Post a photo of the last thing you made

[rob1693]

Good point … his tool marks look much better than mine though

I'm no robert thompson, but here's something I left the tool marks in a present I made this was coupled with some walnut utensils

 

[Jameshow]

1.6m workbench for one of our men's shed chaps
C24 timber which was surprisingly decent worth it over c16 tbh.

 

[Eshmiel]

If you have an interest in Robert Thompson you will probably enjoy this.



The workshop is a few villages away from where I live and you can watch them at work from a viewing platform using pretty much the same methods. I've not seen anyone wearing a tie or smoking a pipe though!

A good vid! Thank you.

The adzing - got to be a dangerous thing to learn, eh? That razor-sharp blade swinging between one's ankles; one moment's inattention; a scream, hop and topple! Whitened faces and technicolour yawns all 'round.

Once upon a time, a long time ago and far away, I spent time in the South Cumbria woods learning various coppice work things in the company of various other novices. Stool making was one activity and this involved adzing the seats as The Mouseman workers adze everything. Seeing as how no one wants one leg a foot shorter than the other (geddit) we were all made to wear leggings made of old sacks stuffed with straw. Myself I suspected that these were but cosmetic, as the adze seemed likely to laugh in the face of a bit of straw as it headed for an ankle or even a whole shin.

Luckily everyone was careful. I had me camera at the ready in case they weren't but, as you can see, no Big Bandages were needed.

 

[HamsterJam]

Have you ever heard of a captain's table? No, neither had I.

View attachment 197307

This is the underside, but it is an oval coffee table sized table where all 4 sides fold up into a tray so it can be quickly carried away. Note on the right hand side, I believe at some point the side was turned over, as there are those two small brass hinge supports (which became a small issue later). The only examples of this sort of table I could see online were for sale for around £2,000.

So a client wanted a base made for it, but crucially it could not be fixed to the table as the whole point is that it can be lifted away, so with nothing to refer to and no previous examples to look at, away we go!

View attachment 197309

I had recently bought some lengths of recycled oak skirting board/architrave, which I felt would be perfect for the rail, so I cut to length, sanded and (after this photo, obviously) mitred. Because of the tables framing, I had to cut dados at each end and in the middle of the side pieces, and very small dados in one of the end pieces to accommodate the brass hinge supports as well.

Once this was all done it was almost possible to pick up the table top by the rail alone, as the fit was nice and tight.

View attachment 197311

The legs were from another piece of oak I had to hand, this is at dry fit stage. The two legs that were at the hinge support end had to have a small piece taken away to allow for the hinge support to go fractionally beneath them.
I decided that I didn't want any screws etc, so used 4 dowels per leg to fix them to the frame.

View attachment 197313

Staining came next, and i got really close to the original colour with a blend of these two stains, as individually none of my stains (I have quite a few) were close enough. It was important to the client, and to me, that the frame looked the same age as the table top so once applied, I wiped off as much stain as possible to give a aged patina look to it all. I'm very happy with the final result of the staining.

View attachment 197314

So here it is, almost finished. Feet to be added, a bit of buffing of the legs (and dusting of the table top) and finally, 50 years after my client's mum bought the table top at auction, it becomes a very interesting and useable coffee table.

Nice work. As others have said, not dissimilar to a butlers table where the legs would usually be a folding design, allowing the already laid-out table to be easily transported and quickly deployed in a random location.

 

[BCS1980UK]

I am building drawer inserts to the Ikea carts that I have on my workshop and wanted to find ways to get my two-year old twin daughters involved.
So, we just had an amazing father-daughters morning decorating drawer fronts: