It's been a lazy period over the last month with the holidays and some renovation projects which needed more attention than I spent on activity in the workshop. Thankfully this is all pretty much finished and so starting on Monday I'll be in the workshop full-time really for the first time since I started this project. That should mean a lot more productivity and focus - if pull my finger out it may even result in regular updates to the website...
As well as the normal Christmas period activities I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want CeorfanWorks to be and started to do some more formal planning so I can create a path to follow and try and stick to it. The planning stage is always exciting as the potential is endless and the hurdles often small or invisible, it does not help much with my sleep though as my brain races thinking about ideas and directions to follow... I should have this nailed down in the next couple of weeks though and aim to document the plans as fully as possible on the website.
I was able to make a few things before Christmas which are shown below. Several people ordered a magnetic beer cap catcher - you can see in the first image the masking film having been carved through ready for painting - this mask worked really well and edges of the letters were perfect. The middle top picture is the ruler I made for my niece around October which is now installed on their wall and being used as a child measuring device. Its not the best picture but looks good on the wall as satisfying as an oversized wooden object. The third image is a family of CeorfanBirds that Tom who I share the workshop with ordered from me. These are the only two baby birds I plan to make so are a special 'family' group.
The second row of photos all show the present I was making that I alluded to in my last journal entry. These were for a pair of bookends for one of Tom's (the cabinet maker I share a space with) clients. They are based on a design for a stone gate drawn by the well known 16th/17th century British architect Inigo Jones. I took his design and based on that created the drawings using Vectric's Aspire software, I then used these to create the 3D models. The columns, doors, main part, tops and bases were all cut in separate pieces from oak using a very fine tapered tool. The machining time and cleanup on these very fine parts was quite lengthy but the finished pieces are quite striking and the multi-component assembly is very effective. The last photo shows then finished and in pride of place on the clients mantel.
