Friday, March 28, 2014

Barnsley glue up

After approximately a week of making mortises and tenons, I was finally ready for gluing up the lower frame of the Barnsley Hayrake table that I am making.

I accidentally turned one end upside down, but luckily the joints were OK, I guess that I managed to execute the joints rather precisely since I was able to get by with this small stunt.

Large complex flue ups tend to scare me a little. And this one even featured odd angles that couldn't be pressed with the use of a clamp. In theory I should have made a dry assembly first, but I haven't got any drawbore pins, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

I made the pegs out of some old oak that I have lying around. The wedges for the tenons were also made out of oak. I like the contrast of the darker oak compared to the reddish larch.

The next thing to do is to make a chamfer on all the straight parts of the frame and on the legs.
In addition to this, the legs need to have a groove cut in the upper end for receiving the stiffener for the tabletop.

Laying out the parts before the glue up.

The frame glued up, 

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Finally back in the workshop

After a stressful period at sea, I made it home a little more than a week ago. I had 3.5 great days at home until I unexpectedly received an SMS with a hotel booking in Norway..
It seemed no one at the company had bothered to tell me that I had been booked for a 5 day course in Dynamic Positioning system maintenance in Norway! So I had to spend more time away from my family just after getting home. The worst thing is that the course wasn't very good and should only have lasted 2 or three days at the most. So all in all, a sad waste of time.

Today we had Asgers class mates over for a late celebration of his birthday, this involved driving various vehicles ranging from a garden tractor to a motorcycle with a sidecar. All the kids liked it and had a great time. After the supper I was able to make it into the workshop to finally continue my build of the Barnsley Hayrake table.

I made a mortise for the two arms of the central lower stretcher. And a mortise and tenon for the cross piece at the end of the aforementioned stretcher. I had almost one and a half hours out there, and it almost recharged my internal batteries. Woodworking is a great stress reliever to me.

Tomorrow I hope to continue and maybe even finish one end of the lower stretcher.

I just stumbled over this old picture of my daughter Laura and our old dog.

The fruits of a nice evening in the workshop.