End of a Long Year

Well the year is just about done here at the school. As of right now there is not much going on. We are building a set of 8 "Uno" chairs to try and sell them next year to help fund our final exhibition. So that is keeping me busy enough.

As for much else there isn't alot. The 2nd year exhibition was really nice. I was told at the last minute that my table was not going to be displayed. The reason was it was thought that it would look funny if only 1 first year was displaying. Needless to say I was really disappointed. Actually that's not true I was really pissed off at the whole thing. But it's over and all is well. Now it's nothing to do for a few days amd then we are off to New Zealand for 10 days. After that I will be looking for a part time job. So wish me luck.

I'll let you all know how the trip goes. Until then be good and eat all those veggies.

Kaleo

FINALLY!!!!

Well it's finally done. I spent the last 3 days sanding and touching up and oiling and repainting that then oiling again. Only to find that I missed a spot and had to sand back and reapply paint, only then to oil again. I'll tell you this, I will never paint again. It has been a nightmare. But I have it done in time for the exhibition, and that was the goal. Only other 1st year student finished there table. Although there are still 3 unofficial weeks left in the semester. So I guess they could get them done. But we had the critique yesterday and the grading happened.


So anyways let me give you the write up about my table.

Wanting to challenge the look and feel of a traditional hall table I embarked on designing something unique, something that you might not have seen before. Not wanting to have 4 distinct legs, I turned to the design of the Uno chair by Neil Erasmus. Drawing from that chair, I decided to use frames as means to support the table. I was also turned on to Charles Rennie Mackintosh. His use of strong rectilinear shapes suited my own design aesthetic. This is where “Stark” was born. Named “Stark” for it’s stunning contrast between the ebonized Tasmanian Blackwood and the jaw dropping Huon Pine top. With this piece I wanted to let the design talk for itself and not let the timbers do all the talking. My desire was to have people be drawn in by the design and then notice the little beauties. Things like the beautiful bird’s eye huon pine top, the hand cut dovetails that cut ever so slightly through the front of the drawers. I especially want people to notice the back design and see the very intricate array of pieces that were each cut and hand fitted together individually, then left with a slight bevel on the front edges. All to subtly highlight the beautiful bird’s mouth joints.


Sounds pretty nice huh? Well it is pretty nice, there are somethings that I would change if I did it again. But for being the first major piece of furniture that I not only built, but completely designed, I am really happy with the results. I have already received really good feedback from it, the head of the school of architecture was in the other day and I overheard him tell my instructor that he thought it was just stunning. I hope all goes well Friday night at the exhibition. I'll let you all know. Until then

Almost there

This last week was a really long week. I think it has to do with the fact that I am completely tired of this project. All I have thought about for the last 8 weeks has been this bloody hall table. Now don't get me wrong I have enjoyed building it. But for the last week I have been so ready for it to be done.

But to report it is almost there. The project is due on Tuesday morning. And as of right now all I have left is to glue up one drawer and fit it in. And slap on a couple coats of oil and she will be DONE. So by Monday night, if I drank I would be at the pub celebrating.


As it look right now I will be the only person in the class to finish this project on time. The good thing about that is that I will be able to show this table at the Graduating students exhibition next Friday. This exhibition will be held at the Design Centre in Launceston, Tasmania, and will go for 2 weeks. So hopefully it will be a good experience. I'll post more on that next week. Here is the website address for the design centre ( http://designcentre.com.au )

This weekend there is a craft show in Deloraine here. It's said to be the biggest craft show in the southern hemisphere. We laugh because almost everything here is said to be the biggest in the southern hemisphere. I think that Australians forget about other huge countries like South Africa, Argentina, Chile and what about Brazil there are like 200 million people there to Australia's 20 million. Anyways, the school has a booth there and I am showing my box and "8" Table there. Which from what I here is getting a lot of interest. Because I priced it at 350.00 dollars.


Well I'll leave you now, until next week, be good have fun and don't forget to wash behind your ears.

Kaleo

Melbourne Trip

Last week I set off to Melbourne to go to The Working with Wood Show. It was a really good trip. I couldn't believe how fast it was to fly to Melbourne. Almost as soon as week reach flying altitude we were heading back down for landing. The flight was 46 minutes. So the traveling wasn't bad at all.

The show was pretty good. It was like almost every show that I have been to, but a little smaller. It was full of different displays, things like people selling wood, to new clamps and router bits. To big machinery and small handheld powertools. The most interesting part of the show was the exhibition. The Victorian woodworker Asso. held an exhibition. It was really interesting to see the work. It really gives me a lot of hope. As I looked through what was there (being a furniture maker) I had a really critical eye. And what I saw gave me hope that I will be able to make it in this business. Most of the pieces were really good. But all of them except for about 3 had what I would call, "only because I built furniture" mistakes. A little chip out here or a joint not quite all the way in, cabinets not finished underneath. Little things that the normal eye wouldn't pick up.

My favorite part of the show was the schools booth. I loved talking to people and explaining what we did at the school. Showing off my box and explaining the details. I especially liked when people asked how much my box was and the look of disbelief when I told them. I was asking 1200.00 for my box. (only because I really didn't want to sell it.) I was told though that it should sell for around 800-1000.



It was really nice having a few days off. But now I feel so far behind on my Hall Table. I have to make up some ground this week. As of today, I have finished gluing up the back design and dry fitted everything except the drawers together. By the end of this week I hope to have the entire piece expect the drawers glued up and stained pure black. (except the top of course that stays natural) So until next week.

This weeks progress

This has been a really good week. I have been really worried about getting this project completed on time. There always seems like a lot to do and no time to do it. But this week things seemed to fall into place. The beginning of the week I made the top to my hall table. It's 1340 mm long by 400 mm wide by 19 mm thick. Which is about 5 ft long by 18 inches wide by about 3/4 inch thick. The top is made from MDF, of which I put a 8 mm lipping on all the edges and then veneered the top with some beautiful birds-eye Huon Pine. The top came out really nice.



Then I had to build a few frames to enclose the area that my drawers will sit. There are two frames, the top frame will be covered by the top on the hall table. The bottom frame will have panels in it so that you can't look under the table and see the drawers. I have yet to finish the panels, I cut them to size but still have to veneer them and cut a rebate into them so that they can sit in place.

I then had to rout a rebate into the back frame of the table. There is a panel that has to sit in the frame in the back so that you can not see into the drawer cavity. Also there will be a lot of decorative squares that will be inset into the back. So I had to make the room for those.


Next I cut the first half of all my little squares. They are made up of little pieces of timber that have two 45 degree cuts on both ends. Then 4 of these pieces will be placed like a cross forming the squares. These are called birds mouth joints. I had to come up with a couple of jigs to make the job easier and faster. The first jig is this one. It has a stop that is the exact length and a fence at a 45 degree angle. You place your piece of timber in and lock it place with the cam, and the over hang gets cut off at the table saw at a 45 degree angle. You then flip and cut the other angle to give you an arrow looking piece. Then you flip again and do the other side.


The Second jig is for cutting a groove on the ends of the pieces. This groove is there to accept a floating tenon. Which is a piece of timber that will be glued into the 4 pieces to hold them together.


I fly out to Melbourne on Thursday for the working with wood show. The school is going to have a booth there. So my box will be on display at the show. I'm happy about that. Hopefully I will be able to get as much done in the upcoming week before the trip and keep on schedule.

I'll tell you all about the show next week.

Kaleo

Hall Table Progression

Well things have been really busy these week. I finally got started on my hall table. And when I say started I mean that I got to start making it. I guess I really started about 2 weeks ago. But with the timber sitting for the week, it feels like I just got really started. So I spent the week first planning out a timetable. The project is meant to be finished by the 7 of November. Which is about a month away.

So this week I got all the mortising and tenoning done and made the entire frame. I actually got it standing this weekend. Here are a few pictures of the table so far.

Presenting "8"

Well like last week this week has just flown by. I started this week to mill up all my timber for my hall table. The dimensions are 40 mm wide by 30mm thick. For those of you in America that converts to about 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/4 inches. I think, all I know is that I will be working in the metric system for the rest of my life. It is so much easier. Anyway, I finished planeing and thicknessing all of my timber and then I have to let it sit for at least a week. In order for it to do all the moving it is going to do. When you mill rough timber, it will move almost right away because you are relieving a lot of internal stresses in the timber. So I did all that on Monday. That left me the rest of the week to do something.

So I decided to make this:


I call it "8". The side table stands 550 mm tall and is 320 mm wide and 270 mm deep. It is made from Jarrah, which I had left over from my box that I made. Jarrah has to be one of my favorite timbers ever. It has such a beautiful dark red color to it. I also added a inlay of huon pine, which is a very blonde timber. It is very old and is only found here in Tasmania. Some of the huon pine trees date back as much as 3000 years old. On the top inlay the 4 piece meet in the middle and there is a 4 way miter joint there. Hard to take a picture of.

I call it "8" for 2 reasons. First because it has 8 legs that are pinned together with little pieces of huon pine. And secondly because it took me a little less than 8 hours to make.



Well hopefully next week I can start full steam ahead on my hall table. Thanks for looking.

Kaleo

The week after

Well this has been the week after holiday. It was nice to get back to the workshop. But at the same time it was a little bit hard to get back into the swing of things. There isn't really much to report on this week. I spent most of the week finalizing the planning stages of my table. I've drawn up all the plans and gotton all the joinery worked out. Figured out all the procedures in order. That is one really good lesson that I've learned here in the past years. Planning is so important in fine furniture making. I think like before school, a lot of woodworker like me just figured it out as they went along. And I would make a lot of mistakes and it never quite came out right. So planning makes the process a lot easier. Believe me. Anyways, I'll get back to you next week with more.

Kaleo

The week off

Well the week off of school is coming to a close and man was it needed. You know I live in such a fantasy world right now. All I do is go to school and learn about something that I already love and can't wait to do full-time. Even though when I am at school I'm there 9 hours a day. But we get a break inbetween semesters and once in each semester. So you wouldn't think that a week off was really needed. But it was nice.



We had a great time camping. We took our tent and sleeping bags and some great hopes, and headed for the great unknown that is Tasmania. We headed up to the northeast coast, and man can I tell you that it is absolutely beautiful up there. The air is fresh the water was beautiful to look at and very cold to touch. As we are just getting out of winter and starting spring. But we had a lovely time, we ate PB and J's and lot of home made muffins and sandwiches. We played on the beach and went hiking to see a gorgeous waterfall. It was a very nice trip and a great break.

Only to head back on Monday and start on this next major project. But like I said it's a fantasy world right now. I go and play outside for a few days, and then I get to go and play inside with some wood. To bad this life can't last forever.



By the way the last picture is of my greatest creation to date.

Peace,

Kaleo

Hall Table Design

Well this week was spent working on the final design for my hall table. There were a lot of hours spent on CAD and rendering programs trying to get a final look at what the final design will look like.



The table is heavily influenced by a few people. But let me explain a little about the table. Our brief was to make and design a hall table that didn't look like your typical hall table. We also have to incorporate a second material other than wood somewhere into he design.

So I wanted my design to challenge the preconceived notions of a hall table. The first thing I thought of was not to have 4 traditional legs. So I came up with the idea of having 2 frames in the front and 1 bigger frame in the back. So I think it gives the appearance of not having 4 legs, but it actually is sitting on more ground space. Looking unstable, but being very stable. This look came from the Uno Chair that I built earlier this semester. The back of that chair was a frame. That chair was designed by Neil Erasmus.

Then I was turned on to Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Who was an architect and a designer. There was one piece that struck me. If you look at his furniture there is a recurring theme of geometrical shapes, which is what I am trying to use in the back frame of my table. We shall see how it all works out. This project will take up the next 10 weeks. So I'll post the progress.



Well we have this next week off for break. And we are heading up to the northern east coast of Tasmania, to a place called The Bay of Fire. We are going to do some camping now that the weather is getting nicer. So until next time.

Assignment #2 over

Well the due date for our chest of drawers assignment was today. We were told that in order to be considered finished, we had to have the carcass and at least one drawer done. Not many in the class got this done. But I am a firm believer in dead lines. I had yet to not finish a project on time here. And this time I finished technically, but I only got 2 drawers done. I wish I had gotten the third done. But man I couldn't believe how much is involved in carcass furniture. We had just about 4 weeks to due this project. But that was in between art classes and other classes that we have. So a typical week we have about 3 of the 5 days to work on our projects. So this piece was built in 12 days. So I guess when I look at it like that not getting the final drawer done isn't that bad.






Now we get right into ( or as the Aussie say "stuck into" ) our hall table project. This is the last project of the year. With this project the design is completely up to us. So this is the one that I have been looking forward to. My design was influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He used a lot of geometrical shapes and cut outs in his furniture. If I can I'll try to post a picture of the CAD designs that I have made. Anyways until next time.

Losing our Leader

So this last week has been pretty normal. In fact I can't really think of much new to write about. I've spent most of the week making some drawers for the chest of drawers that I am making at the moment. Neil has taught us the way that he makes drawers. Which was completely different to the way that I had always known. But I must say that his way is much better. He makes them in a way so that the drawer sides are a lot thinner, so that the overall drawer is not only lighter but looks so much more elegant.

We had a meeting this week with the head of the school of architecture. He came to discuss the future of the school with us. For those of you that didn't know, the school was once private but last year almost went bankrupt. So the Australian government decided to lend a helping hand. They decided to make the school part of the university of Tasmania. Anyways the university has decided to keep the school going in the near future. The only problem is that our fearless leader Neil Erasmus has decided that he needs to get back to his business in Perth. So he is leaving at the end of the year. Which is both a good and bad thing. Next year our course is mostly taught by visiting lecturers. Meaning we get other designer/makers who come in and teach a specific class. So we don't get any actual teaching from Neil. But he would be there to bounce ideas and concepts off of. But now with him and Pam leaving, they are actually coming back next year to teach us a 6 week class. So we will actually get more of him this way. So I think it's a good thing.

Anyways until next week. I start making my self designed hall table. So I will keep you all up to date on that.

A day in the life

I think I'll try to make this a weekly thing. But you know how life gets. You might think, "He's a student he should have all the time in the world. We if I was a typical Uni student then yes I would only have 1 maybe 2 classes a day and then the rest of the day to do things like study. But things are just a little bit different here at The Australian School of Fine Furniture.

He our days are pretty full on. We started at 8:30 in the morning. Right now on Monday morning we have a Uni class called the history of contemporary art and design. This was part of the course that I first struggled with. We've had and are still having different art and drawing classes. But I have come around to see the real importance of drawing and also seeing and knowing design history.

Then on Thursdays we have a drawing class, that is turning out to be really beneficial. During the rest of the time is spent at the shop. We due a few different classes. One is Furniture Technology. Here we build a few different things that are designed by our instructor Neil Erasmus. This semester it was the chair from my previous post and a small chest of drawers. ( more on that in a minute. ) Then we have a Design Workshop, where we get to design our piece, last semester it was the mirror that was previously posted, this semester it will be a hall table. We have yet to start that, so more on that in a few weeks.



The chest of drawers is a great project. We are building this in miniature, so it's what I call a jewelry box on STERIODS. But we are doing it to learn about carcass construction and especially drawer making.

And to finish this week, he's a picture of my trusty Veritas Low-Angle Jack Plane that has been put to good use so far. Until later-

My first few pieces

Well this is a new venture for me. I have always thought about doing something like this. But just never got around to it. And now here I am in Launceston, Tasmania Australia and thought this would be a great way to communicate with people. As many if not most of you know My little family and I moved here in the beginning of this year. We came here so that I could attend The Australian School of Fine Furniture. It has been a very interesting first 6 months.

Moving here from Washington D.C. was no easy task. Although this is a great little city, but it is just that a little city. But that is what I like the best about it. We don't have a car, but the town is so small we can walk every where. We live right in the middle of town. And there is no traffic to contend with or even see. I love that.

The school is great. The head instructor is Neil Erasmus. You can see some of his work at www.erasmusdesigns.com , he is a great designer maker/ pretty good teacher. Having only had some minor experience in furniture making before coming here, I think my skills have improved 100 fold.

The first thing that I made was a Document/jewelry Box. The box was made out of Jarrah with a musk Veneer that was bookmatched on the top with a small black inlay around the Musk. The box was put together with handcut miter dovetails. Those are regular dovetail, but with a miter or 45 degree joint in the top and bottom. The inside there is a tray and they are both lined with leather.




The next thing that I did was a mirror. We were told that were to design this ourselves, and that it could not be just a regular frame with a mirror in it. So my design was a mirror that suspended inbetween two outer frames, that hung off the wall at an angle. The mirror is called "Shaka" which in Hawaiian means "Hang Loose" Which is exactly what the mirror does. This piece was made from myrtle with Jarrah inlays. Everything about this mirror screams mirror, the two outer frames were cut from the same piece, so that they are mirror images of each other, as with the inlay they mirror each other also.




Next I built a dining chair. Even though this was not my design, I love this chair. I've always wanted to build a chair. But I was always afraid. Mostly because of the math involved. But it was a great learning experience. The chair is made from Tasmanian Blackwood.

We have some really interesting things coming up here in the near future. I will keep you all posted.