Kaleo’s Workshop

So for those of you that are on Twitter you know that recently I had absolutely no desire to go into the shop. I kept telling myself all day, SELF: you need to go into the shop and get some stuff done. I’m still in the middle of making the box for the podcast. I’m trying to make a few stands for some pottery to be displayed on. Just recently I had a friend of a friend find out that design and make furniture. So I think that there might be a few projects coming my way.

But even with all the stuff that I could and should be doing in the shop, I had no desire to go down there. Have any of you ever had this experience? I mean I love it when I am down there. And because I know that I will love it when I get down there, I usually make myself go. Well I learned my lesson while at school. There were just some days that I felt like not doing anything. And those were the days that I should have stayed home.

One such time was at the end of a long day. It was crunch time, a project was coming due at the end of the week. We were all putting is some really long days. One night I was taking the clamps off the project. I had glued corner blocks onto some construction paper and then onto the carcass. This was to be able to clamp the miter corners. Well the clamps came off and the piece was looking good. It was about 10 pm and something told me “that’s enough for the day”. But I wanted to get the corner blocks off and get all the construction paper off as well. So I proceed to pop off the blocks, and thought I’ll sand off the paper. I started to sand a quickly figured out that it was going to take forever to do it this way. So I grabbed one of my chisels and proceeded to pair away the paper. Oh did I mention that this was a veneered piece. Well needless to say, my eyes grew tired and my hands and my brain weren’t communicating. The chisel got away from me and I took out a nice chunk of veneer.

Now I did end up being able to fix it, so that it didn’t look that bad. But of course to me I will always see that flaw first whenever I see that piece.

The lesson is follow your gut. I have found that those time when you do not feel like being in the shop are the times that you shouldn’t be in there. Things just go wrong, you might mess something up that you have spent hours and hours doing. Or worse yet, you might not be thinking straight and end up hurting yourself. So if you don’t feel like it, then take a break and watch some cartoons with your kids. If you don’t have kids, then just watch the cartoons anyways, I just use my kids as an excuse.

So the folks over at Popular Woodworking have just opened up registration for Woodworking in America.  So head over there and take a look at all the presenters and exhibitors.  Register today to get your spot and be there at the show.   Also send in your votes on who I should interview.

Woodworking in America

So I haven’t had a lot of time in the shop this last week.  In fact I haven’t been home much at all this last week.  Now that it is summer my son Kai is taking swimming lessons in Maryland by my mother in laws home.  So the family has been staying up there all last week and this week as well.

But I did get a chance to head over to my local WoodCraft store.  That was a blast, because it’s been over 2 years since I’ve walked into one of those.  I went to get a few things for the box.  I bought a new metric and imperial 6 inch rulers.  They make a really nice one.  I also got some pretty nice zebrawood veneer for the top and bottom of the box.  Also a small 1/8 inch piece of zebrawood for the splines in the box.

So hopefully this weekend I’ll get into the shop and do some veneering.  Also I plan to make a simple spline cutting jig.  So I hope to get some good video of all this.

If you have the time please fill out the new viewer and listener survey: it’s all anonymous, thanks

So I spent some time today in The wood whisperer’s chat room and the topic of furniture design came up. So I thought I would post this article that I wrote for Wood Talk Online. Hope you enjoy.

What is design? A plan or drawing produced to show the look and functions or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made. Purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact or material object.

So that’s what the dictionary says design is. I think it’s a pretty good description. So when you and I go out to the shop and start building we are designing right? Well one lesson I have learned is that this process of designing starts way before we pick up a piece of wood.

Recently I was given a project, this project was to build whatever I wanted. Sounds great huh? Well I spent a week thinking and thinking. We were told that we needed to find inspiration in a specific thing. But that was it everything else was up to me.

So first things first, figure out what inspires you. There is no one answer here, “different strokes for different folks”. Personally I love nature, but I don’t look at a beautiful mountain scene and think “ man that would make a sweet sideboard”. Maybe you do, and that’s cool. I love to look at what others make and what I think is beautiful, this isn’t exclusive to furniture. I love to look at ceramics and metal work and painting and sculpture. Figure out what does it for you.

Next, pick up the pencil and a sketch book and draw. Now I use to think that I couldn’t draw. You might see some of my drawings and still think that. But I love sitting down and just drawing things. The hardest thing about drawing is putting that first line on the paper. Believe me I have spent hours looking at a blank piece of paper. But just do it, draw anything. Soon you’ll find something that looks good, or will give you an idea. Run with it, draw it in a different way, change a bit here and there. Soon you will a few pages full of drawings. Pick the one you like the best and develop it.

What does that mean develop? Start to think about the “how” and the “what” and the “why”. How would this look if I did this? What is the purpose of this? Why does it have to be this way?Next, I love this part I build a scaled model or a full size mock up. This is the place where you get a real sense of what you have designed. You get to see what it’s going to look like. Here you have the chance to look and see if things still look right. Sometimes things look better on paper than they do in real life. Maybe the whole piece is to tall, or to wide. Here is where you can make those changes. Nothing sucks more than when you are building a piece and half way through it you look and say “ OOO didn’t think it would look like that”.

Make your technical drawings and plan out every detail. Know where all the joinery is going to be. Make your cut list and double check everything. Then head down to the shop and pick the wood and go at it.When I first got here to school we had a visit from the head of the school of architecture at the university. He said to us that we were just a bunch of gorillas with planes. That is how a lot of people see us. We are just guys that like to make sawdust. Custom designing our furniture sets us apart from just being guys that can make stuff. Anyone can build a table, a top and four legs. Not everyone can custom design and execute a well planned build.

We all enjoy building things. It allows us be creative, so use your imagination and custom design your next project. Believe me you’ll love it.

So the show is coming to a close this week. I guess we have to go and pick up the stuff that hasn’t sold. For some reason the gallery isn’t calling any of the students to tell them that work has sold. But some guys have gone over there during the week and found red stickers on some of the tags, meaning that piece is sold. So I haven’t been to see, but man I hope something sold. Because I just don’t know what to do with my stuff.

Well in the last few days I have received emails about entering a few show, which is really cool. I all I’ve been doing is filling out applications and making CD’s full of images, writing brief descriptions and mailing lots of stuff. Two of the shows that I’ve been asked to enter are here in Australia. One is for OBJECT magazine. ( I think I mentioned this one earlier.) The other is for The Australian Wood Review magazine and Bungadore Furniture Gallery, called Studio Furniture exhibition. The studio furniture show has 10,000 dollars in prize money. 5 g’s for the top prize, 3 g’s for second place and 2 g’s for third place. Man any of those would be great, cross your fingers

The other show I heard about through the Furniture Society, it’s called Multiplicity. It’s a show about pieces of furniture geared toward production. So here’s to hoping for the best.

Also, here a couple of shots of my stuff at the show. We had some professional shots taken for our post event coverage in a couple of magazines here. So these are mine.

So until next time all… Ohhhhhh Fffff udge… ( but I didn’t say fudge, I said the queen mother of all swear words the F—)

Kudos to the one who knows where that came from… think people think

Well this past week was a really good week.  It ended with some final design decisions on the Cantilever Stool.  I guess at the moment that is what I am calling.  Only because I have yet thought of a better name.  But as soon as I do I will rename it.  This stool has evolved from a stool with arms and a back, to a chair and then back to a stool without the arms and back.  As my instructor said it, ” your design has evolved more than any other in the group.”  He’s told me that I have bitten off the biggest bit in the class, by attempting to build seating in this unit.  So I took that as a compliment since he really likes my design.

I guess some of the major changes that have about about are:  I have raised the seat to about 610 mm which translates to about 24 inch’s.  The stool is a kitchen stool rather than a bar stool.  I also shortened the width of the stool from 440 mm to about 410mm.  I know that doesn’t sound like much but that about 1 1/2 inches.  I also had to add a foot rest.  This was the hardest thing for me to do.  Because to this point I have been resisting doing this.  I was resisting more for designs sake than anything else.  But once I made a full size prototype, and saw that the stool racks from side to side alot, I knew that I needed something that would stabilize it.  Once I added the foot rest all the rack disappeared.  Which is really good, because I think that this stool visually give you the appearance that it will not be stable.  So the last thing that I need is for not to be.  But now it is solid as a rock.

But being the minimalist that I have become, by adding one thing I had to get rid of something.  So the bottom back foot bar, that ran between and connected the bottom feet at the back is now gone.  Which from a design aspect is great. Because that bar across the floor really grounded the piece and made it look really heavy.  I have also decided to make a special bracket that connects the slats to the seat, but gives the impression that the seat or slats are floating above the frame.

So starting tomorrow I have until Thursday of the following week to produce at least 3 of these stools.  My goal is to make a set of 4 of them.  And also to try to make one other one in a different timber so one can see them in different timbers.  So I hope to get them all done.  I am rather confident that I will get at least the 3 stools done.  But wish me luck anyways.  I’ll post some progression pictures during the week when they become available. I am heading down to Hobart ( the capital of Tasmania) this upcoming weekend for the regional wood show.  I’ll let you all know how that goes also.  So until then, from the inspired words of one of my classmates, ” I made it alittle bit bigger, or it will be to small.”  So simple, why didn’t I think of that.

I know that I said that I was going to try and update this every week.  I apologize for the fact I haven’t been very good at it.  But I promise to be better.  Especially since I found that Fine Woodworking’s website has put a link to my blog on there site.  So first I would like to thank Fine Woodworking for doing that.  I hope that I can help inspire others to follow there dreams.

I have to be honest, this evening I went out to dinner with a guy named Chris that I met on a Australian woodworking forum.  He was the one that told me that Fine Woodworking had put a link to my blog up.  I haven’t stopped smiling yet, thanks Chris!

So where am I with my latest projects.  Well right in the middle of things.  The class has voted and I will be making my bar stools for this unit.  Which I am very pleased about.  But the design has evolve greatly since I last posted.  I have gotten rid of the back rest and arms.  It was becoming to much of a chair.  I have lowered it so that you won’t need a foot rest.  I also plan to laminate some slats, so that they curve down in the front ( making it easy to get out of ) and curve up in the back ( so you know when you have gone to far back ).  But I also plan to laminate a really nice thick piece of leather on top of each slat.  I think this will give it a really nice and elegant look.

I plan on putting a nice curve in the front legs, because they are being made really wide.  And I don’t want them to look chunky.  So I feel that putting the curve in them removes a lot of the size, but gives me enough meat at the finger joints where it will be needed.  Also I’m going to curve the top and bottom arms.  But the curve will start out at 60mm wide and then curve up and through to a 20mm wide section.  So the curve will flow through and not come back on the ends.  (like the pictures show).
I will be making an actual prototype hopefully by Wednesday.

Other than that things are flat out here.  We have about 3 weeks to make all the jigs and produce at least 3 of everything.  I hope to make 1 set of 4 stools all the same.  And then make just 1 stool different.  I plan on using celery top pine for the set, which is a very blond almost white timber.  And then have either a nice dark brown leather or a jet black piece of leather.  The the one extra stool, I want to make in Tasmanian Blackwood.  I will use the same leather for that one.  I just want to be able to give people a choice and a visual of the same stool in different timbers.

I had a discussion with on of my fellow students today.  He’s a really good kid, but he is an 18 year old kid.  He was complaining about the timetables for this project that we are doing.  Telling me that it is impossible to get these things done with the time that we have.  And that why should he even try when he knows he’s going to fail.  I felt so sad for him and this thought process.  I know that it is a valid defense, but I guess I have never felt that way before.  So I guess my little fortune cookie message for you all is this.

“By trying you either succeed or fail, by not trying you just fail”.  And personally I would rather fail trying then just fail.

By the way if you like that little saying it’s mine so don’t forget to quote me.  I hope to get some more pictures up soon of my final prototype.  Until then.

Well this week has been very interesting.  We finally started officially.  Our first lecturer has arrived.  His name is Jono Everett.  He is a designer maker from Canberra, which for those of you that don’t know is the capital of Australia.  He has done a lot of design work and making of fine furniture all over Australia, but right now works under contract at the Parliament house in Canberra.  But he is a great teacher and is very inspiring.

So we have to come up with a production item.  The good things is that it can be anything and cost whatever we want it to.  I was under the impression that we were going to have to make some small for the tourist market.  But luckily that is not the case.  But we have to come up with three different things.  So I have thought of my “8″ table from last year, but redesigned a bit, another chair that I don’t have any pictures of yet and The Stool.

Now I know what you are going to say.  Is that even possible.  Well first off, in these pictures there is no seat or back rest.  But there will be, and they will be slats that are shaped. They will be attached to the front rail and float off the back.  There will be one that attaches all the way from the back to the front.  Thus give the whole stool alittle more strength.  The joints on the front legs fro both the arm rest and the feet are finger joints.  The reason for this particular joint is the fact that it gives the most long grain to long grain glue area.  This the strongest type of joint.

By the way, the pictures are computer rendered and the stool in the picture has a chrome effect on it.  So I know that it looks like it’s metal, but it won’t be.  That is the beauty of this stool.  Is that if it was made of metal then nobody would question the strength.  But with wood, well lets just say we are pushing some boundaries on wood design with this one.

Now will it work I don’t really know.  But today I actually made the two front legs exactly the size that I want the stool.  I glued the joints together and tomorrow I will be putting the whole prototype together and I will make a mocked up seat and sit in it.  And if it holds all 110 kilos ( 240 lbs ) of me.  Than I think it will hold almost anyone.  But we will find out tomorrow.  So I will most likely update you all again then.

Wish me luck, I will post some pics of the whole thing.  Until then?????

Well first of all I need to say sorry for having not updated my blog for awhile.  There really hasn’t been much to report on.  Although we are back at school, our lecturer doesn’t show up until Monday.  So the last few weeks have not been to exciting.

The Lumber Jocks online contest came and went, and sadly to be reporting to you that I did not even place.  Needless to say there were days of crying and gnashing of teeth.  But I am finally over it and am ready to start making some more furniture.  So <span style=”font-weight:bold;”>THE NEXT BIG THING</span>….   What could it be??

I have been spending these last 3 weeks designing a piece that is for what we call our production unit.  A piece that can be reproduced rapidly.  And I have come up with something that is going to blow your minds.  It is a….. ( wait for it )  bar stool.  That’s right can you believe it.  I bet you weren’t expecting that.

Anyways at this point I have been doing a lot of drawing.  Right now I am getting ready to mock it up to see what it will look like and make some final design decisions.  Sorry I have no photos of this yet.  But needless to say they will be something that you have never seen before.  My goal with this production unit was to come up with something that if someone wanted to by it, they would have to buy more than 1 of them.  Nobody buys one bar stool for there kitchen counter, they buy 3 or 4.

But today I took a break from mocking up this stool, to think of <span style=”font-weight:bold;”>THE NEXT NEXT BIG THING</span>….  (your thinking what could it be this time)  here we are:

That’s right Chopsticks.  I had an idea today to make a set of chopstick.  So the first ones that I did I tried to turn on the lathe, lets just end this part of the blog right here.  And never talk about it again.

The second set, I developed a jig to hold the wood and then pass them through the spindle moulder ( for you in the states it’s called a shaper ).  Thus allowing me to make hundreds of these things in a matter of a couple of hours.  Then I thought that I needed a way to hold them together.  So I fashioned a piece that has a small groove cut out of the back.  Thus the set of chopsticks slide up and because of the taper in the shape on the sticks they wedge themselves against the sides of the groove.  The holder also becomes a place to set your sticks at the table.

I am going to take these to a couple of the tourist shops around town here and feel out the market.  I think that they would sell, especially if I ask like 20-30 bucks for them.  This allows the gallery to make it up alittle bit more.  I’ll will let you all know how things go with them.

Well until next time my friends, Happy Valentine’s Day.  Give that loved one in your life a special set of Kaleo’s chopsticks.  Nothing says I Love You better.

Kaleo

Well finally it is time to get back into it.  I have been looking forward to this week for, well at least 4 weeks.  On Monday we were allowed officially back into the shop.  What a great felling.  But it surprised me to only see 4 other on the 12 classmates in total.  I guess some are just enjoying there break to much.  Any who there have been some changes, of which I’m sure there will be more to mention next time.  As this week has only been for us second years.  So the new first years don’t start until Monday.  Then is when we will here all the changes that are happening.

But the major change that we know about is the addiction of a new director.  The University has gone with one of it’s own on this.  They brought in a guy by the name of Simon Ancher.  A young ( maybe the same age as me ) designer.  And I say designer because that is what he is.  None of us are to sure about what kind of maker this guys is.  Which bothers me some, but also knowikng that it shouldn’t really effect me what he does.  This because of the guest lecturers that we are going to have In the second year program.

But I have been busy this week.  Busy with whatever it is that I wanted to do.  So I have been making another hall table.  This one is the big brother to the “8″ table that I made last year.

But instead of using solid timber I have veneered the entire thing so far.  I did this for a few reasons.  By veneering I can guarantee that the table is not going to move.  As in wood movement, there will be none.  Another is because it’s environmentally better.  I use less timber when I veneer.  But I know that you want to know the real reason.  And that is because I didn’t want to spend any money.  The school provides MDF and other man made timber product and veneers.  So nothing out of my pocket.