Other hobbies - cabinetmaking

[Cugel]

Outstanding as ever Cudge!
I love Yew; just wondering if you've ever made a longbow?
I've heard there are plenty of men in tights around Brechfa.
Or was that Llandewi Brefi.

I've not the skill to make a good bow. See up-thread.

The only Brechfa tight wearer is moi and a couple of rare MTB riders I've seen. Mostly the fellows 'round here wear ancient farmy clothing that can't be described easily as it has no particular shape, no identifiable colour and the weave is covered in farm muck. The ladies often have brightly coloured dyed hair but they too have clothing which is difficult to pigeonhole or give a style-name to.

We were visited by a couple from Llanddewi Brefi just three days ago, collecting some bee-keeping stuff that was left about the new hoose when we moved in. (They're keen bee-keepers). They tell me that post Little Britain "only gay in the village" sketches, every Llanddewi Brefi sign for miles around got nicked! Roving packs of sign-collectors from Peckham or Small Heath, probably.

Cugel

[Cugel]

Nice work Cugel,though the bed frame needs a centre brace to prevent the stretchers from bowing out IMO

That yew is remarkably stiff, even though those bed rails are but 32mm thick. In practice the bed slats for the mattress support are screwed to the rail supports so the frame ends up braced to the Nth degree. I have a set of pine slats for this bed but even though they don't show once a mattress is on, I divn't like them so ash ones will be made instead then stained to match the orange bits of the yew.

I know - no point but I have got a bonnet bee buzzing about it.

Cugel

[fausto copy]

Outstanding as ever Cudge!
I love Yew; just wondering if you've ever made a longbow?
I've heard there are plenty of men in tights around Brechfa.
Or was that Llandewi Brefi.

I've not the skill to make a good bow. See up-thread.

The only Brechfa tight wearer is moi and a couple of rare MTB riders I've seen. Mostly the fellows 'round here wear ancient farmy clothing that can't be described easily as it has no particular shape, no identifiable colour and the weave is covered in farm muck. The ladies often have brightly coloured dyed hair but they too have clothing which is difficult to pigeonhole or give a style-name to.

We were visited by a couple from Llanddewi Brefi just three days ago, collecting some bee-keeping stuff that was left about the new hoose when we moved in. (They're keen bee-keepers). They tell me that post Little Britain "only gay in the village" sketches, every Llanddewi Brefi sign for miles around got nicked! Roving packs of sign-collectors from Peckham or Small Heath, probably.

Cugel

I thought the traditional clothing of the mid-Wales farmer was still the sack-cloth tied about the (expansive) waist with baling twine. Or are they just the farmers from Ffarmers?
We got one or two of their kinfolk round about yere.

I recall the sign-pinching shortly after the series was a hit. Last time we rid thru a couple of years ago there weren't any either.

[reohn2]

Nice work Cugel,though the bed frame needs a centre brace to prevent the stretchers from bowing out IMO

That yew is remarkably stiff, even though those bed rails are but 32mm thick. In practice the bed slats for the mattress support are screwed to the rail supports so the frame ends up braced to the Nth degree. I have a set of pine slats for this bed but even though they don't show once a mattress is on, I divn't like them so ash ones will be made instead then stained to match the orange bits of the yew.

I know - no point but I have got a bonnet bee buzzing about it.

Cugel

I prefer sprung(bowed)crowned bed slats for comfort should the mattress bottom out,such slats need a cross brace or two for the main frame stability

[Cugel]

Nice work Cugel,though the bed frame needs a centre brace to prevent the stretchers from bowing out IMO

That yew is remarkably stiff, even though those bed rails are but 32mm thick. In practice the bed slats for the mattress support are screwed to the rail supports so the frame ends up braced to the Nth degree. I have a set of pine slats for this bed but even though they don't show once a mattress is on, I divn't like them so ash ones will be made instead then stained to match the orange bits of the yew.

I know - no point but I have got a bonnet bee buzzing about it.

Cugel

I prefer sprung(bowed)crowned bed slats for comfort should the mattress bottom out,such slats need a cross brace or two for the main frame stability

Myself I likes the memory foam mattress of thick aspect with the channels to allow one's moisture to evaporate. I have a nice me-shaped nest in wors noo, see? In fact, I will head to that nice depresion any minute, to read a bit of the last volume of Game of Thrones or Witcraft (an unusual history of Western philosophy) before dropping orf as I snurkle up to a hot ladywife. Under the same mattress (on the floor) a collie will be aboard a large sheepskin, snoring lightly but hopefully not doing howl-in-the-sleep.

You may be interested to know that memory foam also makes a fine shock absorber.

CUgel

[reohn2]

We slumber on a very similar memory foam mattress ourselves,atop sprung beech ply slats and very nice they're too.
As for the reading material I'm currently into Tim Moore's book of him riding the 1914 Giro d'Italia on period bike of the time

PS,we're a collie free house presently Elliot our daughter's blind collie is back home with his Mum.

[francovendee]

Nice work Cugel.
Ending up with a pleasing piece is always a great feeling, although the maker can often see little things they might have done differently.
What are you planning to make next?

[Cugel]

Nice work Cugel.
Ending up with a pleasing piece is always a great feeling, although the maker can often see little things they might have done differently.
What are you planning to make next?

The current list:

Key cupboard with stained glass door panel (also made by me) in walnut. A house-move present for a neighbour.

A small box made of exotic timber bits I can't identify but which have very pleasing grain & colour (all dark red & brown). A Christmas present.

A pair of cherry bedside tables with one drawer each, in the Greene & Greene style to match an already-made bed & bedding box

A mirror, shelf & coat hook wall-hanging thing in brown-stained ash, with poppy-themed individually made tiles as a decorative feature.

Some form of shoe rack for the mucky ones at the front door, style & timber as yet undecided.

Various windowsills in various timbers (offcuts, basically) to cover the current white-painted mdf ones. (Three kitchen ones in beech already done and installed).

Shaker peg boards in hard maple, with various Shaker thingies to hang from them. (Mirror, cupboard and possibly a bessom). These for a daughter.

The stained glass parts for the two doors of an already-made maple cabinet in the Limbert style, for books.

Three Arts & Crafts Mission-style table lamps of oak, with stained glass panels held together with copper cams to make the shades.

At some point I'll run out of timber, although I still have loads racked along the wall of the undercroft, where it stays nice and dry ready for making things. I intend to make smaller things with stained glass as the larger chunks of timber get used leaving only the smaller offcuts.

Cugel, also making loadsa sawdust and shavings.

[Cyril Haearn]

Like to see some of Mrs Cugels products too
Does she do traditional Welsh costumes? Could she kit me out as Cynddylan?

[Cugel]

Like to see some of Mrs Cugels products too
Does she do traditional Welsh costumes? Could she kit me out as Cynddylan?

To look like Cynddylan you need only the ancient woollen stuff from the charity shop, with bits of hessian and hemp baling twine. Don't forget the battered and shapeless cap and the clogs. An accompanying collie will help.

The ladywife makes me very fine shirts and some lounge-aboot trews. Ganzi is also knitted. A mohair one is currently being slowly knitted. She makes herself the odd blouse, skirt and sometimes a posh dress.

Her dress-making and knitting are at a low level these days as the grandchildren are no longer interested in older fashioned (or non-fashion) things. Teenagers, eh!? The nicest thing she made (I think) was a full kimono in some very nice heavyweight silk she got from somewhere. It was made for a granddaughter but eventually snarfled by her mother. The same granddaughter had a fancy dress costume or three out of the busy sewing machines. Here is a geni one, with a cloth lamp even.

Cugel

[francovendee]

You and Mrs Cugel have some fine skills between you.
My abilities are not at your level but I've been know to turn out one or two half decent pieces.
My wife enjoys her sewing but doesn't make clothes. She had a spell quilting and had a number of requests to make them for others.
My two youngest children have no interest in making anything with their own hands although they've seen Dad and Mum always having something on the go.
My 7 years old grandaughter seems to have inherited the urge to create, and picks things up quickly.
Only sewing stuff at the moment but I'll soon get her shaping some wood.

[Cugel]

The latest items are small boxes, one of which is a host for my first stained glass effort.

Two of the ladywife's Wild Indian pals often come to dinner, as both are widder wimmin and live just up the road. They are fine company and good friends to both of us, despite us living in the village only 10 months.

One is moving to the other side of Afon Teifi - not far but it's still a new hoose. She is going to get the keybox for Christmas.

It's made of black walnut - finger-jointed for the carcase and domino-keyed mitres for the door. The stained glass is all from bits of samples, cut with a glass-cutter then refined on a diamond grinding wheel before being edge-wrapped in copper tape, fluxed and soldered. It has a light inside that's sensitive to the external light level and to movement, so it only comes on when it's dim/dark and something moves in front of it.

The key hooks, hinges, handle and (when it arrives) door catch are all in a bronze finished metal - mostly picked up in various junk shops, woodworking emporiums and other places that have such stuff.

It's had its first polish but it needs more - and a serious de-dusting from where its been sat in the workshop catching the stuff flying off saws, sanders and so forth.

Cugel

[Cugel]

The other box is made of all sorts of small bits of exotic timbers, including tambooti, cherry, iroko and a couple of others I can't identify, despite all the books I have on wood species. Another finger-jointed carcass with a mitred lid, this time with corner keys. The tambooti has a very nice smell - like a very expensive but mild aftershave.

It's meant for those tea sachets of various herb mixes given daft names like "Relax" or "Feel New". The handle is a pewter item; the hinges solid brass (and brass screws); the bottom is high-grade plywood with a green baize stuck on to prevent it scratching whatever it sits on. The mitred footings hide the plywood edge.

This one is even dustier so needs a fair amount of de-dusting and final polishing.

The current projects are more small box & cupboard carcasses, in the Shaker style using maple and sycamore. The latter is highly figured with "fiddle-back" grain and will be used for the show-parts, particularly the doors or lids. One door will have a non-Shaker panel of plain glass, in the shape of shrubs outlined with the solder joints. A plain design to go with the plain aspect of Shaker stuff. A Shaker peg rail is being made also to hang various things from, including the small cupboard.

Cugel

[francovendee]

Cugel, I thought I had a good knowledge of all the joints used in woodworking but what is a domino keyed mitre?
I'm only guessing but is it some type of biscuit joint?
Nice work with the boxes, especially the stained glass, an art in itself.

[kwackers]

That box reminds me of a box I made for Mrs Kwackers (back when I was trying to impress her).

The corners were a combination of mitres and box joints.