It’s been an interesting month or so since I updated this journal. I was hoping to be back in the workshop and fully up to speed again after my gardening adventure. Unfortunately on my return I found the bearings had gone in the spindle on my CNC. I took it to a specialist company to rebuild it and found the cost to do that was more than ordering a new one… So I ended up having to order an Italian spindle from Germany. Once it arrived I was able to get it back on the machine and spinning the right way without too much drama and so was up and running again by the middle of October.
Having had a solid couple of weeks in the workshop I am slowly getting up to speed again. I’m still waiting to get started on the big chimneypieces but in the meantime have done a bit of other work. In the first three images below you can see a door header based on one of the familiar cherub motifs I’ve used a lot over the past few years for a specific client. I made two of these parts, each one needed to be a slightly different size and layout, these will be part of the decoration over two doors in the clients house. As you can see from the second image it required two setups as it was too long for my CNC. Due to the thickness of the areas where the faces are, an extra piece of poplar was stuck on and you can see a difference in colour between them in the photos.
I’ve also started working on some personal projects again to use up some of the material I’ve collected and not used… Something I’ve been meaning to make for a while is a Soma Cube. I made one of these when I was doing my Design A-Level, 30-odd years ago. I thought the CNC would allow me to make a much better and bigger one than I’d created then. I had a 45mm thick piece of Sapele left over from a previous job that looked perfect for this. I designed it so each mini-cube that the pieces are constructed from was 45mm square so I could just cut out the required lengths to make up each part. For the joints I added 6mm dowel holes so the part would lock together and stay straight and square when I glued them. This worked really well. You can see the outlines of the parts I cut in the first image below. The glued components in the second image and the completed cube in the third. Other than light sanding and oil the only post CNC operation needed was to square the inside corner of the L shaped piece.
Finally a bit of AOB to finish up. Regular reader (if there are any) would remember the large cherub I’d constructed out of a number of pieces of Sapele. This has now been painted by a sign maker to colour it the same as the original that I copied the model from. You can see this in the first image below. This will be installed on the outside of the clients house to cover some air ducts… The middle picture below shows an abstract painting called “Blue in Green” that I made for home. I’m not sure if this qualifies as art but I enjoyed the process and the finished object at the least is a very satisfying piece of decoration. The final image below is an indicator of the moment of history we find ourselves in. This is the pumpkin design my son came up with - based on the face-mask emoji… we certainly do live in interesting times. Stay safe and be kind to yourself and others. Onward and Upwards.
