Snow shoes

During my trip to Canada I saw a lovely display at Lake Louise, capturing the past of pioneers mountaineering in the area. I was enticed by the old attributes. The skies were familiar to me but the pair of snow shoes really got me. It was right there and then I decided to make a pair in miniature. For various reasons I'd to do it quick, one of them being I'm currently working on a really neat book mill as well. 

So straight after getting back from Canada I did some research. It soon became clear various times and regions have their own shape of shoe and type of lacing, and after reading into the small hours, I opted for a type that's common in the North East of Northern America, called Huron. The weaving I choose for is a combination of modern day techniques and the 'old fashion way'. 

It started out with making a jig to bend the beech wood to shape. Normally the shoes are made of ash, but I didn't have that so beech it was. Which is perfect for bending too, by the way!

When the jig was set & done I could steam the 0.6 mm thick mm strips of beech. A simple set up in my frypan did the trick. I took the lid of for a photo, but of course they were steamed with the lid on. Less than10 minutes was more then enough to make them soft and pliable. Bigger pieces would take more time; you want all the lignin in the wood cells to become soft. But if you steam for too long the lignin will boil out and bending can then result in splits and breaking.

The thin strips cool off very quickly too, and then the lignin will harden up again so I'd to work fast. Placing the centre of a pair of strips at the tip of the shoe form, the sides were then gently bend down, till they touched at the back. I pressed the counter shapes tight to the strips and hammered them down. The four ends were held in place by a clamp. Then I let them dry over night. 

The next day I glued the strips together and put them back in the jig to dry.  Excess glue would surely bulge out under the pressure so to prevent the shoes from sticking to the jig I lined it with cling film. Simple and worked a treat. Meanwhile the braces were cut, predrilled and put into place when the shoe rims were dry.

Now it was on to the weave. Old shoes have holes drilled through the rim, to take a thread where the weave is connected to. The benefit is the thread will not wear when the shoes are worn. You don't see this method of weave as much anymore in modern day shoes, which makes sense being slightly more labour intensive. Hmmm... stuff isn't made as hard wearing any more so it seems... 

Neither was I confident enough to drill the holes in the narrow rim, and as these shoes won't get any wear anyway, I figured to simply weave (the more modern way) around the rim, instead of through it. 

I'd an option between all sorts of thread, thick and thinner... light colored, brown, beige... and after seeing some real shoes made in that color I decided on a brown, just cos I thought it looked good. Egyptian cotton, count # 30.

The edge of the weave was a challenge to figure out. Initially I thought of using a bobbin lace technique; the braid half stitch as seen here on the left. Turned out it wasn't as simple as I thought so it was back to the drawing board (computer) and just figure out and learn the way it has always been done.

Each time I'm amazed at how much you can learn from YouTube, like when I needed to learn how to cane a seat. And this time was no exception with tutorials on the net showing how to weave snow shoes! There where various methods and approaches shown but they all came down to the same triangular weave. But the best part were a few diagrams I'd found and with those I set myself down and started...

Here's the toe section finished and heel part done too. As you can see I worked both shoes at the same time, so I would be conscious, aware and remember how to tackle the particular portions I was working on. If I'd finished one shoe complete and then had to return to do the other i'd probably have had a really hard time remembering how i did it to keep them uniform.

Like I said, it was a tricky job. Mostly because it took some time to find the rhythm or structure in the weave. Sometimes it was over, over, over, and then the it was under, over, under, under... I'd to stay really focused while weaving, or a mistake was easily made... Turned out it was constantly 2 steps forward, 1 step back, taking out some and redo it again until it was right. But after a while I got it :-) Or so I thought... :-/

I'd made a start on the middle part, redid them a few times and then it went OK. When I was nearly done I encountered a big mistake in one and had to take out almost a 3th of the weave. Argh...

But I got there in the end, and here's how they looked at that stage.

Now it was on to the binding. Native shoes have simple leather strips without buckles, but now that this pair was sort of eclectic already, I figured to give them a more modern type of binding. 

On the left is a section of it; the toe part with the first of the straps. If you look close you can see they are not attached on the same side. Something I didn't found out (again!) until I was almost done so I'd to remake that... 

A few more pieces, buckles and finally a bit of leather polish/wax:

Now...

Who's up for a snow-shoe-obstacle-run?

Wow, this post turned out quite long. So thank you for reading all the way down.
Have fun,

Time is ticking...

Hi everyone,

The past year real life has taken most of my attention away from making miniatures so hence my absence... One of the things was a possible move and with that would come the necessity of picking up my workshop. Aaah! Something I don't even wish my worst enemy! Imagine dismantling the organized chaos of an overflowing workshop full with boxes and cabinets stuffed with materials crammed with tools. You probably recognize it. A place, so full, yet where you can find anything blindfolded. So late summer I made a reluctant start to sort & pack...

A few weeks later...  the need to move was lifted. Hurray! I decided to make the most of the situation and redo the whole shop as the ever-growing bits, bobs and tools made me run into storage issues and irritations. Amongst was a more sufficient and permanent power tool set up too!

But first sorting out the paper archive;

Build a more efficient wood storage;

Repaint all the work surfaces;

 Scrape (40 years of dirt from) the floor. 

And while at that I'd found the front leg that disappeared while building the regency library chair :D

I'd relayed a bit of electric to feed the power tool area too and then it was on to build a few cabinets i'd managed to get my hands on;

A small one on the back wall;

A bigger one on the right, and most of the power tools with dust extraction in between;

And here's is the main work area reinstated;

I was at it for quite a while but very contend with how it turned out. By that time Christmas had come which is peek season at work so it wasn't till mid Januari that time was favorable to start thinking of building again... So apology for neglecting this blog, but as you can see it was for a good cause :)

closing the ends

Finally I have some time to get back to the four poster beds I was working on. These trimmings will become the top rails on the head and foot boards. But I wanted the ends to be molded too. So here's how I did it;

I've cut some wood to fit (real tight) and try to match the grain as well.

Then cutting away the excess, and creating the hollow shape first. 

Giving it a little step, before cutting the round part that follows.

And then the molding goes all the way round as I designed it.

under, over, under, over…

I finished the library chair the other day but before i can post about that i'll need some decent pictures. Perhaps later today after work, or if not, i can make them over the weekend? Anyway, here's how the seat was made. 

A few weeks ago I did a test piece on caning with dental floss, because it's flat and smooth properties resemble cain best. It's the one on the right. But it was really happy about it; still being out of scale & too big!

I figured i'd get back to it when i would start on the actual seat itself. But in the meantime I got some unexpected but much appreciated help! Many thanks to Fransisco from Miniarquitect, who makes the most stunning bistro chairs! He convinced me to use thread (which is thinner) and taught me how you can still make it look great. Because I was a bit apprehensive of the fibers showing but now I know there are ways to overcome that. And then it all made sense… It definitely out ways floss and you can go way smaller, making it more close to scale.

I have to say, not bad :) Not bad at all! And way better than floss! So thank you here too Fransisco :)

There are many great tutorials on the internet and if you're interested here's a really nice one on caning;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5IRBuwONnA

Have a great day,

making a chess board

As promised i'd show you how to make a chess board. I started this tutorial, just a few days before i left for a spring break. Hence i was a bit quiet, but i hadn't forgotten so I finished it off during the past few day and took loads of pictures. The method i used is an easy way to get equal sized checkers, and that let's them match at the corners effortless, if you measure out accurate in the beginning.

For this chess board you'll need a few sheets of veneer, preferably in strong contrasting colours. In this case i'd picked a cherry and a maple for the checkers.

The chess board is made up by 8 by 8 squares, alternating in colour. First you have to decide on the final size you want the play area to be, so you can calculate the size of your squares. That will be the width of the strips of wood you need to cut. At this stage it's essential the strips are equal in size, so use a model strip to set your dimensions, if you prefer (see further down this post to read more on that).

One note of attention; as you cut the wood your knife will press into it, creating a v-shaped dent as it goes through the wood. This will result in a slight angle on the side of the strips. I exaggerate it a bit, but it will make for more precise squares if you keep cutting on one side of the wood. Imagine that if you'd do that and cut a square through slightly thicker wood, the top side of the square would be slightly smaller then the bottom side of the square. Sort of like the base of a pyramid. That is caused by the angle of the edge that the knife has made. So make sure not to flip the strips upside down as you cut them at this stage. Later you'll see the effect that paying attention to this cutting edge can have.

I've used veneer tape to lay the strips down (remember; cutting side up!) in alternating colours. The tape is paper based, with a gom side that will become sticky when moistened. The paper also stretches a bit when wet, shrinking back as it dries again. This characteristic helps to push the pieces tightly together.

Turning the batch of strips i glued more tape on the back to secure. Then flipped it back, with the cut side of the wood facing back up again. Left it for a 10 minutes, to dry out, pressed with a bit of weight.

Now you need to cut strips perpendicular to the original strips. To secure them at the side edge, and prevent tear-out of the fragile wood fibers i contained the edge strips with more tape. I made the first cut to get a straight edge at 90º.

For security reasons i taped the top too and marked one side with a sharpie. That way i could keep track of what side was up.

With everything tight i could now cut strips for the second time. Below is a picture of one way to cut them using a model strip. If you back your stack of wood (plain veneer or stacks of strips like here) against a straight edge (in this case an aluminum profile) you can lay your model strip on top of your wood. Place your wood & the model strip tight against that back profile and place your cutting edge tight against that too. Now press down firm on your cutting edge and push away the aluminum and model strip. Make sure the cutting edge hasn't moved before you make a sharp cut.

I prefer to measure them out, but no matter what method you use, use it all along the make. So if you use a model strip, use that method too, to cut the initial strips too.

As they were cut the veneer tape held the fragile strips together. Although the tape has some tack, the pieces are so small i expected they would do with tape on both sides. And i'm glad i did because the strips needed a bit of handling at this stage.

Now they could be stacked, making sure the colours would alternate. For that i had to clean one edge of the strips to be able to place it tight in a square. Because I started with a white square in the left down side corner. That meant the next strip had to start with a brown square. And then one with a white, next a brown, etc, etc.

(short explanation; because i didn't wanted to flip the strips (left to right, nor upside down!) i used 9 strips to start out with (see above) I started with white and ended with white. All i had to do now was to remove one white square. Moistening the tape softened the glue and i could pick away a white square.
For the picture below i've removed the tape from the bottom strip so you can see what i mean. Notice how the marking with the sharpie indicated to me the right side of the strips were up, and not turned and/or flipped around.)

I placed 8 strips on anther piece of veneer tape, that i'd wetted a bit to become tacky. I made sure to press them tight in the metal square, checking with another small square i kept parallel and not placed them crooked or skew.

Still, the side of the wood that was cut was facing up. That meant that on this side there would be a very tinny flimsy hairline between the squares, due to the dent the knife made while cutting the wood. This is not the side i wanted to show in the finished piece . On the contrary, this side needed to be glued to the core of the board. So i flipped the stack over, using the markings of the sharpie to check i was working on the 'good' side',  and put on another layer of tape. I left it to dry under pressure (and went on vacation :)

When everything was thoroughly dry (which it was after 3 weeks :) ) the checkers could be glued on the core. The side that was up, or cutting side, was moistened and left to soak for a minute. The tape softened and could now gently be pealed of.

I then cleaned of the edgeds and took away the excess white checkers. The tiny squares, only held together by the veneer tape were then glued in the centre of a piece of 1.2 mm multiplex. I used  excesive amount of glue to try to fill the hair lines between the individual squares.

Before i left it to dry overnight under pressure i made sure the edges were clean and free of any glue spilling out. The next day I soaked and pealed off the veneer tape that held them all together, to reveal the centre playing area of the chess board. It seemed not all hairlines were filled, as you can see, but non the less, it looked ok.

For a nice contrasting edge i took a piece of parquetry trim and cut off the black and white edge. Cleaned it up nicely and mitered the corners, and glued it around the edges.

 Old fashion pins helped to secure the trim. Then another edge, a bit wider but also mitered was added.

Tomorrow i'll finish it off, clad the back and sides, but this is the bulk of what i did to make a chess board. I'm sure this is not the smartest or easiest way to make something like this. So please, do comment if you know other techniques or tricks. I love to hear about them and learn! But as it stands, many roads lead to Rome, so i posted it in the hope it you've found it useful or interesting in any way :)))

Update; Today finished the chess board. The back side was cladded with veneer as well and then the whole piece was cut and sanded down to size. The sides got a layer of veneer too and then the whole surface was sanded down. Then the fun part, as ever! was to feed the wood. A bit of Danish oil brings out the colour as if it comes to life, and it always gives me huge satisfaction!!! I finished it of with a few layers of wax.

I've made this second chess board to be able to take pictures to show you how i'd made it. When i made the first one i cladded the back with the yellow birds eye maple. For this second one i used the cherry on the back. In total it's slightly smaller too, as you can see here below.

 It was fun to make :)

Have a great day,