Christmas gifts

After a long break I finally decided to write something about what I had lately done.
Of course it's not so hard to guess that the post will be about Christmas gifts.

Not so long ago I bought a small lathe and since then I am able to make much wider range of items in my workshop. Now I know why people tend to like lathes so much, they are quiet, so you can sit with the machine even in the evening and spend very relaxing time making something you can call art :)
But there's much more important advantage of the machine, it helps the user to make something symmetrical on the whole circumference - just HELPS, because rest of the work relies on you and your hands, you use casual hand-tools and you have all the power of decision which you have when you use a simple chisel.

I've always thought about power-tools as tools which need to use some coordinates and points of reference during their work. Look at the table saw, you need the piece of work to have at least two straight and parallel sides to be able to cut it safely and effectively.
Someone would ask where's the difficulty in making things straight and parallel ? First, you need to use a next machine - a planer or hand-plane and that's the greatest problem of all.
To plane things effectively you need to know at least two simple rules :
1. Your plane blades must be as sharp as possible.
2. You need to read the grain, plane with the grain, otherwise it will chip and leave a nasty surface.

The first rule will be the rule of almost every tool you use in a workshop, keep them sharp, it's not a real problem if you know how to sharpen and have some tools to do that. But the second rule of planing is the saddest limitation of the craft. The most beautiful wood lays in your cellar, it has annoyingly twisted grain, wormholes and it's often attacked by any kinds of colorful fungus - what makes it not usable in most projects due to the fact you can't plane it well.
But hey, do you remember the first cabinet I made ? So, do you think the problem go for a cup of tea with other life-problems when I was making the piece of furniture ? If you think it did, then it did it again.

Cabinet no. 2

  Finally! I received photos of a cabinet I was supposed to finish some time ago. It is the second view on the subject of miniature furniture for storing miniature things.
  The cabinet was originally thought to be in our shop's offer and it is, of course, for sale as I 'promised'.
  I don't think I need to write the whole story once again. To make long story short - it's a project I made out of reused stock I've received for free in a lumberyard. After I realised how beautiful the wood was, I managed to make something special of it - the second cabinet I've ever built. This time, fully professionally and with a view of selling it - then, no compromises.
  Just watch.

Finally boarding.

  Hello! Here, in Poland, academic year just have started. It's the end of holidays for me and beginning of something new - my student career. Yep, I'm a freshman :) But it's not only a time of changes in my life, but changes in the blog as well. It will be less technical and more interesting for people not really enjoying working with wood.
  I managed to make something different this time - a project that would be practical and simple. Anyone could make it even with really basic tools, but as people become overgrown by all those screeching machines they seem not to derive pleasure from the simpliest one-step projects like this one.

  To kill my perversy of being too technical about the items I make, I won't really describe how to make your own cutting/serving boards. They are so simple that you don't really need any plans to make them.

  Yet I want to give you one good advice, choose the most crooked naturally-shaped boards to start with, they give the best results as you don't really want your tray to be too regular - it has to have a soul, it has to make people think about it not as a piece of houseware but as a natural organic piece of wood.
  These two items are just a beggining of my whole work on wooden boards. I am planning to launch a whole line of cutting boards/serving trays/cheese boards in our shop. It will be called 'Shapes' - meaning that there will be a lot of funny and interestingly shaped boards in our offer soon.

-Szymon

A short discourse upon a style.

  It was a great month. For two first weeks I was in Tuscany, if you want to see some photos from the place please visit my girlfriend's blog (link is on the right-hand side). It is really beautiful place, the only thing is that when you just arrive and see the views you feel as if you were at home, in Poland. It's not so different. Then you begin to discover more and more differences as you have more contact with locals, their espresso-perversion, dining times, siesta, everything makes you more and more distant from the people there. It's because they act naturally and you just try to do it their way, that makes you a little overwhelmed then. But hey, the feeling is still great!

  I realised I have so much to make before my studies start. On top of that I wanted to sell something in our shop, it didn't come up well. Still patiently waiting for my first customer (Julia has already sold a set of 5 postcards, lucky she). I have much ideas to realise in my projects, so many inspirations back in Italy. When I've been seing all those big old buildings, like Sienese cathedral - really beautiful, or Florentine cathedral - that one is huge!, I wanted to memorise as much as I can to be able to incorporate their styles to my works. Although that sounds so pathetic as if I was a well-known designer or someone, I want to tell you I am not and I don't feel like. I use to think  in a very simple way about designing items. The look of the Florentine duomo is full of horizontal lines, line of cornice under it's windows lines up with cornices of side-chapels' domes, but the effect works only if you look at the cathedral from sides and from a distance. Look at a bell tower of the Sienese cathedral, count how many windows it has on every floor, then you'll see there is something odd with them.
  If you try to take designs to pieces, you learn a lot how to design your own items. How to do it from the very beggining still not using previously prepared styles and motives that would make your work unoriginal. Athough it's easy to design you own piece of art, it's far too easy to folow any of those hundreds of schemes created before. Then you must either choose one style or make your own one. Build your own brand.

  I don't have any experience to be able to learn people, but I have enough pride to show you how I see the world and how helpful it is. I hope I'm not only a theorist and will be able to show you some of my ideas incorporated to my works. And, what's more, I hope maybe someone will appreciate that.
  What do you think about the whole process of creating your own brand ? Have you found your own style, either as a person who makes things or someone who experiences art ?

Wine season 2011/2012 oficially closed!

Hello! Who said this blog is only about woodworking ? I'm afraid it was me who did that :) But, it's high time to change it.

Sorry in advance for the photos. They were taken by a mobile phone, because I didn't have any other camera when I was at my grandparent's today.

Last year, exactly in October, Julia and I (with a big help of my grand grandmother, yes, I still have grand grandmother) collected a lot of grapes from my grandparent's garden. It really grows twisting around the trees there, hangs like lianas over paths and it's creepers are so old that they are covered with bark. It makes the garden look amazing. I really liked the time I spent there harvesting fruits and I suppose Julia liked it as well.
We picked about 30 kg of grapes and then filled two big wine bulbs (I don't know how do you call it - a big bottle for wine-makers) with grape juice - the ancestor of our wine ^^
It really has been working since November, this wine was really 10 months old before bottling, that's amazing how sweet the grapes are that the wine needed so much time to calm down.

And, here they are. 30 bottles of 2012 red wine from Gran'papa Dzwończyk 'vineyard'.
In the photos you can see 6 bottles with red marks on the labels - that means the are yeast-free and ready to drink (I've bottled them two or three months ago); 24 bottles of the wine - made with a little help of wine-yeast; and two bottles of something I called black wine - bottled liquid from the bottom of the 'bulb', a suspension full of yeast, remnants of grapes and so one.

That's it, now they need to mature in a dark and calm place to get more tasty and less pungent.

I should thank Julia for designing and making the labels. They look really beautiful and make the bottles look much more elegant and professional. Thank you, Julia!

Step two.

  As I promised, I attach some photos and description of the step-stools I've already made.

  They are made of pale oak. Hand shaped and hand sanded. The concaves in the legs were firts cut with a handsaw, then roughly shaped with a rasp to be finally symmetrically cut by a router with a flush-trimming bit and a template. I wish I've done it fully by hand, but there's always a problem with symmetry when cutting in curved line. But, the seat was totally shaped by a handplane, I made it slightly rounded and sunken for extra comfort when used.

  I think I should write more about the design. I saw the original stool when Julia's mom used it in their garden. I liked it very much and managed to make my own. That step-stool was really rough and old, it was one of those which had been used in Polish households in XIX and XX century for peeling potatoes and any other house chores. On top of that, Julia's stool was really not-so-well looking, after those years it needed extra support for legs not to collapse. So, I realised I can make one especially for Julia and her mom. That's how it started. 

  It's dimensions and outline (basic design) are similar to those of the previous stool. Made of five parts, nothing complicated. And that made me even more creative, having to make a simple thing not simple and unique. If you read my blog, you know that I hate nails, and more than nails I hate screws. The stool is assembled only with beech dowels, which keep it really sturdy and tightly. No glue, no metal.

Then I made another one for our shop on Etsy. Dark rustic one, antiqued by using my simple secret method. Enjoy!

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Harvesting fruits.

Hello! Finally, I have photos of my little cabinet, still unfinished, but there's only one step to do. This description will be short and informative.
I've installed a couple of stretchers which support six drawers and their rails. The stretchers and rails are made of oak, hardwood to allow drawers to slide smoothly. That's really important thing when making drawers and their supports. In my last cabinet I, as my woodworking knowledge just started to crawl, made the rails of balsa, I had some little 'sticks' so I managed to use them there. It was the softest wood I could ever use, that's why they don't really slide well. But hey, now I know!

Up there is a snap of the cabinet top finished and waxed. You won't see how polished it is, but you can admire the beauty of wood I used for it. It's really great and it's still the most representative part of the cabinet. Until...

Yep. Until I finish sanding and waxing the drawers, which combined together build a next pattern of the wood grain. The design of the drawers is similar to the one used in the previous cabinet. Grooves fitting solid rails, great for small drawers like those. Bottoms of the drawers are not glued, just loose fit in grooves I made in the sides. Aha, and they are made of striped pine wood. Beautiful, istn't it ?

Last step: sanding the drawers' fronts and applying finish to them.

Then you will find the cabinet on Etsy. Stay tuned!

Something different

I don't feel like a painter or even sketcher. What's more I'd feel more convenient as a drawer in a desk than the one behind it. But sometimes it just comes to me and I have to make a use of it. And here, 'it' is for an inspiration.

Look what I've found!

 Ahh, extra busy day. Yesterday me and my brother brought my grand grandfather's workbench to my garage. Suprisingly it fit to my car. Although it's a Land Rover I doubted that we would be able to press this huge 2-meter-long table inside. So now, papa is home, or I'd rather say grand grand papa, or better.
 My grandfather told me that only legs of this workbench were made by my grand grandfather, the top was made at least before the World War II as it was found in a house in which they live now after Germans abandoned Wrocław (which was then named Breslau). There is really a big dose of history laying behind it and that makes me even more eager to renew it and use as my own workbench. Passed through the generations.
 On the photo below you can compare it's length to a size of the Mini or the wheel of my car ^^

 And close-ups captured today. The workbench is quite damaged, but regarding it survived the war, was completely under water during a flood in 1997 and stood in my grandparent's cellar for couple of decades it is in suprisingly good condition. It's complete, on the photo it is partially disassembled as I need to fix the vise. Somehow, during those years pressure made by extending table top broke a part of the vise in halves. And of course, woodworms left a lot of signs of their past existence in the wood, fortuantely most parts are made of so thick material that holes and caves made by the worms don't really affect table's durability.

 The top has very complicated structure made during those years of usage. I don't really want to flatten it as it would take a part of it's soul away. I don't need it completely flat, I will use it mainly as a big vise for boards during activites that need sturdy ground.

 I needed to make a damaged part of the vise. On the photo you can see: below - the old part, broken, cut and etc. partially by woodworms, and partially by a humidity; and on the top - new one. I needed to work a lot with a chisel, making only first bigger cuts with a tablesaw.

 The table still needs a lot of work, so don't expect me to suprise you with some new projects or finish those I've been making soon. But I will post some pictures and a description of a completed step stool I've made before. Have a nice day!

OPEN.

Our shop is finally open!

Welcome to my and Julia's newly opened shop!

Live Natural Shop

You can find beautiful artwork made by Julia there, and my hand-made frames, plant press and a notebook-in-bed table. Our offer will expand as we will make more and more things keeping the same sky-high level of work.

Stay tuned!

Szymon.

Framed beauty

A photo of a frame I made about 3 days ago. It's simple, it's pure and elegant. The simplicity of design makes it suitable for almost every interior, yet the grain of oak used to make the frame unveiles the beauty of uncolored and pure wood. It is made of two species of oak, two different shades as you see in the photo.
It fits two A5 paper sheets or five 14x10 photos (the dimensions in centimeters). And has my own assembly system to hold the backing in place. Maybe it isn't really my invention but you won't find it anywhere else.

It will be available to buy today!

Mętlik :)

 Ahh, I have so much to do. Today we start our shop on Etsy. It's name is LiveNaturalShop (if you want to find it, just type it in Etsy's search. I'm finishing the cabinet, but I cannot make the exact description every time I make something new. I'll finish it and then describe and photograph everything. Then if someone needs any information I'll answer any questions (I bet there will be no one :).
 But, here is a photo of something very purely showing the beauty of woodworking. I'm making a small table for my balcony and managed to make it without using any nails, screws or, we'll see, maybe even glue. Everything is held by dowels. Stay tuned.

Description tommorow :)

 Lately, I've been busy. That explains why I haven't finished this post until now. I made couple of things, bought some wood, had some days off. Life. Ok, here's description I was to write 'tommorow' :)

 Below you can see a side of the cabinet, unfinished and a little rough, but that will be sanded until flush. It is attached to the leg by a dado, because it is too thin to make sliding dovetail. A dovetailing bit for my router is wider than the width of the side, it explains why I had to use weaker joint and glue.

 But, in the photo below, you can see routing a groove for a dovetail joint I made to join legst to the back of the cabinet. I had to use stop block as well not to go too far with the dado.

 I had to wax the joint to make it easier to assembly. As it is a dovetail I won't use any glue when I finally assemble it. And I had to round the dovetail to fit the groove made by the router.

 I made the back a little shorter and notched the leg tenons a little. That will lock the mortise and tenon joints and make the cabinet really hard to disassemble. But on the other side I couldn't asseble it to dry-fit as well, because I didn't want to somehow damage the project during disassembly then.

 Metamorphosis :) From a pile of wood to ... a pile of wood shaped to look like a cabinet. Stay tuned.