Almost done...

I have been slacking lately on this blog. I have been busy with school ending, packing up my glorified room that I call a home back in BC and heading on over to Ontario for a quick visit. Not a whole lot has happened I am almost done the first bit of of the James Krenov's Silverchatull (Silver Chest), there are still some little things here and there that need to be done but all in all 95 percent of 75 percent of the entire piece is done. I still have the stand to do  but that will be done by October of 2011 I can promise you that. (Woods used: Eastern Maple for drawer exteriors, Western Maple drawers bottoms and side applied edges of top and bottom, Flame Spalted Maple for exterior carcass veneers)

Silverchatull (Silver Chest)

As of right now I am about a third of the way through my final project and probably only get two thirds done by the end of this semester.  My final project is a reproduction of James Krenov's Silver Chest or as he called it the Silverchatull. I have the drawers pretty much done there are some fine tuning that needs to be done to the pulls and the exterior surfaces. I decided to take a break from the drawers, which I had been working on for two months straight, and start on the carcass. First was cutting the veneers which we do ourselves on the band saw with a tall re-saw fence. The veneers I am using are both Western Maple. The exterior veneers are spalted and figured and the interior have some figure to them but no where near as busy as the exterior veneers. If you have ever worked with spalted woods you know how much more work it takes to work than normal wood, especially if you use hand planes. Edge joining the two spalted veneers together took me roughly 5 hours to do one edge join. As of today I finish my edge joins for the spalted veneers and all together it took me about 20 hours to do the four edge joins that need to be done. Just to give people an idea of how quickly edge joins are usually done the interior veneers took me about 5 minutes each to edge join together. Anyways they are done and I am extremely happy with them I can't complain about the one bit and it was fun. Now it is gluing the veneers onto basswood substrate, I have the top and bottom panels all glued up and the sides will be done hopefully Monday night.

A bit of me.

  For the past couple years I followed my passions for music and had a phenomenal time doing so. My initial intentions were heading me in a direction to work in Music Production but I realized there was a problem. I knew to many musicians that were at a point where they had no escape from life because what was once their escape was now their job. I did not want to lose that passion I have for music by making it my nine to five. So I started thinking about other life careers that I could do and still live a happy life. Another thing, I did not want a 5 year career I wanted a lifetime career. As time passed I became more and more interested in woodworking but more so for the fine woodworking. I did not want to be a Machinist I wanted to be a Craftsmen and that is what I started with. With that in mind I started searching for places to learn and acquire the skills to be a Craftsmen. To be honest it did not take me to long to find a suitable school. I have always wanted to visit British Columbia and so I quite literally typed "fine wood working school in British Columbia" (grammar and all) into Google. This is what came up, http://www.insidepassage.ca/news.htm. So I went for a visit and after some self debating I decided to go for it. The one thing that made me know that this was the school was just the few words "hand cut dovetails". As soon as I saw that I was, lack of better words, stoked because I had been wanting to learn how to do that. The plunge was then taken, semi head first with a touch of belly flop. I packed my things and headed out to school on the other side of the country. Everything I owned was on my body.
  I have been taking the course for the past couple months now and must say my mind has gone through a lot but a lot for the good. I am happy to say that I have a lifetime career.