Milling and some Lamp Progress

Almost finished the vertical slats for the lamp. One more notch to cut on each stick, then the bridle joint on the last end.  These last notches should be easy as the table saw is all set, and the bridle joint should be easy as the shaper is set up for them. Hope I am not jinxing myself!

Cutting the notches has been a bit fussy, I have been trying to get the spacing to within .001". The Hammond Glider sliding saw works pretty well for this kind of precision work. I can dial it in to .0078", then I use feeler gauges to set it exactly. It is pretty reproduceable too.

I'm hopeful that I will get these last remaining cuts on the vertical slats finished in a couple of hours. I imagine there will be quite a bit of fussing to get the horizontal and vertical slats to fit together, and then to get the slat assemblies to fit into the top and bottom tie rings and the posts.

For this project I have been following the design of Chris Hall over at Craftsmanship in Wood, formerly The Carpentry Way. There was a great write up about him recently in Woodworker's Journal and the first picture in the article is his version of the lamp I am building, his is made of cocobolo!

Have also done some milling the past couple of weeks.

First milling of 2015 was some so-so Port Orford cedar, some nice cherry and some really good oak.

The oak had a lovely brown colour to it, I think it will be fantastic once it has dried. The grain was also reasonably tight for an urban log.

Got out on a Sunday to a buddy's place and millled up some timbers for him to use as a mantle. Also went out to my usual beach milling spot a couple days later and got some cherry that turned out to be pretty crappy, and a 42" wide cottonwood round just for fun.