Furniture Design: Week 11/13/11

This week I conquered the miter saw!!!! It took about two weeks of finagling with the table saw and fence but I was able to get the angle near perfect! I cut my wood down to finished length, mitered one side and used a stop block to miter the other side. Below is the cut wood taped up to do a quick mock up. This week I will use the domino cutter to complete the joinery and glue everything up. the 2 complete pieces side view, isn't it cute!! It looks like such simple construction but it took so many days of labor! That seam is gorgeous! perfecto! I have also decided that I no longer want the table to be stationary. I would for it to swivel and Jonah suggested instead of using a pin, add a grove to the top of the bottom box...

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Furniture Design: week of 11/07/2011

This week I didn't even touch my own wood! I spent the entire week practicing mitered cuts at 45 degrees on the table saw. A miter cut is about finesse; I have to be precise and take into account all the various angles that need to be correct. I am using a makeshift fence that includes the miter gauge and a block of wood nailed to it. This allows me to control the angle that the wood I am cutting is hitting the blade. So far my makeshift fence is not sturdy enough and the more a manipulate the gauge the more crooked my wood was getting. This coming week my professor is going to help me make another fence that will hopefully pan out better. I also experimented with a German machine that makes a special type of tenon joint. It is a hand tool that allows you to bore a hole at very depths into...

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Furniture Design: week of 10/25/2011

Not much has happened this week in the woodshop. I am working on milling my wood and getting it down to its finished dimensions. I'm still really undecided about how I want my wood to be jointed. My professor showed us the jig for doing finger joints, which are nice, but I don't think its fits into what I am trying to do. I think it detracts from the sleekness of the original design concept. I would like to do a miter joint which structurally it isn't the soundest and its very complicated to do but I think it is the most pleasing for my design. The jury is still out but I feel like I will have to settle for finger joints :/ Since there isn't much to blog about this week I decided to look around and find a new interesting product that's in...

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Furniture Design: FIELD TRIP!!!!

The highlight of this week was going to neeeeeeeeew york concrete jungle where dreams are made of.... you know the song... Despite my hellacious week leading up to the trip & the fact I feel asleep during every miniscule moment of down time, I still had a great time! Uber-inspiring and almost made me want to move there (ALMOST).  Material ConneXions Our first stop of the day. Material ConneXions is a materials resource library. As per their website: "Built on the belief that Every Idea has a Material Solution™, we are the trusted advisor for Fortune 500's, smaller forward-thinking companies, and government agencies seeking a creative or competitive edge through strategic material selections." Its a pretty inspiring...

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Furniture Design: Finalizing My Design & Wood Shopping!

This week I finalized my design, did some color investigations, and went wood shopping!!!! I made my working drawings and figured out my dimensions. I want the table to be 20" tall, 10" wide with a 1" trim. I want to do a two-tone design with the interior being a contrasting color to the outside. I would like to keep the outside a wood-grain tone to showcase the wood and add a zing of color on the insider for interest and pizazz.  Plan view of 2 pieces   Front & Side Elevation Originally I was going to do regular fingers joints to join the corners or my table but the more I looked at images of them I didn't like how the 2 toned nature of the end grain showed. So I started thinking maybe I can use that to my advantage...

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