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JOEL Joel's Blog

Too Many Projects!!

05/30/2012

Too Many Projects!! 4The new issue (#10) of The Work Magazine Reprint Project came out last week. As it is I am behind in my reading, but there are two killer projects in it.
1- The cover article is on carving frames and the detail they show for carving the corner is exactly the sort of thing I am studying carving for. I'm bogged down in life at the moment so my carving lessons are going slower than I would like but they are going and this corner detail is just over my current skill level but not impossible. I love how the branches intermingle (very William Morris-y). I'm going to decide next week if I am going to give it a shot.
Incidentally Chrs Pye stresses learning to carve with both hands. When I first started out the handholds he stressed and the use of both hands felt awkward and unnatural. But now, in the carving I am doing right now, I find myself changing hands and grips all the time, it feels as natural as can be, and it makes is so much easier to follow the grain of the wood.

Too Many Projects!! 52 - If you recall from a few weeks ago I wrote about the Duncan Phyfe exhibit that was at the MET. At the show there was a fireplace screen desk that I thought was the coolest thing in the show. Well here it is. This is less decorative than the Phyfe design but otherwise the same. When this issue of the magazine was originally published (1889) steam heat was just coming in but a lot of people would still have gas or coal burners installed in their fireplaces. The desk is designed to keep your feet warm but keep the fire off your face while you work. Cool - no? Anyway I thought it would be a killer desk for a laptop or an IPad. (especially these days where I am really trying to get rid of paper). It's only 18" wide, which I think is a little narrow, but it is designed to be very simple to build. And I would skip the desk light. This is a weekend project unless you add bells and whistles (build one and make me green with envy).

Download the issue here.

Do I have any time to actually build either of these project? Fat chance. It's summer, I am outside on the weekends, I am in the middle of a giant store project (so I can't do it on company time) and with the carving I have a month or so of studying to go.

My next project? a 32 hour clock. Wish me luck.

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