The trickiest job.....ever

[mailee]

Well I have been thinking long and hard over this one and have come to the conclusion that my worst project was an arched top pergola I built about ten years ago. I got myself really confused over all the angles for the arch to start with. It is at times like this when Sketchup would have come in handy. Not only was the top arched at both ends but it was also made up of a lattice of slats too! (I don't do things by halfs) Anyway I eventually got it finished and it didn't look too bad although I didn't mention the gaps that I had to shim up to the customer. :wink: As they say we all learn by our mistakes and I cetainly did on that one. Morel is never make an arched top pergola again. :lol: Of course I didn't have half of the machines I do today so I have a good excuse.

 

[woodbloke]

This is a job that was done for a very well known pop duo (see the title of the post) and was the mother of all breakfast bars. This was the first job I started for my boss who had a 'shop in Wincanton; I walked in on the Monday morning and he said to be ....'there's the job...there's the veneer.....get on with it', all heart was Paul. The mdf core had been prepared by someone else and I had to veneer and lip it. Trouble is, the job was 8m long....yup, thats 26 feet :shock: :shock: about a metre wide, 60mm thick and curved like a banana, tapering to about 500mm at the narrow end. The veneers (constructional maple) had to be laid in the same shape as the top, so each piece (about 2m x 100mm) had to be cut on a curve and laid individually...so once one piece was stuck the next piece had to be fitted exactly to it down a 2m curved length...think about it. In addition, the veneers were staggered (brick wall effect) which made it more interesting :roll: . The workshop was in the form of a 'U' shape around a court yard, with a double door at the bottom left hand corner, the monster was laid out across the bottom of the 'U' on about 4 benches. The heated veneer press was on the opposite side of the yard to the door with the narrow end of the platens facing the yard. To get the job into the press each time a hole had to firstly be knocked into the wall opposite the press, then 8 :shock: of us would lift the job, through the double doors, out into the yard, poke it through the hole in the wall and into the press. When the job was finally veneered, lipped and sanded it went of to be sprayed...that's another story.
It was eventually installed in the apartment in London, (which happened to be a 6th floor penthouse suite) by closing the road and using a high lift crane to drop this thing in through a skylight in the roof. I didn't do the fit as I was by then onto my next delightful job, but I was very glad to see the back of it - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Blimey, Rob :shock: :shock: it's stories like that which make me glad I never did woodworking for a living. What is it they say - there are no problems, only insurmountable challenges :wink:

Cheers

Paul