What a week..

Man has it been a long week. I have meant to write a couple of updates during the week, but the time seems to not be there. I sometimes think I can't wait to get back to the real world. But truthfully speaking, I know the real world is going to be alot worse than this.

The week started with completing some shop drawings and choosing some timber. To try to avoid a hugh bottle neck in the work shop I tried to get some machining done. So I got all the timber, some really nice Tasmanian Mrytle and some Celery-Top Pine and went to town on the jointer and the thicknesser. I think I used half the forest in the making of my top. I wanted the top to be about 38 mm thick ( 1 1/2 inches), but I was really concerned about wood movement. And sense the top is just got to lay in there and be modular, it has to fit nice but not get stuck. So what I decided to do was take some regular back sawn boards and cut them into 44 mm strips and then turn them on there edges and glue them together. Like you would make a bench top, thus making the top quarter sawn timber. I also got to play with the school's new Domino. Man I love that tool. That took me most of Tuesday to do.



Then I found 2 really nice 300mm (12') wide boards of Mrytle. This would allow me to make all the components for the 2 bases units and the frames. The panels came out of the off cuts for the top that were glue in the same manner as the top and then resawed in half to form the panels for my frames. That took up most of Wednesday and part of Thursday. Along with 2 elective classes that we have to take for our degree that was the week.



Alot of late nights and not enough sleep. Reminds me of working in the real world. But that is going to come soon enough. With that said I will be job hunting here soon, hoping to starting something next year around March or April, I know that is pretty far out still. But it never hurts to get the word out. If anyone knows or maybe is looking for someone, around then please let me know.

Until next time... eat those veggies and play nice

The New Table...

So are current project is a cabinet project. It is being lead by David Up-fill Brown. He was the original head of school here. And now he is the lead instructor at The Centre for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine.

So not wanting to follow what the rest of my class is doing, by building a display cabinet or a cabinet on stand. I designed this:













Sorry for the bad photoshoped pictures, I'm still learning how to use it.

It is what I call a cabinet table. It's a modular coffee table. The top sits free on 2 base pieces. The bigger of the two pieces has two frame and panel doors that fold down to reveal the cabinet and drawer inside. But the thing that I really like about this piece is that you can create any table that you want. The bases can be configured into any combination that you can think of to form your table. The concept also allows you to store away all the crap that can collect on top of a coffee table when the guest come over. Then you can put out those books that you want them all to see and hide all the stuff you don't. (oh by the way just in case you thought that was the real thing, which I hope you did, it's really a 1:5 scale model that I built.)

So I have about 5 weeks to build this and I hope to make a couple of end tables or a sofa table to match, but we'll see.

Until then...sometimes it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

New Photo Gallery

Well I just thought I would try this and see if it worked. I've embedded a photo slideshow gallary on the side bar. So take a look and see some pictures of all my work so far here at the school.

So until next time... I am the stig

Third Exhibition and were done... (for now)

Well last night was the opening for the third exhibition in the last week. I guess it must be the season or something. This exhibition was put on by the art school from the Uni. They had a hugh diverse set up from graffiti art to some ceramics to enviromental art and then us at the furniture school. There was some really nice things there. It was also neat because they involved some local primary schools, where the children made drawings and clay sculptures and all the children were there also. So I thought that was really neat.



As for our stand I think it looked really good. It was very minimal. Which I am quickly learning thatis the style that I like. Less is more. Simple, clean lines and uncluttered pieces are what I like.

So with that said, I hope to be posting my design process of this next project. Also I am putting together another video of the show at the school. I hope to get that up this weekend.

So until then... from the mouth of my 3 year Kai "watch out pepperoni here I come"

Exhibition 2 opening night over....

Well tonight was the second of what will be 3 exhibitions in less than a week. This one was called "HindSight '07" It was a exhibition for the current work from all the students. As second years we exhibited our chairs and the first years exhibited there mirrors. Thus the name HindSight. It was a really good opening. I think that the mailing list from the University isn't the crowd that comes to these shows and buys things. No one got any sales from the opening, but it will be on for the next 2 weeks.

But the best news came during the opening of the show. They made an announcement that there were some awards to given out. They gave a few awards to local students. I guess they were classified as scholarships. But they gave one scholarship to an International student. It was classified as International Academic Achievement Award. And as you most likely have guessed I was awarded this scholarship. What came as a better surprise is the amount, it was a scholarship for 8000.00 dollars. This is an incredible blessing for me and my little family. This is going to pay for the last semester of school here. Which leave us with some money hopefully to come home with and start up again.



The final exhibition is tomorrow night. So I will take some pictures of that and some better ones of this one and post them by Friday. The photos from tonight aren't that good. I also will a short video of the exhibition.

So until then.... I can't think of any witty sayings it's to late, good night

P.S. There is a feature on the side bar. There is a place for you to enter your email address. This will allow you to receive email updates whenever I make a new post. I hope it helps.

Exhibition 1 over

Well the first exhibition of this next week or so happened last night and it was really good. It would have been better if I could report that I was 7000.00 dollars richer. But that's not the case nor did I expect it. My fellow student Jye Edwards won the emerging artist award of 500.00 dollars so CONGRATS to him.

It was a really well done exhibition. Held in a beautiful old barn, but very well laid out and set up. I was really good to set up. There were quick a few people there. But what I liked the most was meeting some of the other artist/markers.

The evening didn't last to long for Jana, Kai and I. At about 7.00pm Kai really wanted to go to bed. I guess some parents would love there kid to tell them when they want to go to bed. With Kai it's about 6.45 every night. But he was a bit wound up from the excitement of the hotel room.



I hope you aren't tried of seeing my stool, if you are well I'm sorry it's my blog. But I haven't posted any pictures of the new model, and these are pictures from the show. Well from the day after the opening, when nobody was around and you could actually see all the work.

Also we are official.

www.kalafinefurniture.com (click it on the side bar)


Is officially open. Although there are a few problems at the moment and some major updates coming soon( things like more gallery pictures and a link to this blog and a resume page). But at the moment the major things are the intro wasn't compatible. And my buddy who is doing the hosting for me www.gsonstudios.com (once again on side bar) changed the name of my homepage to the correct name, but that has screwed up my links from at the pages. So the problem is when you leave the homepage, if you try to get back , well you can't. That will be taken care of soon.



So until then my friends... Transformers, there more than meets the eye

The must see Video event...

Here's a quick peek into the workshop of the handiest man around

New Feature

Well this isn't really a new feature, more like something I finally did. If you haven't noticed already, I went through and labeled my videos. And now there is a easy button on the side menu that you can push to see all the videos that have been posted here.

I know that I have promised some other videos, and they are in the works. I hope to have a good one up tomorrow.

Other than that we are off to Hobart on Thursday for the exhibition. We are going to make a weekend of it and stay down there and have alittle break. I was just asked today to be in another exhibition next week, so my stools are going to be there also. And then Next Wednesday night the at the school we are having another exhibition for the mirrors (made by the first years) and the chairs made by us second years. A few of us second years have been informed that we might need to supply the exhibition with a few of our mirrors. Because a few of the first years have not yet finished there. And you don't want it to look empty. I'll take some pictures and post them soon.

Until then.. remember that my mom gave me Milo to grow and grow and grow...

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