It was a late Friday afternoon when the driver stepped down from his lorry to deliver oak to the workshop storage sheds. I was in the workshop when he came and heard him call to George at the workbench. Do you want some cherry logs, George? George quickly nodded his yes and said, Come on,…
Read the full post Mallet Memoir & Me and George on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Who doesn’t have a hodgepodge of wood species sitting around their shop? For certain I do, and sometimes I wish I could swap one piece for another to create a project. In reality, we already mix species in a number of our projects anyways, so why should this one be any different?
Sure continuity is important, but sometimes we can make allowances and just work with what we have. In this situation, the combination of a beautiful, highly-figured tiger maple top combined with the more utilitarian knotty pine rails and poplar legs come together for a great piece of simple furniture that gets used everyday and no one seems to notice (probably because of all the clothes thrown on top of it more than likely…)
This version of a bed bench is a super simple design not only in materials used, but with joinery and “details.” All three components are joined together using a modified butt joint (pocket holes) and the “decorative angles” for the rails and legs are laid out using the most basic of math (if you can even call it that.)
I promised you ten projects for free during the pandemic and I am ploughing through them full steam. It’s been DIY for me all the way except for the edits, which Natalie did, working from home. She made everything come together except any out-of-focus points which even she couldn’t handle. Oh well! I’ll do better!…
Read the full post #1/10 Lockdown Videos on Paul Sellers' Blog.
I think it was the most beautiful treasure to me, when George left and went to Loughborough Teacher Training College but handed me a small package. His ambition to teach suddenly had legs and off he went aboard a train and it was my last ever sight of him. There was a sadness to it,…
Read the full post George’s Gift on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Show notes coming soon….
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Grieving is that truly unique period of readjustment where healing takes place between once having someone or something we valued greatly and then not having what was. It’s the period where the minds of the aware begin a healing process from the withdrawal of something truly valued but lost. In the midst of such traumatic…
Read the full post Good Grief. on Paul Sellers' Blog.
This set of Nesting Tables is a little more delicate and “artistic” than my usual stuff. I spent a lot of time consulting with two design-savvy friends in hopes of coming up with something that was visually compelling when nested together as well as when separated. So thanks to John Funk and Brian Benham for their assistance. These tables are somewhat delicate with regard to the side designs but overall they’re pretty sturdy. Mortise and tenon joints hold everything together and the sides offered some fun opportunities in segmented ring construction.
If you’re interested in the full set of videos and plans, head on over to the Wood Whisperer Guild site to learn more.
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I looked over my tools today. Measured their worth, their weight, their weight to strength ratios, and then the open-handed handshake they have always given me. They’re honest things, the tools I own, transparently so–giving of their best, always, you know! I wondered which politician or economist, media reporter or anchorperson could look at my…
Read the full post Memories Are Made of These on Paul Sellers' Blog.
I think that you will really like this video. It ex-planes why I say the things I do about the bench planes and I would hate for anyone to miss it! Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFItd2yCA7o
Read the full post Plane Ex-planations On YT on Paul Sellers' Blog.
… I said something along the lines that I had been struggling. And I also said that the first three project attempts felt, well, uninspired. Well, now I want to say that I pressed through, found total interest, and then too the excitement I always feel about my making. This, of course, comes only on…
Read the full post On My Vlog… on Paul Sellers' Blog.
A new week! Four weeks of disengaging and redefining has caused many exchanges in the way we work (or don’t work) according to both our circumstances and then too our individuality in making life work. Some of it is acceptable to us, by all accounts, I mean some of it is really good and then,…
Read the full post Hello Everyone! on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Show notes coming soon.
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My wife and I moved into a new home and since both boys are out of the house we have two bedrooms to play with. Alaina wanted a Thomas Mosier, “New Century China” bed that costs around $6,000. I decided I’d try to sort of copy the idea using $60 worth of materials from the big box store. Then if it worked out, I’d spend real money for Cherry or Sapele. I’m no Thomas Mosier, nor am I a Marc Spagnulo… but the bed turned out very nice. Since all I had to go by were internet photos, I had to guess the dimensions and scale. Clearly I didn’t get it right, but it actually turned out to be a very attractive piece of furniture. I used my Domino XL and knock-down connectors to attach the headboard and footboard to the side rails. I used the XL’s huge tenons to connect everything else. Essentially I milled down 2×8 douglas fir and laminated the pieces to create all the parts that were thicker than 1 1/4″ (which was almost everything). Then I sat down and sketched out the dimensions for the headboard design and footboard parts. I carefully measured everything and cheated by using the domino to connect it all together. The finish was built-up using “General Finishes” products. I hand-brushed a stain-block primer and hand sanded the first coat with 220. Then I applied a second coat to stop tanin bleed-through. I lightly sanded it to 300 then applied four coats of “China Blue” milk paint topped with a single coat of Enduro Var to warm it up.
The post A Thomas Mosier’s “New Century” Style Bed appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
Show notes coming soon.
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It’s a subtle shift I see in wood beneath my plane. Shades between years in times past, where summers came and went and left behind a year’s life recorded in two tones of light and dark, of warmth and the rains that filled the rivers and the soil that bled into them and then into…
Read the full post Linking Past Neglect on Paul Sellers' Blog.
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A warp dried in in a prideful twist like a fist clenched in the face to resist another. The long plane rides the swell and clips off stroke-on-stroke all opposition and takes down the proud to a low point. Then comes the haltering of the clip, clip and the faltering stroke that jars the man’s…
Read the full post Twist on Paul Sellers' Blog.
I am not sure how many of us can carry on working when our jobs rely on office buildings remote from our homes, fellow staff and then too machines that anchor us to a workplace of commerce. I am not sure anymore how many of us can actually handle the stresses of home life as…
Read the full post Work Brings Life to Masses on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Show notes coming soon!
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If craft is the art of work, and I believe that that is what craft is, then we ourselves become a live canvass filled with an ever-changing palette of colour and texture. It puts our work and the way we work, the materials we harvest and garner, and the delivery of it in finished work,…
Read the full post The Importance of Craft on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Show notes incoming.
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Many politicians are predicting the future in a way we have never seen before, relying mostly on experts and scientific specialists, health workers and others to steer us through Coronavirus pandemic. With Covid-19 on us, we are many of us distancing ourselves from our neighbours for the common good of all in so many diverse…
Read the full post 10 Projects to Make on Paul Sellers' Blog.
As I have grown older I have grown less tolerant. I think this to be symptomatic. Sharpening seems to me to have become an abrasive subject discussed by expert sellers and those seeking ever more knowledge. As an apprentice, the men had whetstones in boxes without grade-knowledge per se, but they often had two, one…
Read the full post Sharp Talking on Paul Sellers' Blog.