A Little Side Project

Since the last blog entry about 3 weeks ago I have been busy but it sure doesn't look like it from what I have to show for it. My wife is setting up her quilt studio in the front parlor of our old house.Well after not being used for anything other than storage she laid claim to it and is moving out of her "Sewing  Hole", her  former work space in another room also in our house.

Her design wall is a 8'X11' wall completely covered in fabric. I needed to make the frames that would hold the foam board that she covered with  fabric, mount these along with a full sheet of peg board to another wall and mount the track lighting around the room. With that done I was ask very nicely to build her a sewing table that was a little more comfortable to sew on than the work table she presently uses. She wanted it to be 24"X48"X30" high with 16" deep shelves on one side and an inset in the table so her machine would sit flush with the table.

The whole thing was made from a single sheet of 1/2" plywood a couple of cherry 4x4's for the legs and a small piece a cherry to hide the poplar supports holding the machine. It was held together with pocket screw joinery and only took a day to build from start to finish but I was informed that it still needs a couple of wings on the left side and back that can fold out when she is working on a larger project. There isn't any finish on it because I'm not sure if its getting painted or not.

The last of the marquetry on the blanket chest is almost done and I made a series butterflies to chose from. Not quit sure which ones I'll use yet. I might do a few more or just chose from these one's below.

Once I was back in the shop actually cutting wood I decided to make two chest, one made from oak and another from butternut. The oak will get ebonized and I chose the butternut because it was a good color match with the eucalyptus. I'm not sure I'll use the butternut with the eucalyptus because I saw some  furniture made from eucalyptus that had legs and rails that were ebonized and it looked great but that's a decision  for another day . 

The butternut was cut from some boards I have that are 18'' wide and 16' long that have been sitting in my garage for years. I wanted to use them as wide boards but I never found the right project so I cut one up for this one.

butternut boards

As of today I rough milled all the parts, stickerd them for a few days, and milled them closer to final dimension. It's almost hard to believe how much wood will move after it is cut up from a large board to smaller pieces

milled oak parts

milled butternut parts

The last month or so I had few weeks off from work and could work on this more than just weekends but now I'm back to work and I will probably be a weekend warrior again with a growing list of other projects that need done around the house but I think I'm getting close to actually starting to build theses chest's.I don't want to think about the seven cords of wood that need cut for next year and the metal roof that needs put on the garage after I fix the rotted wood on the foundation making the whole side of garage sag. I love spring but it always brings chores that get in the way of my woodworking!