Tea Trays

 I was commissioned to make a few tea trays for the upcoming holidays for some customers. Here is what was done.

   

 

 

This is where I was hand etching the names into the wood. It was VERY HOT to do and a few close calls later, the etching was done.

Here the first sealer coats of varnish were applied, after the first was dried for a day it was sanded back to get rid of any grains of dust and air bubbles. Another 2 coats were applied following the same method.

 

This is the resulting products.  

The wavy quilting is part of the natural characteristics of camphor laurel, it looks as if its a blanket.

Wooden Corgi

 I'm going to let you in on a little secret of mine.

See, I'm OCD on so, so many levels.

Besides the normal OCD which my work colleagues know about and my spouse just gives me eye rolls over there is the OCD - Obessive Corgi Disorder.

I love Corgis. I've got one ...more like a mutant one but she is my little terror. She's longer that the average Corgi, but she's a long haired with tail. So I put it off as she's just my unique pain in the assurances that she is a Corgi I have her certificates of pedigree.

  

So I was surfing the net one night and came across another OCD person who created a unique little wooden project.

And of course I decided I must have one as well.

Ergo, here is another corgi:

 

And Yes, I made this over a couple of days as my true OCD kicked in and I had to have everything just right.

 

It's a cute little shelf table / pen holder / anything you want to throw on it or in it.

Hat Rack

Okay, something totally different this time.

I've gone looking for drift wood along the river to accomplish this project!

And I found a beautiful long log that I carried back (who knew drift wood would still be so dam heavy??)

Anyways back home it came and I started my little odd project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First things first, I pressure washed all the dirt and sand out of this thing and let it dry for a few days. Then I sanded back the first time to get all the nicks and splinters off of it.

Then into the shed for its first of many steps. This was to fill all the holes and cracks with a colored epoxy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what the colored epoxy looked like before I begin the 2nd sanding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sanding selfie! LOL

 Getting there bit by bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost done!

 

Now putting on a sealer coat of epoxy for the first coat.The full coat of clear epoxy while it is supported in the shed and drying for 2 days.

Yes I know, another not really good picture. It really doesn't do it justice in this one.

So I tired this one instead, a close up of the blue epoxy that I put in it to highlight.

Then I put in the pegs where the hats will hang.

And then the final piece.

 

 

 

 

It really does look quite good, I've got to work on my picture skills a bit as its really not showing the quality of the items.

Very important tool

 In the middle of work, house work, running a home and fixing things life happens. My spouse's uncle died and we went to help the Aunt and daughter with some home repairs. They were very, very appreciative and decided they would give me a lot of the tools that the uncle had in his shed.

Now we are talking about some family history tools like a hand drill, hand planers, hand routers (oh these are antiques!) a new router (still in the box) angle grinder, power drill, chisels etc, etc.

I was blown away by their generosity and even offered to pay but they refused. I had started to disassemble the wood vice but the daughter had gotten justifiably upset so I let it be.

I found a wood vice online in one of the trade link places (Gumtree) and bought it. It was in a bit of rough shape so I decided that I was going to overhaul it.

I did the typical Youtube search for someone who would have done the same by now and followed what they did. Here is a step by step picture tutorial of what I did.

This is what it looked like when I brought it home. 

 

 

 

So this is where I started to disassemble the vice, piece by piece.

 

All the pieces had to come out so that they could thoroughly cleaned and repainted before reassembly.

 

 

After coating everything (that was painted) in paint remover and scrubbing it clean, then I had to soak the parts in rust remover and take a wire brush to it all.

After it was all cleaned of rust and dried, I covered the parts that were not to be painted and primed it.

 

I then painted it the color you see here (I think it was fire engine red?) and reassembled.

 

This is the final product, top and bottom.

I was so, so pleased with the way this turned out. It took a few days to get it all done and now its mounted on the workbench you see above. I drilled out the holes from about and cut out the side so the vice would sit almost flush against the table. I've used it many time now and my only regret was putting it on that side of the table, I should have put it on the left but oh well, just have to make do.

Starting with my shed

So one of the very first projects I was able to do was.....(drum roll please)... a shoe rack!

What woman doesn't need a shoe rack?? Just ask Emeld....nevermind.

So anyways, this is another slab that I had (I wish Freddie Dad was still around!) of camphor laurel. It is such a beautiful timber to work with and the colors that are in it are amazing!!

 

Here is the finished product. What I did was cut the slab in half length ways as you can see. I cut it to a length of 5 foot tall and the width varies from the very top of just 5 inches (12.5cm) to the middle of near 9 inches (23cm) as the slab was from where the tree had a branch coming out. You can tell by the beautiful red coloring as it curves up and to the right where they cut the limb off.

 

 

 

This is the ugly P.O.S. Chinese plastic crap we had before. As you can see it was an embarrassment to have people see that when they walked by the laundry on their way to the restroom.

So I salvaged the tubes to use in the new shoe rack. I used the holes where the tubes were as a template for the new shoe rack so that I could align the tubes when completed.

Can I tell you what a royal pain in the as.k me how hard it was to assemble?! As for the following reasons:

1. Each hole was not drilled to the same depth (lesson learned!!!)
2. When one tube was placed, the corresponding side had to be placed as well but there was no one to hold the timber up!
3. As you inserted the tube on one side and moved down, if you moved the timber to enable the tube to slip in, the one above it slid out. 
4. How do you get it in the house alone? Oh okay assemble inside. Oh crap means I have to take it apart. (Insert very obscene words here!)
   

So needless to say, this was a very fun project to figure out how to get the tubes in. I wound up getting a tie down strap and rubber mallet.

All in all, it came out ok.

 

2nd Cart

Well I had the taste for building that last cart back then as you could see from the last post.

With that in mind, I decided with the extra parts to build one from scratch as I had the cast iron parts.

 So off to the recycle timber shop and got some really nice yet heavy timber slabs that were being recycled from an old building / house.

I didn't get any pictures of the build as I completely had destroyed my phone and thus all the photos in it as well. (How we got so dependent on these phones is still a mystery to me!)

Anyways, here is what I ultimately completed.

 

I know, I know...this is a horrid picture but it was the only one I could recover after everything was said and done. Sometimes I really hate technology!

Anyways, this cart was done with reddish timber slabs of hardwood, the center slab is solid pine. The two bars across top and bottom are galvanized with nuts to pull it all in tight like the old carts. The glass top was put in place of timber slats so that you can see the inner workings .

 This is one heavy little cart, weighing in at over 200lbs (approx. 91kgs).  

**Update**

My lovely had these two pics stored in the phone:

Beginning the 1st cart

In this picture you can see many, many things.

It does bring back fond memories as it shows our little girl when we first got her home from the pound. Her name is "Cheeky" and it suits her to a T!

To the right of her you she an old cart with boxes on it. This was a long story let me tell you!

I had bought and arranged shipment of theses Lineberry Cart & parts from North Carolina. The shipping company wound up being a scam artist of having the items shipped then mysteriously having to have to pay again to get my items out of a container that was being held by customs supposedly. 

The company went out of business the minute a bunch of us paid them the money (of course) and closed up shop, disconnected the phones and vanished. Bunch of mongrel bastards!

Anyways, I digress.

I finally got my cart & items and started to work and restoring and building.

 

 

 

So, so many nails later and pulling the cart completely apart so that I could then begin the sanding and the rust removal.

    

Filling in the cracks and taking off the old rubber and rust.

 

After sanding and coating all the pieces with several coats of varnish, the cast iron wheels were painted with primer and then black gloss. Everything was reassembled to this final product:

 

 I was very pleased with the way this came out. Now on to the 2nd cart which I will be making from scratch with just the cast iron pieces.