hidden at home for no-one but me to ever see again 😆
 
Dr.Al said:
Very nice Rob & something I can aspire to.

As I think I said earlier in this thread or perhaps on another, I'm fully expecting the better of the bowls I make in my practice run to end up in the local GWAAC charity shop. The shabbier ones will stay hidden at home for no-one but me to ever see again 😆
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it's not shown in the photo, but some of those bowls have a distinctly oriental profile (a largish foot) which I found quire easy to achieve with the sacrificial block/paper technique - Rob
 
I've taken a short break from working on the chairs to make a new hymn board for a local village church. Bizarrely, one of theirs went missing. The best theory is that a visitor to the church - maybe a child - was playing with the string that the boards are raised on and it broke smashing the thing to pieces and they panicked and just took it away. I heard about this and said I could make them one.

Although it's not how I would have designed one from scratch, I roughly copied the remaining one they had which has quite a quirky design. This is the old one:

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And this is my version:

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There are lots of mitres - both on the outer corners and also the internal chamfer detail. Who knows, one day maybe someone wearing a mitre will announce the hymns it shows! Here are some photos of the details (naturally, I've chosen the best ones!):

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I numbered the inserts partly because some fit slightly better in certain places (oops!), but also because, when viewed from the front, the top and bottom pairs of inserts are book matched. (In fact the stiles and rails are book matched too.)

The hardest bits to make were probably the egg-shaped toggles. I shaped them using an oscillating belt sander but they're very small and hard to hold. Most of them took at least one trip to the other side of my workshop!

Two things I would do differently if I was starting again:

1. I would add a rebate at the sides of the pockets that the inserts fit into. The original had those (although I didn't really think about that very much), but I thought they weren't needed and would partially hide the numbers. However, by not having them, there is a bit of a gap at the sides of the inserts. You can only really notice if there is a light behind the board which I don't think will be the case in the church so I can live with that.

2. I'd screw the hanging eyes to the vertical stiles rather than the horizontal rail so that the weight isn't hanging on the top mitre joints. I only spotted that when writing this post. I might be able to move the eyes without exposing the holes, but I think it will be OK. It's not very heavy and I dominoed the joints so they shouldn't be able to move.
 
Wow, that's beautiful, materials and workmanship. And an extra-complicated design faithfully reproduced. I've only ever seen simpler ones where the numbers slide in through a slot in the upright and are held in horizontal grooves above and below.
 
Cabinetman said:
Very nice work, but the main problem will now be that it shows up the other old one, so another will now be needed!
Yes I’ve only seen the ones where the numbers slide in from one side.
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Funnily enough, I am worried about it looking too new, but I couldn't bring myself to make it look rough. Give it a couple of hundred years and it should look fine!
 
An old friends daughter recently bought a terraced house built in 1900 & unfortunately try as I might I couldn’t wriggle out of doing some renovations for her :oops: 😂 So the last 3 weeks have all been about producing a functional bathroom.
A couple of before & after photos

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(A mini rant 🫣 ) ’m finding the quality of pre-made joinery products is really going down the pan, take door casings this was the surface of the last one I bought.
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I hadn’t time to return it so ended up running it through the planer which then meant I had to then run it through the spindle to deepen the rebate, by the time I got it sorted I may as well have made my own.
So on this job I decided to do just that, I picked up some 1&1/2” thick sawn unsorted redwood.

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It planed up beautifully, then went through the spindle.

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Fitting both of the casings was a breeze, usually pre-made ones are twisted or warped so getting them fit for a door to go in can be a right faff but these went in so easily I don’t think I’ll bother buying a pre-made one again. 20251014_164812.jpeg
 
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Those water tank brackets are screaming for re-employment!
Might be some whining from the boiler man about ventilation but what a difference!
 
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fuse said:
Those water tank brackets are screaming for re-employment!
Might be some whining from the boiler man about ventilation but what a difference!
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There’s a shelf to go on the old tank brackets when I get time :unsure:
The boiler was in a smaller airing cupboard originally before I dismantled it & there were no vents into that cupboard, working on how he was happy to fit the boiler in a smaller cupboard originally I can’t foresee a problem but if he does want vents I’ll happily fit them. (y)
Cheers
 
Just depends on the level of jobsworth he is.
My van failed its mot last year just because the rear indicator bulbs werent orange enough.......
During the last redecoration I replaced an old yellowy plastic vent with a nice new brushed nickel one
On the next service,the boilerman kicked off saying it has to be bigger or duplicated.
Ironically it was him who previously happily signed off the old one which was actually smaller and had an integrated flyscreen ( which is apparently a no-no)
That is some top class work though.
 
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Playing with a new toy - CNC. These are not quite finished as they have not been properly sanded yet, so for example one rhino has a slightly furry bottom! Very satisfying though - now need to work out how to build the ark when some of the plan pieces are bigger than my CNC bed... might have to do some traditional woodwork!
 
akirk said:
Playing with a new toy - CNC. These are not quite finished as they have not been properly sanded yet, so for example one rhino has a slightly furry bottom! Very satisfying though - now need to work out how to build the ark when some of the plan pieces are bigger than my CNC bed... might have to do some traditional woodwork!
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Very nice! :cool:

That would take me weeks to do on the scroll saw.
 
Phil said:
Very nice! :cool:

That would take me weeks to do on the scroll saw.
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That is a part of the reason for having it - that and the repeatability / accuracy...
I am probably going to make at least 3-4 noahs arks sets - we have so many nephews / nieces / godchildren...
and then I may well be asked for a set from my in-laws as the children are so often at their house etc.

So, it is lovely to have it sitting there making it while I do other bits - there is still quite a bit of finishing / sanding / polishing to do, so I feel that every bit has been handled and loved by me...
 
akirk said:
View attachment 36418

Playing with a new toy - CNC. These are not quite finished as they have not been properly sanded yet, so for example one rhino has a slightly furry bottom! Very satisfying though - now need to work out how to build the ark when some of the plan pieces are bigger than my CNC bed... might have to do some traditional woodwork!
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Always wanted a small cnc, but with my lack of programing skills I haven't bit the bullet. How much time did it take to make the nice animals?
 
duke said:
Always wanted a small cnc, but with my lack of programing skills I haven't bit the bullet. How much time did it take to make the nice animals?
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Depends a bit on settings and wood - so the rosewood ones ran at a lot slower a speed than the lacewood ones - a set of 8 lacewood ones from a smallish slab of wood was about 25 minutes or so... but it just gets on and does its own thing...

The Makera cnc machines are very much aimed at trying to be the non-techie's machine - and I think they do it well - it is still worth understanding how a cnc works - subtractive manufacturing (lump of wood you take away from) is very different to e.g. additive manufacturing such as plastic printing where you have a blank plate and build onto it... one of the first mistakes I made was to forget the length of one of the bits and it couldn't get down into the gap it needed to go into as not long enough... so there is a bit of learning - and it helps to understand at a basic level about vectors and svg files etc. - I use Vectric's V-Carve (c. £300) which makes it very easy - but Makera are gradually improving their software...

Their first one was the Carvera (c. £5-6,000) with auto tool changers etc.
Their second one (which I have) is the Carvera Air (c. £2,000) which means you manually have to change the tools (but very easy - just pull a lever)
Their third one - The Carvera Z1 is on Kickstarter now - and was launched just over 24 hours ago and has already raised c. $4,000,000! This one is a slightly smaller capacity but costs from about $899 - so much cheaper again...

The company has a good service reputation and I can confirm that from a few points of contact I have had with them...

Overall - if you are interested in cnc and don't want to get into the technical side - their products are very good and very good value... the one main downside is that their bed size is not huge (200mm x 300mm for mine) but for what I enjoy making that is not a huge issue...
 
Still making boxes ……


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A ‘triptych’ of decreasing sized boxes and then a swear box (so called because I’ve not sworn so much making a box before!).

Quite pleased because the ‘base box’ in all cases is the rattiest ply imaginable (packing case).
 
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