Sculpture work- Moai

I've had this chunk of wood sitting outside the house for about a year now. I walked past it every day coming and going from the house, and it always bugged me that I hadn't done anything with it. I don't know if I was watching Discovery Channel or something, but I saw an image of the stone head carvings on Easter Island off the coast of Chile, and that image linked itself in my brain to this round chunk of pine. That was 2 months ago.
Since then, every time I walked past this piece of wood, I felt a presence of a face wanting to come out. It was kind of erie. So yesterday, I took the plunge. I hefted it onto my shoulder and packed it on back to the shop. I still had a temporary pallet/table sitting outside, and knowing I was about to make a real big mess, decided this was where the action was going to happen.

I started with a few lines drawn with a permanent marker, then just jumped in with my angle grinder.

 

 

 The face, really starting to take shape.

 Fine tuning his features. Still some work to do.

 

 

 Remember the "My Little Buddy" commercials from the 80's? Me and my new pal.

The blade on the angle grinder is a Lancelot blade- two disks with a slot for holding a chainsaw chain, and makes short work of rough carving. (Thanks for the tip Uncle Ron!)

Did the whole carving with this tool- no sanding, no chiseling, just fired up the grinder and let 'er rip! 

 

The completed Moai head sculpture in his new home, keeping watch near my front door. I plan on painting the eyes like they do on the real ones, just to creep out the neighbors a little more.

 

A little tid bit on the original sculptures- They're found on Easter Island, off the coast of Chile. There's not a lot known of these guys, and were originally thought to be just head sculptures. When they started excavating them, they were found to be whole body sculptures, the rest was just buried underground! The tallest so far is 33 feet high, weighing in at 82 tons. They're found all over the perimeter of the island, keeping watch. (Thanks, Wiki.)



Copper work

I finally broke down and bought new copper for the copper end tables I recieved an order for 2 years ago. I was REALLY trying hard to find reclaimed copper, like I used in the barnwood/copper coffee table (find it here: barnwood-coffee-table.html) I guess I'll have to settle with the satisfaction that these were remnants of other people's orders... but they still cost an arm and a leg!

Brand-spankin-new copper w/ a vinyl layer protection.

With vinyl layer removed, ready for the heat.

 

 



First sheet under the torch.

 

 

 



 No crazy photoshop, no altered colors. This is seriously how they look when the sheets are cooloing.





  A little magic tarnish coating for splash effects.

Apply ball peen hammer,then repeat... around 300 times...

 

 

 Scuff sanding the high spots with some 220 sandpaper to reveal the ridges on the sheet.

 

 

...Then polishing off the scratches with some synthetic steel wool.

 

 

The hammered texture leaves all the color in the depressions, while the high spots create a series of polished ridges for a dramatic contrast.

All the sheets, lined up. Looks pretty cool.

 

 These are going to look SWEET in the end tables I'm making for them. More on that later...

Norm Abrams Style Router Table

A few years ago, I started construction on a router table for my shop, modeled after the one built by Norm Abrams on the TV series New Yankee Workshop. The plans are available for purchase, but I wanted to see what I could come up with on my own.
The design calls for the whole thing to be connected to dust collection, which is a big plus. Anyone who's ever spent much time with a router can tell you that they make A LOT of dust. Seriously.
 I finished building the cabinet three years ago, figuring that when I got time, I'd complete the face frames, drawers, handles, and main compartment door.

 So this is how I've been using it ever since- and even without a main door, dust collection still works fairly well.

 

 sizing up the drawers

 

Cutting the slot for the drawer bottom on one of the drawer pieces. Got a little chewed up...

 

...and here's why. The opening for the router bit on the table makes it unsafe for cutting small pieces. They have a tendency to fall into the gap- super dangerous to anyone who likes having all their fingers.

   

The solution was to take the pieces over to the table saw and make a series of saw kerf cuts just deep and wide enough to accept the drawer bottom.

 

Here's the not yet finished product- stack of drawers ready for test fitting.

 

Obviously I only did the top six drawers here- as seen in their new homes here. I didn't want to build the other drawers until I had the face frame on- (the face frame is what covers up the plywood cabinet carcass- look at your cabinets in your kitchen and you'll know what I mean: it's the "pretty" face of wood you see that's not a drawer.)

 

Walnut boards waiting to become face frames. Quivering with excitement. I wanted dark walnut as the backdrop to create a little contrast with the lighter maple drawer fronts I was planning on installing.

 

 Here, I'm using a specialty tool for joining cabinet face frame members, called a Kreg Jig- it drills a diagonal hole in the end of one piece, than you use a special screw to attach it to the joining member. I bought this jig 2 years ago just for this purpose... and immediately screwed it up. So I ditched the idea and went right to nailing the face frames on through the face of the pieces...

...and here's the end result of face frames going on. Even without finish, it really cleans up the look of the cabinet.

 

Next was to mill some walnut for the main compartment door closure. I wanted to do a mortise and tenon style connection- these are the tenons (although I think REAL cabinet builders have an exact name for this style of joint.) In the next picture, these are the pieces holding in the Plexiglas window right in the center of the cabinet.

 

So I missed a few photos of making the drawer fronts and fitting them to the drawers. Oops. Sounds easy, but slightly more complicated in reality. Here they are halfway installed. Did the easy ones first, since they were all the same size.

 

 

Closeup, right before I called it a night. I love the way the soft maple has this great grain coloration. Most furniture builders would bypass it because of uniformity issues- but I take the other approach and try to make it a highlight.

 

 

I really didn't want to use some boring store bought handles for the larger drawers, so I used some of the leftovers from the drawer front stock. I wanted to keep with the characteristics of the wavy grain, so I went over to the band saw to rough out these handles...

 

 

 ...and then over to the spindle sander to round out the curves.

Made my own maple spacers...

Centered the handles, drilled some holes...

 

...and voila!

 

 

I love how organic the shape is- it just feels good to grab a handle that's out of the ordinary! One of my favorite parts is the character in this top left drawer front.

 

 This is as much of an action shot as you can get with a cabinet!

All it needs now is a few coats of finish- but maybe in another three years I'll get back around to it.

And, if you haven't figured it out from my explanation yet- there's a router mounted upside down in the center portion of the cabinet (with the Plexiglas window) You can see the little cream colored  router bit sticking up through the hole in the top.

2 main advantages of this setup- the dust collection/downdraft action keeps the worktop clean (not to mention the shop, and my lungs!) and it's much safer and consistent for running long material through when you need to put an edge on a board.

 

 

Case in point. I was asked to profile the edge of this oak board for a chair rail over at Rockin' Dave's Bagels here in Bend. (If you're in the area, I highly recommend checking it out! BTW, happy birthday Dave!!)

To cut the profile with a router would have been fairly precarious- trying to balance a wide router on a narrow and long board like this isn't the best way to go. So I just chucked the cove bit in the router table, hooked up dust collection, and fired it up. Easy Cheesy! A little sanding, and it was done.

 

Fire Department Sand Table, Part 3, Metalwork and Finishing Touches

Okey doke. The last post in part 2 I did trim work, filled nail holes, burnt the banana bread, broke my tent canopy, and prepped for the home stretch toward finishing the sand table for the fire department.

Here's the wrap up of the project, with some metal work, finishing touches, and killer accents.

Captain Willis, from Sunriver Fire Department, setting up to weld the carying handles in his new shop, just down the road from mine.

Not a bad pic for looking the other way while I took it!

Meeeeanwhile, I was playing with the cutting torch, working on the other set of brackets for the handle on the opposite side.

I heated the brackets with the cutting torch until glowing red hot on the outer edge.

Once the metal was hot enough to melt through the floorboards...

...I smashed it up with a ball peen hammer to give it a hand forged look. Then I'd move on the the next edge and do the same.

Once Cpt Willis had them all welded up, I took the angle grinder to them to clean up the welds before priming and painting.

Meanwhile, back at the bat cave, this is what two weeks of long days will do to your workbenches if you don't make time to clean up after yourself. What a pigsty!

Late last night, on a buddy's suggestion, I decided to embed a couple of the department's challenge coins in the back end of the sand table. When I had an issue with epoxy setting too fast on the second one, I had to quickly drill it and hammer it out. My buddy Nick saved the day when he mixed up some magic caustic chemicals and dissolved the setting epoxy off the coin. He probably now has cancer, but at tleast he got the epoxy off!

Because of the hasty coin removal, the setting for the coin was slightly hacked up. I thought of heading to the hardware store to find a brass ring or something, but then came up with the idea of using some of the same walnut to match the accent trim to make my own.

To make these trim rings, my roommate Logan came up w the idea of using the drill press. I first used a forstner bid to hog out the middle, then keeping the stock in the same position, changed out the forstner bit for a hole drill to cut the outside of the ring. I then pried out the wood from the hole bit, hand sanded it to round it over, and glued them in place.

30 minutes later, I removed the weights that were holding them down, and threw on a couple coats of spray finish. Still wet in these pictures. (The camera makes it look like they're lop sided, but it's just an illusion. They came out perfect!)

Finished product, just delivered this morning! I have the trap door pulled out here for the photo. This is made this way so it can be joined with other training tables to incorporate an unrban environment or something similar, while still allowing the option of closing it for transport.

The "sand" is actually ground pummice. It's much lighter, a little cleaner, easier to shape, and looks pretty cool to boot.

I really dig the way the handles turned out. Cpt Willis had a hard time welding the thin handle bar stock to the heavy steel brackets without overheating them, while trying to get good penetration. Next time, I'll use heavier guage steel for the handles.

Found these finial end caps that worked out great!

The contrasting walnut trim really makes it "pop!"

Love the look of dovetails!

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