Innehållsförteckning för Issue 171 från Australian Woodsmith

When Venice was a maritime trading port it relied on ships and shipwrights to prosper. If you visit the island of Venice today and sit in any one of the 100 churches, look up, you will see that most of the roof trusses are modelled on the inverted hull of a ship. It would seem that shipwrights had a side business making roofs for churches! This observation came back to me when I was reading Roland Ennos’s wonderful book The Wood Age. Roland develops his argument that man learnt to walk and to weave while he was still living in trees and that the first wooden “houses” were variations of inverted woven nests. Orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees sleep high in the canopy of forests in nests that they weave from…

The shoji screens that divide rooms in traditional Japanese homes and temples are made from washi glued to Kumiko frames. The frames themselves feature tight-fitting, intricate wooden joinery that is assembled without glue or nails. Japanese culture has a high regard for crafts in every form. Over the centuries Kumiko has evolved into a delicate and beautiful art form that combines geometry and precision to form frames for screens, windows and lampshades of breathtaking beauty. Kumiko is made from well-seasoned straight-grained timbers that are all planed to the same width and thickness. Besides the Kumiko blocks, the next most important tool required is a razor-sharp chisel or plane blade. Wider blades are able to register against the Kumiko block, pivot on the angled plane and shave away the excess with…

A little history. If you’re unfamiliar with a Moxon vice, it’s a benchtop vice designed for doing handwork, such as cutting dovetails. One of the first places this style of vice was shown was in Joseph Moxon’s The Art of Joinery from the 17th century — hence the name. Most Moxon vices clamp to the bench with clamps or holdfasts and ours features a small benchtop with dog holes for extra accessories. For tasks such as chopping the waste out of dovetails or for carving, you’ll appreciate the extra height. THE HARDWARE. The heart of any Moxon vice is the pair of hand wheels that move the front jaw to clamp workpieces. Here, we’ve opted to go with the best — a Moxon vice kit from Benchcrafted (available from Timbecon).…

DUST-FREE DRAWER BOTTOMS While building some drawers for added storage under my workbench, I ran out of the 5mm Masonite I normally use for the drawer bottoms. Looking around the workshop for a suitable substitute, I found some 5mm pegboard. It seemed sturdy enough for my purposes, so I gave it a shot. The white melamine surface of the pegboard helps “lighten up” the inside of the drawers, plus it’s easier to keep clean, but there’s another big advantage to using pegboard. You can make use of the holes by adding dividers for the drawers. This helps keep things organised, as you can see in the photo above. On shallow drawers, you can use 6mm-dia. dowels on the bottom of the partitions to locate them in the holes. On deeper…

The IKEA Ivar shelving system uses a clever pressed metal bracket to lock five shelves into two open ladder supports. The system has been around since 1968 and has been an IKEA best seller several times over the last 54 years. The laminated shelves in the unit are made from off-cuts from the manufacture of larger furniture as well as mill waste that would otherwise be chipped. Originally IKEA sourced its pine from local Swedish and Finnish forests. When the Iron Curtain lifted 30 years ago IKEA took the initiative and built factories in both Russia and Belarus. Both countries have large forests and a desire to create value added products, moving away from the export of raw logs and into manufacturing. IKEA was a great fit in this equation.…

The Harvey Ellis desk on page 44 makes great use of the art of inlay in the door of the project. Most of the time inlay is thinly sliced wood (or metal) that is recessed into the surface of a larger board. Here, the larger board is the centre panel of the door. The inlay is made from a combination of materials. Maple, padauk, walnut and cherry, with some coloured epoxy thrown in for good measure. PANEL PROFILE FIRST. I used a spray adhesive to attach the pattern of the inlay profile to the panel. There’s a full-size pattern online at australianwoodsmith.com.au. Or you can scale and print the one on page 23. Either way the pattern is designed to go to the edges of the panel (Figure 1). Next,…

Turning a salad bowl is a rite of passage for woodturners. The bowl itself has many practical applications; it can be used as the name implies, as a salad bowl, however it can also be used as a bowl that you throw your keys and wallet in when you get home. One is never enough! Pretty soon you will be cranking them out as gifts with a personal touch. There are many factors to consider when attempting to make a bowl for your kitchen. The first thing is the size – what is appropriate for your needs? A typical bowl size is 255 x 90mm. It will hold just about anything we want to put into it. If you need to make your bowl larger, however, I would think about…

In our next issue we look into timber recycling and the places to fifi nd timber with a past. We focus on the drill press and the speeds you need to get the most out of your bits. The Christmas project is a Kumiko star that can be used to decorate a tree or enlarged and used as a trivet. The weekend project is a hand carved bowl. The designer project is a traditional Japanese tool box. We then take you step-by-step through the process of making an heirloom chess set. The workshop gets a clever sidekick cabinet complete with dog holes and storage space. Then we share our top ten tips for wood turning. As usual we feature clever tips and techniques from our generous readers.…

For some, talking about routing grooves and slots has all the appeal of advice to eat your vegetables or to get enough sleep. I think this line of thinking stems from the familiarity of these joints and the idea that they are “basics” when we want to focus on the cool stuff. In my workshop, I come back to these joints with a more “focus on the fundamentals” sort of mindset. Wellfit grooves and slots sit at the heart of all kinds of projects from heirloom masterpieces to workshop cabinets. Upon closer examination then, we’ll find that grooves and slots have a wide range of applications as well as opportunities to get better results, if you put in the time. The terms grooves and slots are interchangeable. They define a…

Now is your chance to own 150 issues of Australian Woodsmith on USB. Every project, every tip and every technique from Issue 1 to 150 has been reproduced on this fully searchable and print-capable computer USB. A great addition to your workshop. On the USB: • Every page of Issues 1-150 • Printer friendly • Fully searchable Browse all Content • By title or article description • By cover image • By alphabetical index * To upgrade your old disc or USB we’ll need proof of purchase. If you bought your previous disc through our office, just call us and we’ll help you sort it out. Otherwise post it to PO Box 81, St Leonards, NSW 1590, including your address and credit card details and we’ll send you the new…