It's Been Slower Than Usual Recently

So I decided to post up a few pictures of things that I like. Mostly pictures with some kind of interesting design, all taken by me unless otherwise noted.

This one is a cabinet handle by Mira Nakashima made from a little piece of burl.

(Not taken by me, found on line.)

Karate-do Goju-ryu Shoreikan Nidan Certificate

Fabulous dinner wines for a charity dinner one evening.

Fiat Multipla Van in the Fiat museum

Chair made from a block of wood, Pininfarina Studio.

Krka Park Croatia

Curved Platter in a shop in Costa Rica

Was in California for a week and on the drive home stopped in Ft Bragg to visit the College of the Redwoods Woodworking school. Went in and chatted with the instructor and some of the students, they were just starting their second week of the nine month program. Looks like a great place!

Box Finished, but Not Done!

Well I did some prefinishing on the box. Several coats of shellac on the inside/bottom, and Tried and True varnish for the outside. I prefinished everything except the outside faces where the through tenons will show. I will do those with Tried and True after assembly and trimming the mortices.

Then I dry assembled the box, next step will be to do the "glue up" which will consist of gluing all the wedges into the tenons. I think there are 30 tenons, so 60 wedges. It will be a process!

Some people don't care for Tried and True as it takes a while to dry, but I find it works well when applied in very (extremely!) thin coats with a couple days between coats. I love its total non-toxicity, no metal driers or other bad stuff in it as other BLO products have. (I'm still looking for 99+% pure ethanol or propanol to dissolve my shellac flakes in so I can get away from the additives in shellac reducer!)

Meanwhile, I decided to start kilning the slabs which I had milled in the winter of 2010/2011. They now have nearly two full summers of air drying. I would normally wait until early October before putting wood in the kiln as August and September are the best (driest) months here for air drying. But I have so much wood that has to go through the kiln that I figured I better get started now or I'll still be doing it in January!

I put in some alder, spalted maple, yellow cedar and Deodar cedar, all of which I have found to be pretty well behaved in the kiln. I also put in a few pieces of cherry and one slab of beech, which I have not had such good kilning success with in the past.Fingers crossed this time.

The yellow cedar I had originally milled to 8' 6" long, I don't know why I do that as the kiln can only accommodate 8' lengths! Rather than cut them down to fit in the kiln I decided for the better ones to just clean up the edges and store them in the garage. 13" wide, 3" thick and 8' 6" long quartersawn old growth yellow cedar. They are some pretty fine planks I must say!