18 August 2009

Bandsaw beckons?


The pic shows the plan for the new coffee table I'm making for the fossilised top that we bought in France last year. If you recall, the last futile effort was unceremouniously consigned to the bandsaw so after a break of a couple of months I've made a bit of progress on the second version.
It consists of four rectangular teak frames linked by a pair of 'crosses', one at the top and one at the base.
So far so good, except that all the dimensions of the fossil top are skewed...there's not one distance that's the same, which has the effect of making the construction of the two 'crosses' a tad more awkward than it might otherwise have been as all the angles are just over, or under 90deg. The lower construction is easier, as I've decided to make it out of a solid teak, but it's the top one that's causing some bother.

I'm going to do it by veneering some ply for one complete section across flats and carefully planing it in to fit (done by taking measurements and angles directly off the drawing) and then repeating for the two smaller bits, which will then be biscuited to the centre piece. The whole assembly will then be biscuited into each of the tops of the four rectangular frames.

I've always maintained that building something is as much an intellectual exercise as a practical one in that the maker has to really think their way through the project before a piece of wood has been cut or a plane iron honed...if not, then the bandsaw teeth beckon!

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