Look whos talking 2

As they are so cheap and relatively easy to make I did a couple more mirrors this week. I took the daring step (sense the sarcasm people) of using different wood for both these pieces as I am now thoroughly bored of mahogany.

This is by area the biggest mirror I have done so far and so I thought I'd go for something a bit different for the frame. This is an exotic pine finish and as yet i haven't come up with a name for it!

For a finish I decided to round of all the edges and my trusty router took care of that in no time. I also sanded this down using 180 sand paper which is very, very fine. As the wood itself is very pale I wanted to so something to really bring out the really nice grain so I went for a varnish that contains a redish stain in it. This saves time as I don't have to do both things (stain and varnish) and I know there is no chance of any kind of reaction. As you can see the results are pretty good and this may even be my favourite mirror so far. Also I successful used a rig I made for routing which dramatically cut down the routing time and significantly increased the quality of the cut. Actually, on this one the only mistake I made was..........well, I'm not gonna tell you here, you know where you have to look to find out those kind of details don't you!

The second mirror is another version of "Limpio" using Oak instead of mahogany.










Oak is a strange wood to work with, while is is a hard wood it doesn't lend itself to being worked and so be and this frame had a few conversations that are to blue to be put on here. However at the end of the day it all turned out well so I cant complain.




I had to be quite careful while drilling this frame as the wood wanted to split and rip all the time. I managed to get it done without any serious accidents so was feeling quite happy with myself until it came to the finish. I did a few tests on left over bits of wood I had and couldn't find anything that really brought out the best in the grain. (Which is really nice by the way, cant really see it on these pics but it looks good. In the end I went simply for Antique wax as is darkens the wood ever so slightly and makes it quite resistant to knocks while at the same time preserving the grain and really giving it a classy finish. Again I routed the edges (can you tell I like my router??) and that is pretty much it. I cant say I am in love with this one, simply because its not really my style but I got to play with a different wood so it was a worthwhile experience. Not sure I will use Oak again unless a customer actually requests it. For the money I don't feel its great value.

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Don't try and even out varnish just because you think one side looks darker than the other, one side has soaked in for longer so is obviously a different colour! Idiot

2) Be careful when cutting the depression for the mirror, if you make it to big the mirror will slide around inside the frame and you really don't want that.

3) Wow! No more, must be learning something!

Terrible Twins

By now i figured that I had learnt my lessons from my original table and thought Id have a crack at making a couple more little ones to practise my skills a little. I came up with the design for an end table that was square and called the design "Cafe Cuadrado" (Coffee Squared).



As you can see I ended up making two of them as I felt that they would sell well as a pair, little did I realize that it wasn't possible to make them exactly the same as my wood supplier didn't have the wood in the same width! As a result one of the tables is 3cm smaller than the other, but who's counting, right?

I am overall pretty happy with these two pieces. Since my last table I have spent about 200 Euros on clamps which produced the desired effect and gave my some very tight joints all around the tables. I used 3 times as many wood plugs on these tables as the other one. In other words, these ones are NOT coming apart for love nor money (well, depends how much money we are taking about!)

I am particularly happy with the grain and finish of the table tops. They feel completely smooth and have a glass like feel. This is in no small part down to the new electric sander(s) I invested in. The first one was a Skil branded one and wouldn't sand down the tough skin on my feet. The one that did the trick was a Bosch one (Funnily enough, they are the same company!). I also routed all exposed edges on these tables which gives them a nice rounded look. This was surprisingly easy to do and the final finish is very pleasing. As you can see I made sure to match up the grains on these tables to give a more even appearance. It still isn't perfect but I think they are pretty sweet myself. The finish once again is Linseed Oil which is fast becoming one of my favourite finishes because it darkens the wood to rather than varnish which tends to make the wood go a little yellow. I did actually try and varnish the tables which brings me nicely on to............

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Don't use fast drying varnish (which contains nitroglycerin) on top of linseed oil! They react together and leave a surface that is about as smooth as acne scared face (Not very smooth)

2) Make sure you rub off the Linseed oil every couple of hours! (Didn't learn that lesson)

3) Stop buying cheap tools, they are cheap for a reason you idiot!

4)By careful with the orbital sander, it leaves marks which can be difficult to get out.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...................

This time I want to make something quick and easy to make that could still be profitable. After going around a few furniture stores I saw that they absolutely ROB people when they are buying mirrors, I mean $350 for a mirror! So I thought I would have a piece of that action...........

I thought I would stay with the same wood that I used for my table as I knew how it worked and what it would and wouldn't do. I decided to make two mirrors of differing sizes. This is what I came up with;

The one on top is called "El Flaco" (The Skinny) and the other one is called "Limpio" (Clean).

El Flaco is 150cm x 35cm and is intended to be a lean to mirror for someone to use to get dressed with or to put in their hall. It has a nice mahogany grain and is finished with a Linseed oil. This finish helps the frame stand up to knock and pumps much better than it would cope with nothing on it at all. It has a low gloss to it so it doesn't detract to much from the actual mirror. Here's a couple more pics;

As for "Limpio" I just wanted to make a plain no fuss mirror that would appeal to everyone so again using mahogany I selected a piece with a cross cut grain and made a much smaller mirror. This one is about 120x 40 and the frame has no routed edges or anything fancy about it. Again, it is finished with Linseed oil and this time I gave it a coat on Antique wax first, this helped make the finish much darker while increasing the frames durability. (I like this one alot)

The grain really gives this piece a great look, kind of anitiquey but very strong looking. And now time for what is clearly going to be a regular feature...............

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Routing is hard! When I was routing out the back of the mirror to lay the glass in I found that its really difficult to control the router. It has I mind of its own and could actually be the devil in a mechanical disguise.

2) Doing 90 degree joins instead of 45 degree joins saves a lot of time and alot of braincells.

3) You have to rub down any wood finished with Linseed oil regularly for the first week as it seeps out and leaves a sticky texture if you don't.

4) I need a staple gun to put nails in to hold the glass in place

5) Glass for a mirror is super expensive!

The very first project

The first thing I made was simply a coffee table for my house, it was good fun to make and a great learning process. Unfortunately it wasn't very good! No matter, I don't mind making mistakes at all, after all, that's the best way to learn. What I don't like is repeating mistakes so I'll try and explain all the mistakes I made and you can see if I repeat them or not!

The table is 135cm x 70cm and stands at 45cm high. The idea behind it was to create something that could be used as both a coffee table and a dinner table as we have no room for both in the house! The wood is called Sapelli in Spanish which astonishingly doesn't seem to have a direct translation into English (very, very bizarre) but its basically mahogany.

It is an extremely hard wood which makes it a good choice for a table which is going to get alot of wear and tear. The down side is that it is a little hard to work with and very heavy. As you can see from the pictures it does have fantastic grain which adds a great visual effect to any furniture piece. Unfortunately that is where my mistakes began!

Mistakes/Lessons

1) Choose wood with the same grain! I may have managed to use all the same wood, but the grains were different and it makes the table look odd.

2) Buy wood that's straight! Yes, I managed to buy a piece of wood that was bowed which means that the table top is not smooth

3)Don't get the supplier to cut the wood exactly the right size, because they never do it right and then you get gaps in the finished piece! (Just get them to make it about the right size but slightly on the large size so I can change it later)

4) Drill loads of holes for wood plug and....................

5) Use clamps! I didn't have any so amazingly thought that by just pushing the pieces together I would get a good fit. (Funny now, but very very stupid) This prevents the piece ending up looking like a child put it together out of Lego (which is still a great toy by the way)

6) Don't sand by hand, takes faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar to long and you don't even get that good a finish.

7) Don't leave varnish to dry out it the open air, you get loads of dust in it (especially in a city like Madrid) which means you have to constantly sand it down and repeat it, which is time consuming and very very boring.

So, in summary............the coffee table is a expensive piece of crap. I look forward to the day when I will smash it into pieces and make something good out of the incredibly expensive timber. More to follow.............

A day in the life of an Ebanista (cabinet maker)

On this site you will be able to view pictures and information about my designs and projects. Hopefully you will get a better idea about what I am doing and get a feel for the direction I am heading in.

I intend to post information about designs and projects including the design names, wood description, details of the finish and features of each piece. I'll also add comments on my success's and alarmingly regular failures so you can all laugh at me too!

If you have any comments, feel free to add them!