Lots of Updates

Real life has been quite hectic these last few weeks, but I finally have a few things to show you.

First of all I bought this lovely antique chest of drawers and shelves for my workroom, I am really enjoying my new room and working in there. The shelves are typical of antique country furniture from the Cape Province in South Africa and made from indigenous Yellowwood.

This is the table that I taught at our Johannesburg club two weeks ago. It is a Sheraton style tilt-top table.

The original table that I copied is in the Metropolitan museum in New York, the table is made from Mopane wood and to give you an idea of size the top is 47mm by 33mm (1 7/8" by 1 5/16") big.

This table was the first piece of furniture that I made at our club when I joined in January of last year and the first time ever that I made cabriole legs. I never had time in class to do the molding for the table edge and I wasn't too sure how I wanted it to look either, so this week I took out my new cutters that I bought in NY and played a bit, I am quite pleased with the final result.

And then, I am still busy making Chippendale chairs, when I came back from Castine I found a big order from England for a set of six chairs that will grace a dining room in my inbox. With another six chairs still outstanding as well, I had to re-think about how I made the first few, as there was quite a few steps that caused me troubles first time round. The first thing that I did was to build two jigs for hollowing out the back splats, last time round I did it with a homemade attachment to my Dremel, although the results were fine, I just didn't enjoy the process at all.. My cutter isn't deep enough to do it in one cut, here you can see the front face of the splat being shaped only half way down, after this I lower the cutter a bit until I have gone the whole depth, something that I didn't think of doing first time round and the reason that I didn't build a jig then. This time round the brain cells worked a bit better ;-)

And here are six back splats with all the shaping done and all the holes have been sawed out by hand with a jewelers saw, all six the crest rails has also been shaped, when making sets of chairs it is important to do all the steps together while the machines are set up, you just never get the set-ups exactly the same again.

I refined the gluing jig as most of the joints are at an angle making accurate gluing difficult and last time round I had to unglue some joints and do them over as they slightly moved out of square.. I first cut out a raised piece to fit in between the back legs and glued pieces of wood on top of the insert to correctly position the back seat rail and stretcher. While I wait for glue to dry I always do some of the next steps, in this case shaping the back of the legs at the top where it is supposed to be nice and round, the left upper leg on the glued back on the left already has this done.

Showing the jig from the side.

Enjoy what is left of the week and hope you all have a fantastic weekend.
Elga

The Adventure Begins!

In less than four hours I will go to the airport for my trip to Amsterdam and Castine, Josje will meet me at the airport, what fun! I hope I see some of you at the Rheda show on Sunday. Here are a few photos of the last ten months work, what a learning curve this was. Enjoy!

The Sewing Tables

The Gothic Chippendale Chairs

Tilt and Turn Tables

Rhode island Easy Chairs

Have a great weekend
Elga

Tilt-top Table: Making the Table Top with a Drill Press

I have 6 days left before I start on my trip to the USA, so I am very pressed for time, here are a few photos, once I am back I will do a proper tutorial on how to make the tables.

I mounted the table top blanks on a scrap piece of wood with a hole drilled into the center to fit the pin on my drill press.

Dishing out the center, I start in the center and work outwards until the circle is as big as I want.

Cutting the table top free after the inside edge was rounded with a ball cutter.

I use grinding stones with sandpaper stuck to the bottom to sand the table tops by hand, there is quite a few marks left from the cutters that needs removing and the round shapes of the stones are perfect for fitting into the round edge.

The back of the table with the braces glued on, the braces have two holes drilled right through for tiny screws that holds the table top to the birdcage. My hubby made the spring loaded catch that locks the top into place for serving tea. The birdcage can turn 360 degrees around the table post.

View from the front, the table still needs oiling to finish it.

With one of the chairs that also still needs a few finishing touches.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Elga

Making Bird Cages....of a different kind

I started making the bird cages for the tilt and turn tables. The Mopane wood one is glued together and one can easily see why they called them bird cages back in the 18th century. The bird cage is made up of a bottom with a hole drilled right through to enable it to turn, 4 tiny spindles and a top with an inverted ball shaped hole. The table tops that I will make this week will rest on top of the cage and tilt forward.

I use a duplicator when I have to turn so many parts that needs to look the same, on the left you can see the brass template with the follower touching it. The follower guides the cutter, with things this small you have to prepare twice the amount of wood you need as they sometimes just suddenly snap off with the grain.

With two of the chairs to show the size of the table.

Have a great week
Elga

American Tilt and Turn Table

I have started to put the legs into the turned table post, I am using a dovetailed mortise and tenon for the joinery. You have to cut the dovetail into the post sideways with an inverted cone burr, if you come from the top you will just end up with a straight channel. But the Proxxon can't cut that in hardwood in one go, so I first cut a channel in the normal way little bits at a time with a slightly narrower cutter.

The leg is shaped at the ankle and it is hard to cut these very hard woods with a knife, so once again I made a jig to shape the leg, in the jig is one that still needs to be cut, next to it is a leg that has been cut. On the third leg the hard edges has been rounded with sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. And a fourth leg has been glued in to the table post. After I have cut the 3 grooves as explained above, I file the area where the leg is going to touch the turned post flat, only then do I cut the dovetail in the post with the burr. The dovetail on the leg starts of as a normal tenon cut too big and then hand filed to get the right angle to fit into the dovetail on the post. The slot that you see on the top of the post is for a key made of a flat piece of wood that will fit in the slot and prevent the bird cage from falling of when you turn the table-top, it works like a modern day lazy Susan.

And here is a finished African Blackwood table post with a chair that is finally glued together, the chair still needs arm rests.

Have a wonderful weekend
Elga

Lots of progress and some news

First off all I want to apologize for being so quiet on all your blogs, since 23 April my phone line has been crossed with someone else's and my number is not working at all including internet access. At the moment I am reliant on the bit of mobile data available to me which is rather expensive in SA, so I am really just using it for e-mails etc, but today I just decided I have to do a post. I have made so many phone calls to the two companies involved (I can phone, from the person that I am crossed with number, most of the fault reporting numbers are fortunately toll free) that I am really sick and tired of the whole thing, apparently the turn around time in fixing faults are 7 working days and we had two public holidays over the last two weeks as well, so I just hope that it will all be fixed early next week. Well, enough of that, now on to miniatures.

I am busy making the knee brackets for the wing chairs, the chair on the right already has them in place.

The Chippendale chairs still need the front stretcher, the chair on the left has it's side stretchers in place but not glued, I need to take the measurement for the front stretcher directly off the chair, so the rubber band is just there to hold everything together for now.

I have started work on my last commission for now, a tilt and turn table. The central posts have been turned and I am busy with the three legs for each table, as you can see I am using jigs and pin-routing to make the little legs, you can see the original table that I am copying here.

I only have 4 weeks left to finish all my current commissions, today in exactly 4 weeks I will arrive in Amsterdam for 3 days of fun before I go on to the USA to attend Guild School at Castine. On Sunday 3 June I will go to the 1zu12 fair in Rheda, Germany with my friend and host Elly, I am really looking forward to it, as it will be my first international fair ever. And on Monday Elly will take me to visit Josje and see all her wonderful miniatures. Now don't you think I am in for a real treat?!?! And from Amsterdam I am going to New York where I will meet up with one of  IGMA's scholarship students, Mavis from New Zealand that I met on the Yahoo Petitpoimter group for 3 days of fun exploring NY before we go to Castine, so much to look forward too :-)

Have a wonderful weekend
Elga

Update: Good news, my phone line has just been fixed, now I have a lot of catching up to do on reading all your blog posts of the last 2 weeks.