Here is one to test your memory....

[thecoder]

What was the very first piece/project you did and what did you learn from making it....pics would be great if possible....I cant start the thread off unless I include the benches I built due to the fact I spend more time building my wshop than actual woodwork,plus everytime I venture in there the Mrs finds me a domestic DIY job to do

I do intend to start a project this week Honest !

Dave

 

[condeesteso]

sorry Dave, pics would be impossible, it was before cameras. But it was a small side table, oak, one drawer, slim legs. The drawer was dovetailed of course, the top buttoned on, I designed and carved the 2 knobs, it was fumed (ammonia exposure) and my old teacher Ernest Saunders (RIP) set me on the right way. Turned out Mr Saunders was previously employed at Robert Thomson's, Kilburn, Yorks (known better perhaps as the 'mouse-man'). He got me an invitation to become an apprentice there but I didn't fancy being a late teen bloke living in a village in north Yorks.
With hindsight who knows... but I owe a lot to Mr Saunders. He was a real gem and an inspiration. As for the table, swapped it with a neighbour for a carved Indian side table years later, under the influence of neighbour's home-brew.
For the record, I owe a lot of what I think about working wood, and making furniture, to Ernest. Still have the Indian table, and Ernest's inspiration. That'll do, and in an oblique way, that is what I learned from it.

 

[thecoder]

sorry Dave, pics would be impossible, it was before cameras. But it was a small side table, oak, one drawer, slim legs. The drawer was dovetailed of course, the top buttoned on, I designed and carved the 2 knobs, it was fumed (ammonia exposure) and my old teacher Ernest Saunders (RIP) set me on the right way. Turned out Mr Saunders was previously employed at Robert Thomson's, Kilburn, Yorks (known better perhaps as the 'mouse-man'). He got me an invitation to become an apprentice there but I didn't fancy being a late teen bloke living in a village in north Yorks.
With hindsight who knows... but I owe a lot to Mr Saunders. He was a real gem and an inspiration. As for the table, swapped it with a neighbour for a carved Indian side table years later, under the influence of neighbour's home-brew.
For the record, I owe a lot of what I think about working wood, and making furniture, to Ernest. Still have the Indian table, and Ernest's inspiration. That'll do, and in an oblique way, that is what I learned from it.

Thats a fascinating story...and being taught by someone with such a woodworking pedigree..I would love to have seen that first table of yours....I used to drive through Kilburn every week years ago..the mouseman is known all over the world...

Thank you for sharing that story with us..

Kind regards

Dave

 

[thecoder]

sorry Dave, pics would be impossible, it was before cameras. But it was a small side table, oak, one drawer, slim legs. The drawer was dovetailed of course, the top buttoned on, I designed and carved the 2 knobs, it was fumed (ammonia exposure) and my old teacher Ernest Saunders (RIP) set me on the right way. Turned out Mr Saunders was previously employed at Robert Thomson's, Kilburn, Yorks (known better perhaps as the 'mouse-man'). He got me an invitation to become an apprentice there but I didn't fancy being a late teen bloke living in a village in north Yorks.
With hindsight who knows... but I owe a lot to Mr Saunders. He was a real gem and an inspiration. As for the table, swapped it with a neighbour for a carved Indian side table years later, under the influence of neighbour's home-brew.
For the record, I owe a lot of what I think about working wood, and making furniture, to Ernest. Still have the Indian table, and Ernest's inspiration. That'll do, and in an oblique way, that is what I learned from it.

Thats a fascinating story...and being taught by someone with such a woodworking pedigree..I would love to have seen that first table of yours....I used to drive through Kilburn every week years ago..the mouseman is known all over the world...

Thank you for sharing that story with us..

Kind regards

Dave

Just one newby daft question if I may ...what is "Fumed" ?

D

 

[condeesteso]

Hi Dave - it's not daft at all, as it is quite out of vogue these days. Fumed oak is a treatment where you close the piece in a 'tent' with exposure to ammonia fumes. The ammonia fumes react with the native acids in the wood and the result is a darker, rather 'smokey' colour to the oak. It was fairly common years ago, but has fallen from grace... due a resurgence maybe? but it's dirty, nasty fumes, not very eco.... Also if you try it, avoid sapwood as it fails to react and the piece ends up badly patchy. But if you do want to try it, Jim here has a big can of 80% ammonia... do NOT ask me why

 

[Benchwayze]

I seem to recall being given a piece of 2 x 2 deal, and a piece of 1/2" dowel.
Along with the rest of the class I learned to plane square, (Well, tried) cut to length, cut a housing, use a brace and bit at an angle, (That bit was easy!) and shape a piece of timber to a point. All to make a boat!

Happy Days.

John

 

[woodbloke]

Apart from school woodwork (which most of us will have been fortunate to do {or not, as the case may be}) the first job I ever did was to fit a loudspeaker in my first motor. This entailed cutting an oval out of a lump of ply and then shoe horning it into the glove box area on the dash...the motor? A Standard 10 and if you remember those ... - Rob

 

[Rob Platt]

A pair of bookends that I made for my mum 50+ years ago. As far as I`m aware my sister still has them. I still have the hand drill and the mallet my mum bought me, the mallet still my weapon of choice on the bench.
What did it teach me? That the search for perfection is unending.
all the best
rob

 

[thecoder]

I guess if we are going back to school days my worst memories of woodwork were a woodwork teacher who took a strange pleasure in standing on your feet with his size 11 brogues and lifting you up by your hair and showing the class your failed attempts at dovetail joints...mmmm could be why I have not touched a woodwork tool for nearly 40 years :shock:


But it was a particularly rough school ! I hated woodwork with a passion lol how things change...hopefuly teaching methods have changed as well

Dave

 

[thecoder]

A pair of bookends that I made for my mum 50+ years ago. As far as I`m aware my sister still has them. I still have the hand drill and the mallet my mum bought me, the mallet still my weapon of choice on the bench.
What did it teach me? That the search for perfection is unending.
all the best
rob

I wonder how much of this mass produced rubbish will be around in 5O years....not a lot I guess....

Some great stories coming forward thanks chaps......wonder if any of the newer recruits like myself have any pics ?

Dave

 

[woodbloke]

I wonder how much of this mass produced rubbish will be around in 5O years....not a lot I guess....

Dave

An interesting question and one I've often pondered. I have the same sort of feeling as well when I see some of the tat that outlets such as Ikea (not all tat mind) Argos and the like (again, some of the solid pine stuff is fair to middling) churn out. Speaking to colleagues at work, some of them fill their entire houses with stuff from Ikea, which I think at the cheaper end anyway, isn't meant to last all that long. It's a real education when I go down to the tip to see what sort of furniture is being binned...mostly chipboard - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

What frightens me is the cost of those sheets of 'laminated' pine, compared to the cost of the stuff that is made from this material, obtainable in places such as IKEA.

The raw boards are way overpriced. I managed to get a few on offer, because of slight damage, and my daughter got rid of a wardrobe that was made of this stuff. So I have enough for some utility cupboards in my shop. But I shudder to think what I would have to fork out if I bought the stuff at proper retail price.

I would still like to think my cupboards will outlive me mind!

John

 

[woodbloke]

What frightens me is the cost of those sheets of 'laminated' pine, compared to the cost of the stuff that is made from this material, obtainable in places such as IKEA.

The raw boards are way overpriced.
John

They are a bit steep John and I usually have to take a deep breath and close my eyes when I hand over SWIMBO's cc :-" at the till. That said, I've made some stuff from those laminated boards and haven't run into too much bother. It's a quick way of banging out a half-respectable job without going through all the faff of preparing individual pieces of material. ROS's rule btw with this stuff - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

Indeed Rob. Although I prefer cash . (Not that I don't trust the card reader at my wood-store!)

I am making a 'Sundries Cupboard' for my painting room. (Can't call it a studio!) I am using some of that pine I managed to salvage from a skip. I am photographing as I go BTW, and hope to post a WIP.

As soon as my swollen knee subsides, I can get on with it!

John (hammer)

 

[greggy]

dave, i made a small footstool for my mum in mahogany about 40yrs ago.
it cost me 6 shillings for the wood and my dad still has it.
the top lifts up so he uses it for magazines etc. and it still looks like new even today. i was 14 or 15 at the time.

 

[Shultzy]

Made in 1973, from a picture in a home catalogue (GUS).

The top is 4ft x 2ft, 3/8" (10mm) smoked plate glass with all edges rounded - £16
Frame is mahogany faced chipboard fixed with dowels - £9
Easy-glide castors - £1

Total - £26, half the cost of the item in the catalogue.

Made with a saw and dowelling pins.

 

[yetloh]

If I can bend the subject matter just a little to my first ”proper” project it contains a useful lesson. It was a coffee table in brown oak made about 14 years ago on a five day course at West Dean. The workshop is open from 7.00 am to 10.00 pm, and most students (including me) are there before breakfast and finish at 10.00 so as to maximise progress and learning. The upshot of all this is that by the last day you are feeling pretty knackered.

Come the last day, which finishes at 3.30, most students are in headless chicken mode, desperately trying to get as far as they can while they still have access to the tutor. It was after lunch and I was doing OK, the frame was glued up, the top sanded ready to receive some finish and buttons for fixing the top made. “What next?”, I asked the tutor. “Place the table top on the bench, fit the buttons in their mortices in the rails, invert the frame and position it on the table top, put the screws in the buttons and then give them a good whack with a hammer to mark the positions for the pilot holes in the top.” he said. Simple, just time to do that before packing up my gear and heading home. I did as he said, then removed the frame and put it aside. On turning back to look at the positions for the pilot holes I suddenly had that horrible sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach and a feeling of utter devastation in my head. No doubt you have guessed it by now; the table top was face up, so I had eight deep screw point holes in my lovingly prepared table top. What is worse, the intended underside of the top had an effing great multi hole knot in it.

There was nothing for it but to pack up and head rather disconsolately home. The lesson? Quit while you are ahead when you are tired.

The story does, however have a happy ending. The screw holes could not be invisibly repaired, at least, not by me, but the knot holes could. Talking to the tutor on the phone a couple of days later, he suggested that I make some brown oak sticks and shape the ends of them to fit the holes in the knot, glue them in with hide glue and then flush them off when the glue was set. He assured me that the end grain plugs would be all but invisible when finished. After a couple of hours work it was clear he was dead right and I actually prefer the top with the knot to the plainer side I had originally intended.

Here is a pic of the finished table. It is not a piece I am proud of now because, as a design, it has some flaws which spoil it aesthetically from some angles, but it taught me some valuable lessons so I have some affection for it despite its flaws.

Jim