Sunday, July 31, 2011

Sewing Room by IKEA

Some assembly required.



This was my weekend. After spending weeks of unable to decide or describe what was wanted/desired in the sewing room (except not wanting tacky, whatever that means) we went to IKEA and purchased a complete desk set for the sewing room. The white is a melamine covered particle board with precise hole and fittings locations to match perfectly with a metal tube support structure to complete this desk. Everything is included, even the required allen wrenches in multiple separate packages neatly waiting in the warehouse for pick-up. The engineering is very good, the price is low, though I would prefer a better quality material, the price would go up then to match.

I built the table the first night. I had to built it right-side up, not according to the plan, as I had no way to turn the table right side up after assembly. But it went together well and all of the parts fitted to a tea. In fact it looked so nice the next day we went out and bought 3 tall bookcases and 2 short bookcases. One each of those stayed in a different room. These were heavier, which did create a problem for me, but I was able to move them around. The side and end panels of the bookcases are not solid, they just look that way. More like a large torsion box with solid members in just the right places for strength and to assemble the parts.


Note that the bookcases are all off the ground and are hanging with molly bolts near the top. The larger shelves are actually sitting on a frame where the cement juts into the room around the inside perimeter of the house. One day of assembly for the bookcases, one for the table. I've made nothing this week/weekend.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Another for the Birds

I already posted a series about this bird-house, but it was missing the roof. I got back today from a trip and was able to turn the top. The top is made of 6 pieces of Cedar and 6 thin pieces of juniper. These were glued as sets, then the sets were glued to make halves, then the two halves were glued together to make what you see in the first picture with the top hot glued to a base block. The second shot shows the bird house leaning against the lathe for comparison.



This was a rough bit of turning to reduce the wind vanes to the main body of the roof. Once knocking off the extra wood, it became much easier turning, and a lot fewer flying chunks of wood.


To turn the bottom, I first turned a cavity into my mounting block where I could insert the top, added hot glue, and turn the hollow in the bird house top.



A this point I was able to complete the turning, carefully making sure that the bottom part of the bird house fit snug in the opening in the top. After a creating a place for the top to fit, I hollowed out the top, put finish on the two parts and glued them together.


Enjoy and be careful of the splinters.