First Fitting
I started making drawers, at first I cut them out with band saw, then sand with Proxxon rotary tool.
New Old Bombe Chest
My first bombe chest has found the new owner already, so I’m making the new one! Don’t ask me why, I don’t know personally. But my husband is a huge fan of such chests, so he challenged me to try to make a bit more difficult shape. I have to shape not only the sides of the chest, but the drawers too.
This model is from the old Popular Woodworking issue. I loved the article. I was surprised that such chests were much more popular in US rather than UK. I also found that in Europe the carcases were made of several glued up pieces and then veneered. In US, woodworkers worked with solid wood.
So I’m making it American way. To cut out the pieces I’m using a bandsaw.
Then the long hours of sanding and final shaping. I hate working with makore, but the color of it and the grain is so beautiful that I simply can’t resist it. It’s so much better than cherry wood or pear wood for me. The only drawback – I have to wear a mask.
After couple of hours:
Now for the top and the bottom, I need to sand it a bit more.
Next time – all the inner parts.
It’s not that bad after all
With the help of my fellow bloggers, I did it! Brazing is much easier for me, after several hours of practice. I’m almost happy with this frame and plan to make couple more, just need to finish sketches.
Here’s one of the epoxy roses that I made, not sure about using them though, maybe I should add more color, crystal clear look a bit plain to me.
Glass beads for miniature lights
Last week I received a package with lace bobbins (50 pairs), they were all unspangled, so I went to the nearest beads shop to buy some beads. I love this place, lots of cute things, I cannot leave it without buying something. I found these wonderful glass beads, but they are not for bobbins, I’m afraid.
As these two weeks were all about making lights I immediately thought these beads would make perfect lamp shades. You would just need to cut them in half.
I googled at first to find someone who did it before but to no avail. So, here’s my first try.
You need Proxxon/Dremel/whatever tool, diamond wheel and sticky tape. Glasses for protection and mask is a must for me too. I also marked a cutting line on the bead.
Here’s how you need to fix the bead on a tape:
And just cut it off! 🙂 At first I thought that glass would break, but I was lucky, the edge is even. You can also sand the bead to make it even better 🙂
Nice one:
I’m very excited about it,there’s lot of beads with different sizes and shapes, lot’s of things to explore.
All in progress
I should have put another title to this post, something like “Ugly Photos’ Post”, but nevermind.
I had a strange week, I actually did a lot of things, but seems like I don’t have much to show to you. I’m still making the parts for my chandelier, another one. I also continue learning metal lathe things. My husband is a great teacher, very patient, I should say. I did learn a lot, but still have to ask him if I have any questions.
As a result I made a beautiful candlestick, made of aluminum, but it looked very silver to me 🙂 Unfortunately, no photos for you here as it broke when I started cutting it off. The good thing is that I learned a lot, I also tried that mysterious jig for making spheres (absolutely, useless by the way for aluminum, because it’s easier to make them with files).
Experiment number two – metal spinning. Looks fantastic in this video, which is not mine, obviously 🙂
I don’t have silver, but lots of copper. I’m not very good with spinning, I managed to make these, hm, “cups” after five or six attempts.
Dolls house lights
I think that July will be a month of making lights. On one hand, I have a commission, on the other hand I need to make a lot of lights for my dollhouse, and all this in art nouveau-ish style. I did several sketches, and probably will make all of these projects. I started from the easiest one, I used here a brass strip (remember my post about photo etching?). I’m not very good at soldering, my husband was very happy to give me some tips, because the last time I did it, I was about 10 years old trying to fix my ZX Spectrum keyboard (I failed:) and my tape recorder (this time I was lucky). The results now a more satisfactory, but not good enough for me. Anyway, I’ve just started! 🙂 Drilling was easier 😉
Theatre stage ( for short film)
I finished this project some time ago, one of my favourite commissions. I don’t have many photos, I mean good ones, sorry about that.
Well, the commission was to make a theatre stage for a short film, can’t go into details 🙂 It was supposed to be quite big – 75cm wide, 65 cm high and 40 cm deep. Almost like my dollhouse 🙂 Huuge. And heavy.
Entrance door – not done yet
Well, it’s not completely ready, I need to carve the back sides of the panels and add some more details. But, so far so good, I like this door. On the left is a photo of the doors that inspired me to try this design. The door handle is supposed to be quite simple here, but there’s no place for mail slot, though I’ve seen some very original solutions for such doors.
I really like the color of the cherry wood:
Carving legs
I finished carving these legs last week. I’m almost pleased with result, I was even thinking of making another version of them but I have other projects to do too, so I decided on moving on. I really liked working with cherry, though with pear wood it would be absolutely different experience. The only problem I had is, when I was finishing working with spheres, some of those small claws started to split and fall off so I had to glue them back. But I liked how the joints and claws turned out.
Carving spheres was fun, they look just right from every angle.
The other details above the leg were supposed to be carved by Dremel, but I didn’t like the result at all, simple V-shape micro chisel 0,5 mm was the best option.
I also bought a set of Narex chisels lately. They are quite good for their price, but require additional work. Kirschen is still my number one choice.
I also started working on drawers, two of them were shaped according to the profile of the sides. The most difficult part here is done.
Bombe Chest
I decided to try one more project from Harry W. Smith’s book that I really like.
This chest is made of mahogany in the book, but I really wanted to try cherry for this one. The most interesting part was to make curved sides. Usually I follow all the tips from this book, but this time I was a bit confused. I didn’t like the way of shaping these parts – with a small drum sander held in a flexible-shaft machine. I tried it and found the results inconsistent. Working with a bandsaw was absolutely different experience, very easy and precise. The original thickness of a stock was 8 mm and I shaped it to 2 mm.
Then I cut dovetails for the dividers and glides. All fitted nicely.
The back was also easy to make. Then I needed to carve four claw foots. Something like this:
I’ve seen several how-to videos about carving them, I highly recommend those from Popular Woodworking. Though they all are really helpful, especially their references on different shapes and forms. I’ve been working on them for the last week or so, not really happy with the result but I’m close to the OK version 🙂 Hope to show you them soon.