Stool video

Well here is the first of a few videos that I hope to get posted soon. This is a real quick overview of the stool that I just finished for a private client.

Please to be enjoying

Back to reality..

Well it's good to be home. All though it is really cold down here in Tassie. But it is great to be back with the family. It was also nice to have a good shave again. I thought I would experiment and let the beard grow for awhile. Well these pictures are as long as it got. I had to cut it back, I couldn't take it anymore.



I thought I would share the project that I was working on for the time I was in Sydney. Tracy is trying to get a couple of lines of furniture started. So I spent the week building a prototype of a coffee table for her. I actually made the frame, while a fellow student Fiona Perry veneered the tops.



The table is a really contemporary design that I really like. It's very asymmetrical. All the frame piece have a 5 degree taper on them. This was achieved by building to jigs, one with a 5 degree slant. Which you placed the piece of wood on and sent it through the planer. Then there was another 5 degree sled that was added on top of the other sled and then the wood was flipped over and sent through again. Thus giving us a 5 degree taper on both sides of the table.

The entire table was built using the Festool Domino system. And man is that a cool tool. This tool is going to make building furniture so much faster.

The table frame is made of Australia Blackbute, the top is walnut veneer.



I have a couple of videos that I am going to post here soon. I have a little editing to do. One is of Tracy's workshop and the other is a short film on my stools. I hope to get those up sometime this weekend.

So until then.. don't forget to have your pets spade or neutered.

News Update

Well I just found out that my stools almost didn't make it down to the show. I guess what happened was the guy that was going to take them down, ended up not getting his work done. So another fellow student ran them down for me. So a special thanks goes out to Tristen Fields for saving the day. I owe him dinner or something.

I also finally heard back for a gallery here in Tasmania called IXL, they seem to be interested in my stools as well. So I hope that comes through.

I also there school has just put out a newletter with a few nice words about me and my stools. Just go the schools site and click on the newletter.

I spent the day yesterday going to Bungadore Woodworks Gallery, and have to say that I wasn't really impressed. They are the leading gallery here in Australia, but there product seemed very dated and to traditional. After that we went to the nations capital here, Canbera. We got a personal tour through Parlament house by Jono Everret. If you remember he was our first teacher this year. It was really good to talk to him again. He is a very encourging person.

Well I'm on the plane back to Tassie tomarrow. Can's wait to see the family and relax a little before the next big wave of projects comes up. I do have what I think to be a really cool idea for our cabinet module. I have had a great time up here in Sydney and have to thank Tracy and Max for the wonderful time. If you are here in Austarlia and are looking for anything to be made or would like to take some woodworking classes, give them a call. Just click the link to there website on the side bar.

Until next time folks. Remember tired drivers die!

Workin' for a live'n

Well week one is over and man has it been a great week here in Sydney. First off I spent last sunday at the wood show, and man here was alot of good stuff. I ended up buying a HnT Gordon shoulder plane. Man is it sweet, I will post some pictures of it when I get back to Tassie.

The rest of the week has been spent building a few tables for Tracy to take to some of the galleries around here. The on that I am woring on is really interesting in it's design and making. We have discovered lots of little traps and procdural errors along the way. So I hope to get that done here soon. I will also post some picture of that. Tracy spent the a few days making a really sweet looking side or end table.

The thing that I have learned most over this last wekk is that I really want to do this for the rest of my life. I completely enjoy waking up and heading straight out to the shop and working until night time and then going in eating and going to sleep.

Anyways, I took a good video of the shop and once I get back and do some editing and stuff I'll throw that up here as well. So until then, clean out your ears because you'll want to hear me when I arrive.

Kaleo

P.S. Please excuse the spelling errors. For some reason, blogger doesn't allow Safari to run that.

D-Day

Well D-day came and went without a hitch. Everything went according to plan. I guess you could say that I planned it that way. I delivered the set of 4 stools to the gallery. They were extremely happy because I got them done quickly. I did them in 3 weeks from the day they ordered them. They told me that usually they tell the buyer 4-6 weeks and by the 8th week the buyer starts to worry. So the fact that I got them done quickly makes the gallery look good.

I also got 2 stools done for the exhibition. And I got them all crated and ready for delivery. I have to thank a fellow student for helping me out.

Well it's off to Sydney and to Tracy Gumm's workshop and the Sydney Wood show. I hope to take some good videos of the show and Tracy's shop. But I won't be updating anything until next month most likely. So please be patient and I promise some good stuff then.

Via con Dios

Great Video..

I found this video on Fine Woodworking a month or so ago. But it has just been uploaded on You Tube. So I thought I would post it here to for your viewing pleasures. The name of the Designer/Maker of this chair is Jared Rusten. I love his work and have been able to exchange a few emails with him. He has some very inspiring designs. My Nalu stools were inspired by this chair. You can see more of his work at www.jrusten.com

And now for your viewing pleasures:

One week left.

Well there is one week left until I leave for Sydney. I was starting to worry that I might not get everything done in time. I started out the week with all the parts cut and to size. I spent Monday gluing up the side frames to all 7 stools. Needless to say this took a lot of time and a lot of clamps. I didn't have enough clamps to do them all at once. I could only do 2 stools at a time. So I started with the Celery Top Pine ones first. Because this gave me the chance to cut all the tapers for the exhibition set while the glued dried.

So I made a real simple taper jig. Basically it was a straight piece of MDF that had a tapered fixed fence and a stop on it. So that the taper that I wanted to cut hung of the side. I then ripped the taper on the Hitachi Resaw machine. I used this because blackwood is prone to burning, and the table saw would have burnt it. I then used the joiner and jointed the tapered edge smooth. It worked great.

Tuesday I finished gluing up all the sides and did some sanding to the ones that were already dried.



Wednesday I spent the day in the car. I rented a chair to go down to Hobart and pick up some supplies. I had to go and pick up some 1.8 mm plywood to mold my seats out of. Then I had to go the leather shop to get the last of the leather that I used. I took the whole day, because Hobart is a 2.5 hour drive one way.

Today I finished all that I had to before glue up the stools. And then I glued them up. I also made 4 of the 7 seats that I need. I have to glue together 5 pieces of that 1.8 mm plywood and then use the vacuum press and mold them over a former. It takes about 2.5 hours for the glue to dry. So getting one in at 9, 11:30, 2, 4:45. So that will give me something to do Monday.



Well if all goes to plan I should get both sets done before I go. Which would be great. If things go wrong then I will only get the three that are going to the exhibition done and the set of 4 will have to wait until I get back. The good thing is that they aren't due until the 5 of July. So I will have a couple of days when I get back if needed. But let's hope not.

Be good all,

Kaleo

Weekly update.

Well it's been a good week. I've spent the majority of the week trying to get all the parts that I need to get the two sets of stools done. I had to track down some Celery Top Pine for the set that was ordered from the Gallery. I found a really good timber mill here and ordered on Monday at lunch time and received the timber on Tuesday at lunch time. So it was good to get it quick. This week I dimensioned all the timber for both sets and began the finger jointing. I have to go down to Hobart to get the leather that I need and also the plywood. So I plan to make a quick day trip on Monday and get all that.

I've had a good opportunity this week to be a part of a lot of photo taking for the school. Simon our head of school has a really good eye for photography. He has taken some shots of my chair and stool. So let me know what you think of the shots.

There are a couple of shots with some of the chairs of my fellow students. They are the chairs of Fiona Perry and Jye Edwards. The other kid in the photo was really there waiting for the bus.

Goodnight and stay classy...

What a great day it has been.

Well I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be a good weekend. Having had a OK week, trying to get Nalu 2.0 worked out. I made some seats out of plywood that I made myself also. The seats are a lot stronger than the last ones that I made. But squaring them up has proven to be a little bit difficult. This is because I made the plywood out of 1mm thick veneers. I had to edge glue 2 pieces together to give the width that I needed. But because nothing starts off square it's had to get it squared. But I think that I should be able to get them ready.

I have to thank my good friend Gregg Deal @ GSon Studios. He has helped me out to get my website up so that I can test out the waters and get some feedback. So right now it is up and linked through his site and company, here's the link:

www.gsonstudios.com/client/kaleo/Intro.swf

Just copy and paste this link into you browser. I couldn't get it to become a active link.


So please let me know what you all think about it.

Last but defiantly not least, I received a very unexpected phone call this morning. Usually on Saturday morning my Mom calls to say hello and talk. So when the phone rang at about 10:00 am our time I thought nothing about it. So when I picked up the phone and heard is this Kaleo, I thought "I wonder who this is" Telemarketers never get my name right, so this person must know me. Well it was The Design Centre, the gallery that I have my Nalu stools at, informing that they had just sold a set of 4 stools and that they have a deposit and they need to be ready in 4-6 weeks.



So it's official, my first sale and now I am a furniture maker. Needless to say I am just over the moon about this. The people that bought them are from Melbourne. I still can't believe that someone picked my stool over the 5 other types of stools that are in there. I guess what it does is gives me hope for the future, which is coming up way to fast.

Nalu 2.0

Well I spent the day today making a true to life mock up of the new Nalu stool. Which I am calling Nalu 2.0. I thought I would make a few adjustments to it for the competition in Hobart.



I have thinned it out alot. Instead of the whole thing being 30mm thick it is now 25mm thick. The sides are now 45mm wide instead of 55mm. The top rails and the feet also now taper from back to front, and then they are rounded into the front legs. So there is a real gentle curve in the inside corners. I think that this gives the stool a really light feel. I made it so that I could test the strength to make sure it holds up. So far so good. Tomorrow I am going to stand on it to see what happens. I made this mock up out of Tasmanian Blackwood. I think it looks really good, and plan to make the next set for the show out of Blackwood. From start to finish on this mock up took a total of 1.5 hours. I hope to be able to make the next three in about 15 total hours with seats and everything. The seats for these new stools with be attached with a stainless steel spacer between the stool and the seat. I think this will give a really nice touch. We shall see.

The Chair is finally done-

Well today marked the end of our chair project. Needless to say that I wasn't really into this project. I spent the first 2 weeks designing a chair that I really didn't like, but thought that I had to build. I worked on it and built a prototype. Still I didn't like it. Then I spent a week attempting to build it. But I was moving really slow with it.

Last weekend I decided to redesign and make a chair that I thought would be cool. So this is the result.




It is made with Tasmania Blackwood and Brazilan Walnut. It's a real simple design, just a couple of frames with rails in which the seat sits on. I had a real fun time shaping the seat. I don't have a good picture of it, but I shaped the seat and the back by hand. It's real subtle but nice. The back is also on a pivot, so when you sit into the chair the back form to your angle of sit.



Well I have about 3 weeks to get a new set of stools together with a few design changes. I am going to make a new set for the exhibition in Hobart. So this should be fun. I'll keep you up to date with how it goes.

Until then...

Great News.. (for me)

Well today I found out about the juried exhibition in Hobart, Tasmania, and I got in. I received an email from the event organizers telling my that I had made the cut. There were 24 entries and they narrowed it down to 12 to participate in the show. Needless to say I am extremely excited to just be in the show. There are some really big names in Australian Furniture Designers in this show. Leon Saduben who was a guest instructor at our school last year. Along with a few designers from Tassie here, Kevin Perkins and Brenon Sharpe. So I am just happy to be in such company. But the 1 in 12 chance to win 7000.00 dollars isn't bad either.

I was told that the judges are interested in me displaying my Nalu Stools. So I will either make a few new ones, all from different timbers, or hope to possibly display my chair. ( when it's done ).



On the chair front, I spent the weekend redesigning it, because I just wasn't feeling the last one. And I should have it done here by the end of the week. I will take a few pictures of the progress. I actually hope to make a short video on the design and making process of this piece. So we'll see if that happens. Anyways, until next time.

Kaleo

Craft in America

I found this the other day. There is what looks to be a great documentry coming to PBS in America on May 30. It's a 3 part series, but they are showing the whole thing that night starting at 8pm. It's called Craft in America. It focuses on all sorts of crafts, but with my interests it willhave interviews with Sam Maloof and George Nakasihma. Here is a great preview for the show. It's a bit long so bare with it, it's worth it.

Shop Tour

I told you that finding out how to upload video was going to change things. Thanks to our friends at Lumberjocks.com, they are sponsoring another contest. They have asked that we give a video tour of our shop. So I thought take the challenge and make a short movie to enter. I also thought this is a good way to let you all see a little part of my daily life. So I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think, and any ideas you might have for other videos.

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com

Click To Play

Just a quick overview of a typical day in my life. At least a typical day when school is involved. This doesn't include my daily family life at all.

Kaleo

Testing a new idea..

This has nothing to do with woodworking or furniture making, but it could lead to some cool things here. First I have to thank Marc Spagnola at The Woodwhisperer Video Blog. Here had a short video on how to upload your videos. So Marc if you read this thanks alot.

The video is a few shorts take with our digital camera, so the quality is not that good. But they can only get better. If you have any ideas of things you might want to see, let me know and I will see what I can do to help out. Please to be enjoying.

Click To Play

A few short movies and picture from our digital camera. The quailty isn't very good, but this is an experiment.

Website

I thought I would post a screenshot of the homepage of my upcoming website. I hope to have it all worked out here in the next 4 weeks or so. I have noticed that I love learning how to create and design websites. I really like the idea that I can design and create the furniture and also design and control how one looks at it on the web. I hope to be able to get better at web design to maybe be able to do a little design on the side.

Anyways let me know what you think of the look and feel of the homepage. Thanks

A weekly thing

I've noticed this has become a weekly thing. I think that I might have burned myself out. Lately I haven't had a lot of energy for this project. I figured out that for every project that I have had so far, I was flat out for weeks getting it done. Last week was really hard, but this week has been better. I finalized design for my lounge chair, and did what always cheers me up. I started to cut wood.

I rough dimensioned all the wood I need for the chair. Rough because I'm using 38 mm stock or 1.5 inch stock. So I just cleaned all the surfaces and squared up the timber. This is so that I can let the timber sit for a couple of days and do all the moving that it wants, and them I can mill it down to final dimension after.

I've decided to use Tasmania Blackwood for the chair. I have a really nice bit of Brazil an Walnut that I wanted to use. Because I really want a nice dark timber. But I just don't have enough to do the chair. And Blackwood is the darkest timber that they have here in Tasmania. It's a beautiful wood, but I might have to stain it to the color that I want.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I haven't had anything really to photograph yet. I am only suppose to have the next 2 weeks to built this chair. But at the rate that I am going right now I'll have to use the extra couple of weeks before the exhibition to finish the chair and the ottoman that I plan to build.

So wish me luck!!

What a week

Well this week is finally over. I don't know what the problem with me has been. But this unit has not been interesting to me. Right now I am trying to design a chair. Our instructor is really good. I think that he hoped we would all do dining chairs. But I have decided to design a lounge chair. But I have had almost no inspiration at all. I have a cool design, at least I think it's cool. But it doesn't sing to me, I'm definitely not in love with this design. At least not yet.

I spent the week building a full size mock-up. That has not been fun. Nothing was working as I thought it would. The design didn't look like I imagined it. But yesterday I think I had a good win. Things finally came together.

The chair is very geometrical. It's made up of triangle shapes. I like to think it's a very modern interpretation of a Morris chair. I hope it to be as inviting and comfortable as a Morris chair. I will take a few pictures of the mock up next week. We have to start building this thing soon. The chair has to be completed by the 18th of May. So there is a lot of work to be done. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I have put a Hit counter and a Hit Map at the bottom of the page. I have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of readers and where you all are from. Although the map doesn't tell me where you are specifically. I would love you all to tell me where you are and what you think of the blog. And ways that I might improve and make it better. Let me know what you think. Leave me a comment or continue to email me.

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com



Kaleo

Back in full swing..

Sorry that it has been so long since I have posted something. This last week has just been crazy. Our new instructor arrived on Monday, his name is Evan Dunstone. He is a designer maker from Canberra. You can see his stuff on www.dunstonedesign.com.au . He is a well of knowledge on all thing wood related. I have never met someone that has an answer to almost any questions about wood that you could have. He is a master at choosing and accentuating grain and it's direction.

So he is here for our chair unit. Which for me is getting off to a slow start. I am having a real hard time with this unit so far. Nothing is inspiring me, none of my drawing have just jump out and said make me. But I have a few good ideas, that I might just have to develop. I have until Monday to get something designed and resolved. So it's going to be a long weekend.

I also spent a lot of time this week putting together my Resume and Artist statement and some photos for the juried competition in June. Only one other person besides myself entered from our class. I was surprised that no one else did. But that's OK by my. I also am getting some things ready to send to Fine Woodworking. They are doing a readers gallery issue all about students and there work. So I have to get another CD ready of images. That has to be in early next month.

Other than that nothing new to report. I hope to get a mock up of my chair built soon. Then I will post some pictures of it. Until then be good all.

It's official..

Well today it became official. I delivered my stools to The Design Centre. And they will be officially displayed as of Monday. I have to say that this is a pretty cool feeling. I know that it will be even cooler when they sell.(if they sell) But you know what as cool as it would be, hey if they never sell at least I can now say I have a piece displayed at a major gallery. My Resume now reads Kaleo Kala with pieces displayed in The Design Centre Gallery in Australia. I guess I should put Tasmania, but man Australia looks and sounds much cooler.

I spent the day making my own plywood out of veneers for some more seats for more stools. I guess I am being a little optimistic, just in case. Also I took some nice photos with the back drop down. I am getting everything together to get my application in for this juried exhibition in Hobart. The application has to be in by next Friday, or as the say here in Australia Friday week.



Anyways for those of you that have asked to be signed up for the email alerts please let me know if they work. Some of you I just signed up because I thought you wouldn't mind and anyways your friends and I don't care if you don't want to read my blog, read it anyways. I would read yours if you all had one.