06 May 2008

Black Art


The Bank Holiday weekend has come and gone and it's been nice to get back to work for a bit of a rest...I don't think I stopped much all through it! The main thing was that Pete came round on Saturday afternoon to help me start the renovations to the rear of the workshop. We had thought long and hard about a suitably cunning way to fix the leaky rear South facing end and once we got going the whole process went really very well...except that the utterly crappy weather here in Salisbury meant that I couldn't finish it off, so I guess that's a job for next weekend, assuming that the weather gods will look favourably on us.
On a brighter note, I've made and glued up the front door frame for the Elm Cabinet II which went together absolutely spot on...no twist or out of squareness so I'm quite chuffed considering the total cock up that happened with the back panel. It's been rebated with the router so the next job will be to shoot to size and fit the hinges, which is always tricky 'cos I hate fitting brassware.
I've also spent some time in starting a trio of new marking knives. I'm doing one for Pete, another for Paul (Chisel) who supplied me with the steel bandsaw blades and the last is for the Dudester north of the border, who commissioned me to make one after seeing a reference to one in a UKW thread, so that should be a nice littler earner for the Chichester event at the end of the month. What is really good is that I managed to get hold of a small lump of African Blackwood at Yandles a while back which is what a couple of them are made from, the third one is being made from a small piece of Ebony which feels like Balsa in comparison as the Blackwood turns like metal, with spiral shavings coming off the tool! Fabulous stuff, so will definitely need to get some more if this knife making lark continues.

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