# Tea Trolly - Finished at last - WIP pics added



## brianhabby (26 Jan 2007)

Hi there, I've finally completed the tea trolly I've been making for my mum, she is 85 years young and needed something sturdy because it will be doubling as a walker as well when she is using it. the one she has been using is made of metal and is just about on its last legs so this one comes along not a moment too soon. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, I hope you all like it too








I trust you will have some questions, if so fire away

regards

Brian


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## Adam (26 Jan 2007)

Great stuff. My question is did you take any work-in-progress pictures?

Adam


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## woodbloke (26 Jan 2007)

Can't see the pic - Rob


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## Anonymous (26 Jan 2007)

woodbloke":39aj80e4 said:


> Can't see the pic - Rob



Ditto


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## Philly (26 Jan 2007)

very nice, Brian, bet your Mum is over the moon with it!
Cheers
Philly


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## Adam (26 Jan 2007)

And some more details on your photographing/studio setup would be interesting.

Adam


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## wizer (26 Jan 2007)

yes the photography interests me too.

Also how did you shape the curves?

Looks very good, btw


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## George_N (26 Jan 2007)

woodbloke":66m02ndy said:


> Can't see the pic - Rob



I can't see the picture with my regular browser (Firefox) but I can with IE6. Nice trolley, by the way. My mum still uses the trolley I made for my Higher Woodwork project at school 35 years ago. I hope your mum gets many years of use and pleasure from your trolley.


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## woodbloke (26 Jan 2007)

Can see it now - looks good, also interested in the photographic techniques 'specially the background - Rob


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## Lord Nibbo (26 Jan 2007)

brianhabby":23rx7vnq said:


> Hi there, I've finally completed the tea trolly I've been making for my mum, she is 85 years young and needed something sturdy because it will be doubling as a walker as well when she is using it. the one she has been using is made of metal and is just about on its last legs so this one comes along not a moment too soon. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, I hope you all like it too
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Could not see the pic but right clicking over the little square then clicking "View Image" put it on the screen.  Very nice trolley


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## brianhabby (26 Jan 2007)

Work in progress pictures are on their way but I need to sort out this problem of people viewing the pictures. It didn't even load for me just now so I know there's a problem.

I used a site called *Up Load All You Can* but it is obviously having problems. I had some problems with viewing the WIP pics that I uploaded, so I don't want to post them until I know they will work okay.

I will try some other places to put the images, If anyone has got any recommendations I would be happy to receive them

regards

Brian


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## Alf (26 Jan 2007)

Looks great.


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## Paul Chapman (26 Jan 2007)

That looks very nice, Brian - bet your Mum will love it =D> 

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## brianhabby (26 Jan 2007)

I have just uploaded the above image to *Photobucket* and it now seems to download a lot better. Please let me know if it is better for those having problems previously and I'll use the same site for the WIP pictures.

regards

Brian


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## Evergreen (26 Jan 2007)

Brian

The trolley looks great. What wood is it, please?

Regards.


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## dedee (26 Jan 2007)

That does look good. And its carrying my kind of tea too.

Andy


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## brianhabby (26 Jan 2007)

Okay, here are the WIP pics.

First I made a sketch of what I wanted, like this:






This followed pretty closely the design of the existing one which has now finally collapsed (I sat on it…!!) :lol: :lol: 

Then I bought some mahogany






It cost me about £40 from some nice people on Ebay. The four pieces of 3” x 2” at the bottom of the stack were going to make the legs. I wanted to bend the tops of the legs to form support for the handle so I would have to cut the mahogany into thin strips, like this:






I bought a thin kerf blade from APTC for my table saw. I had planned to use my bandsaw to resaw the wood, but I was having problems with the blade wandering. I didn’t realise straight away but the thread on the tensioning bolt had stripped and it was therefore impossible to tension the blade properly, _perhaps this (and how I resolved the matter,) is a topic for another thread at some time._

I don’t know if you can make out from the picture above but I cut a total of 28 strips about ¼” by the 2” thickness of the wood. I jointed the edge and then placed this jointed edge against the rip fence on the saw while I made the cut, and then jointed the edge again before making the next cut on the table saw. I did this for all 28 pieces.

I planned to steam the wood because it was not going to bend without it. I’ve since learned that mahogany is not a good wood to steam bend (something to do with the grain being short and brittle I think) but I didn’t know this at the time so I built this:






I saw Norm Abram use something similar when he built his bentwood hat rack. I can’t remember where he got his steam from but I used a wall paper stripper and it worked really well.






I could fit seven pieces of the thin strips in the steamer which worked out fine because I was to use seven strips in the making of each leg. For the first leg I steamed the wood for two hours and when I bent it around the form, the piece on the inside of the curve split slightly. Consequently, when I did the other legs I steamed them for three hours and I didn’t have any further splitting problems. Mind you, you have to work pretty quickly bending this wood, I was only making a gentle curve but it was a struggle to get it bent before it cooled down. You have to make sure all the kit you need is ready and to hand before removing the wood from the steamer. After I had put it in the bending form it looked like this:






I made the form from a piece of ¾” ply and a couple of lumps of 2” x about 8” screwed from the underside. I fastened a piece of wood to the underside so that the whole thing could be clamped to the B&D Workmate. The main part was held in the form with wedges against some dowels in the base of the form. This was hot stuff!

You will notice on the straight bit where the clamps are used that one clamp is used to hold the pieces in line because the wood wanted to wander at this point. I was concerned about this wandering; I didn’t want the wander to still be there when I removed the pieces from the form. As it turned out all the legs turned out okay but I did have the same wandering problem with all the legs.

I left each leg in the form for a week to thoroughly dry out, I’m afraid I don’t have Norm’s luxury of a massive oven in the kitchen to dry the wood. A week in the bending form and then the glue up.

For the glue up, I made another form, this time just a piece of 2” x 8” with the appropriate curve cut at one end. The glue up also stayed in the form for a week. This allowed plenty of time for the glue to dry and also allowed extra time for the wood to dry, because it still felt slightly damp when removed from the bending form. For those who are interested, I used Titebond dark wood glue, with it being mahogany, and it did a good job. There were some minor issues with the joints not being perfect and every so slightly open, I put this down to the twist that I got in the wood when I bent it which prevented a perfect joint. This I would have to deal with later.

The glue up looked like this:






The legs looked a bit rough when removed from the forms as you can see from the next picture, so a bit of cleaning up was in order.






The next picture probably shows this better:






First thing to do with these was to joint one edge (for those hand tool aficionados here I apologise but I used my Axminster CT1502, since my hand planning skills are a little lacking). After jointing one edge I then trimmed them to just over final size on the table saw and then a couple of passes over the jointer and this part was finished.

It was now time to turn my attention to the rails that would go around the sides and support the trays. This was cut from some of the remaining wood from the original pile with a finished planed size of about ¾” by 1 ¾”. I then had this pile of wood ready for cutting M&T joints:






I cut the mortises using a hollow chisel mortiser before starting on the tenons. I haven’t actually made a mortise & tenon joint since I was in school and that is more years ago than I care to think about! The tenons were cut using the table saw for the shoulder cuts and my new tenoning jig from Rockler for the cheek cuts and finished off on the bandsaw. If you’ve ever watched Norm make mortise & tenons then you know exactly how mine were made – with one minor difference, a small cut-out for the trays.






You’ll notice that the corners have been rounded over and this was done with both the legs and the rails to soften them to the touch. You can also just about see on the photo above the hole that would receive a dowel to help hold the tenon in the mortise.

I used some of the off cuts from trimming the legs to make the dowels.






I drilled a 6mm hole in a piece of ¼” steel plate and used some pieces from the off cuts and hammered them through the hole. This made very nice 6mm dowels.






I tried to buy some ¾” mahogany dowel for the handles but was unable to find any so turned the handles on my small lathe attachment which uses an electric drill as a power source. It is okay for small jobs like this but not much use for large projects mainly because of the speed of my drill but also you simple can’t fit big things on it.

I still had to find something for the trays but was keen to do a dry fit at this stage. I assembled one end (two legs, two rails and a handle) and stood it on the floor and was well pleased that it stood up on its own with no support:






And no, it’s not leaning against my table saw…

Then another dry fit:






With all the M&T joints cut I went looking for something to use for the trays. I finished up using some pieces of MDF which I laminated on both sides with Formica. I used evilstik for gluing this on – what a pong..!!

I now had all this to put together:






Notice the corners of the trays cut out to fit around the legs.

And the final dry fit:






I had to drill 10mm holes in the bottom of the legs for the trolley wheel inserts:






I was a little concerned that, because the legs were a lamination, there would be a lot of pressure in use if the wheels hit something, maybe, despite the fantastic Titebond glue I had used, the lamination might separate. So I decided to make some brass pieces to fasten around the bottom of the legs. You can see a small rebate for the brass on the legs on the above photo. The brass started life as a letter flap from my local hardware store. First I cut four strips about ¾” in width.






Then I bent them around a small off cut:






And finished up with these:






I know this is probably a little belt & braces but they do look good:






The handle detail:






The corner:






As for finishing, the first thing I had to deal with was the slight gaps in the joints of the leg laminations. So I made some home made paste by mixing very fine mahogany sawdust made with my ROS with some of that Titebond dark wood glue and pushed it in the gaps. It worked great.

I did as much sanding as possible before assembly and after assembly I stained it with a mix of brown and red mahogany stain from Rustins. I then applied some of their grain filler, which I think is a bit pink so I darkened it with some of the stain. After a final sanding I applied another coat of stain and then finished with four coats of quick drying polyurethane varnish, the first coat having been thinned 50/50 with water.

I then took it to have its portrait taken (see next post)

Hope this post was not too long winded

Regards

Brian


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## brianhabby (26 Jan 2007)

Now for those people interested in the photographic techniques used on the original picture at the top of this post.

Well I happen to work in a photo processing lab attached to a photographic dealer with a well equipped studio at the rear, which I have access to. The background was a 12 foot white background roll and we used three lights, one softbox above the camera and two on the background.

I have to confess, it was not me but my work colleague, Philip Evans, who was responsible for the lighting, which I think you will agree works really well.

Camera was a Canon 350D set to 100 ISO and exposure was f16.

regards

Brian


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## Fecn (26 Jan 2007)

Superb work, and what a totally awesome write-up of the whole process.

Thank you very much for your time and effort with this post - You've made my evening more enjoyable and given me lots of ideas for the future.


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## MrJay (26 Jan 2007)

That's not tea.


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## wrightclan (27 Jan 2007)

Nice Work.  

Brad


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## Evergreen (29 Jan 2007)

Brian

Absolutely brilliant WIPs - as good as an online tutorial! Many thanks.

Regards.


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## Keefaz (29 Jan 2007)

Excellent. It looks like a lot of effort has gone into it.

Keith.


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## jim2007 (30 Jan 2007)

That's one of the best works in progress I've seen. Enough detail there to build my own. I like the steaming technique very much.

Jim


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## bobscarle (31 Jan 2007)

Brian

Thats a lovely trolly. The WIP pics are excellent. Bending wood laminations is something I have wanted to try for a while. Having seen your work, I might just give it a go.

Thanks for taking the time to share your project.

Bob


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## Chris Knight (31 Jan 2007)

It might be worth pointing out that laminations of around 3mm thick (an eighth of an inch) in most woods, can be cold laminated (depends on the radius of curvature but can be surprisingly tight) with no need for steaming. I do leave such stuff in the form for 24 hours to ensure that the glue has properly set (there is a lot of glue involved in laminating!)


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## RogerM (31 Jan 2007)

Wow! Yet another WIP thread that reads better, and gives more practical insight, than any book or magazine article I've ever read. Lovely project and great write-up. Many thanks for taking the time (which must have been considerable) to put this together.


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## gidon (31 Jan 2007)

Brian
Great stuff! Superb finish and excellent WIP pics.
Cheers
Gidon


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## brianhabby (2 Feb 2007)

I'd just like to thank everyone for your kind comments. I took the time to get the pictures right because I knew they are a requirement of this forum  

I have not been a member for very long _(September 2006)_ but I have gained an awful lot from being here, so I felt it only appropriate that I give a little back.

regards to all

Brian


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## lucky9cat (4 Feb 2007)

Great project and super write up and photos!

Did you plane both sides of the laminations before the glue up? I laminated some oak for the back slats of a Morris Chair and planed both as I was in no mood to take a risk. I didn't steam them as the diameter wasn't tight at 36 inches.

Nice Work

Ted


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## brianhabby (4 Feb 2007)

Hi Ted,

Yes I did plane both sides before gluing. I think the slight twisting I got was because of the type of wood (mahogany). I've since read that this is not a suitable wood for steaming, being short grained and brittle so it is beginning to make sense to me now.

I don't fully understand all the aspects of this steaming business, perhaps if I knew before I started that I wasn't supposed to steam bend mahogany, I might not have done so, but, hey - it worked! :lol: 

regards

Brian


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