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Wooden automaton figure using a lathe.
Colwin Way takes the mechanism made by Richard Findley and adds his woodturner automaton...
13
Feb
Elegant wooden chair with carved details.
Colwin Way Turns a Traditional Chair from Ash As a professional woodturner, I find...
12
Feb
Man working vintage log splitting machine outdoors.
Wood, a material from trees, grown by the energy of the sun, is the beginning of...
11
Feb
Illustration of a traditional yurt with trees.
For centuries, the yurt has been the portable home of choice throughout central Asia....
10
Feb
Wooden bird sculpture flying elegantly
Peter Benson carves a large sea bird on the wing The wandering albatross and other...
10
Feb

Furniture & Cabinetmaking

Ornate wooden table leg with carved decor.

Bending Hardwood for a Table Apron

Dennis Zongker talks you through the steps for bending wood for curved furniture Furniture makers have used wood bending techniques for centuries producing astonishing curves and twists for furniture legs, edges and aprons. Having the ability to bend wood will open your mind to unlimited possibilities creating anything you can imagine. Gluing layers of hardwood together is called lamination, which, if done properly, can make an apron, leg or edge very strong leading to your project becoming a true, long lasting, heirloom quality piece of furniture. For cold bending hardwood you re-saw your stock into thin strips and plane it so the thickness is even across the laminates. The thickness of the strips depends on the radius of the curve. The tighter the radius, the thinner the strips. The other factor to also keep in mind is the amount of spring back you can tolerate after the glue-up. This is the

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Historical Furniture Finishes. Part 1

Yannick Chastang investigates 18th-century finishing techniques. Introduction The following two-part series examines the details of furniture finishes that were typically applied around the 18th century. Drawing on some of the most embellished and technical examples of furniture, our author details the choices available at the time, and how various products evolved to meet new demands and tastes in furniture finishes. He also expounds on the more practical use of such products, including appropriate applications, ingredients used in various finishes, optimal drying conditions, and useful techniques on how to apply such finishes. Roubo’s Revival While Roubo’s is the most complete treatise published during the 18th century, many of Roubo’s entries originate from other contemporary and older publications. Roubo was the son of a carpenter, and did not have first-hand experience of all the techniques and materials he described. The publication of the English translation of A.J. Roubo’s technical treatise on cabinetmaking

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Woodcarving

Wooden Green Man carving with leaves and berries.

Cherry Greenman

Duane Cartwright carves a fun cherry greenman The greenman as a carving subject is more popular now than ever, and in his many guises, it’s easy to see why. The greenman also has different meanings to different people and cultures around the world, but for me it’s how we put a face to nature; the fusion of man and nature. How we hold nature and its future in our hands, but also how we are entwined with it. For us woodcarvers, we are even more entwined as our chosen medium is wood/timber, and in carving a greenman we’re returning life to the wood. The other good thing about carving a greenman is it’s great practice for carving facial features, like the eyes and mouth, which can be challenging and take practice – even poorly carved facial features can sometimes work, and even add character to the greenman carving. For this

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Woodturning on a lathe with chisel in hand.

Natural Edge Work. Part 1

Richard Findley tackles natural edge work. What is natural edge work? Natural edge work, sometimes called live edge, refers to turning where the bark or the natural profile of the outer edge of the tree is visible on the finished item. The only natural edge work I’ve ever done is turning yew (Taxus baccata) mushrooms, leaving a ring of bark around the foot and edge of the cap, but I have never tried anything bigger. As I’m sure most readers will be aware, there are two ways of mounting any piece of timber on a lathe, either in a spindle type orientation, where the grain runs with the bed bars of the lathe, or cross grain, where the grain runs across the bed bars. In both cases, natural edge vessels can be turned. The editor challenged me to make something natural edged in both orientations. Challenge set, I went to

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Woodturning

Man woodworking wearing a protective helmet.

How Hazardous is Wood Dust?

Geoffrey Laycock looks at essential topics, myths and misunderstandings affecting the safety and health of woodturners The headline asks a question as to whether wood dust is hazardous. The answer is: Yes, it is. That said, when it comes to discussing wood dust, size matters. Dust is an aerosol of solid particles, mechanically produced, with individual particle diameters measurable from 0.1μm upwards. An aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles in a gas, in this case wood dust in air. For exposure assessment purposes, two size classifications – inhalable and respirable – are defined. Inhalable dust is small enough to enter the nose and mouth during breathing and respirable dust is that part of the inhalable dust which will penetrate down into the lungs, usually less than 10μm in size. How we consider dust hazards depends on whether we are in a work situation or a hobby one. At

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Woodturning on a lathe, creating wood shavings.

Tips on Woodturning

Kurt Hertzog talks us through what he calls ‘the biggest wins’… If you’ve been turning for any length of time, you’ve probably accumulated a large selection of tools. Always added with a perceived need in mind, the quantity of tools tends to outstrip our real needs and often, our tool storage space. Which tool you pick up to use does matter. You’ll select the type based on the cut to be performed and the size based on the project at hand. Avoiding the cheap joke, in my opinion, the biggest tool wins. The inherent advantages to the bigger tool are: more mass, which dampens vibration and reduces flexing; longer length improving resolution, mechanical advantage, grip/body contact options and cutting edge length with the versatility and enlarged ‘sweet spot’. All things considered, you’ll do well to reach for the biggest tool you can lay your hands on that will fit into

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Woodworking Crafts

Craftsman repairing a wooden chair with hammer.

Ladder Back Chair Restoration

Louise Biggs restores her client’s faith in her much-used family dining chairs. My client’s father was a cabinetmaker who many years ago made an oak dining table and six chairs. After decades of everyday use with his family, and now with his daughter, the chairs were in need of some restoration. Two chairs from the set were in a worse condition than the remaining four, so we decided to focus on these two and do the remaining chairs in pairs at a later time. Assessment When the seat rails are only a little loose, you can sometimes part the rush enough to knock a joint out and get some glue into it without removing the entire seat. As all the joints were loose it was decided to remove the seats and have them re-rushed in the same pattern. The downside is that there is no way to artificially colour rush;

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Wooden spice rack with various spices.

Redwood Spice Rack

In part one of a new project, Colwin Way makes a spice rack. As I’ve mentioned several times in previous projects, a lot of my inspiration comes from the people I visit or the people around me, and this month’s project is no exception. In 2001 I was very lucky to be invited down to Puy-Saint-Martin in southern France to demonstrate at a show organised by French woodturner Jean-Francois Escoulen. This was my first show in France and really the first time I was truly immersed in southern French culture, by which I mean stopping at 1pm for a three-hour lunch break in the full sun while tucking into paella served from the biggest paella dish I’d ever seen, plus being forced to take part in toasting the morning’s work with a glass of the local grape juice. Even though the demonstrating was hard and hot work, I still had

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Videos