One of the things I want to do is learn to make (and then make!) rustic furniture. There are lots of trees on our property in Maine, not a few of which we’ve cut down to make a trail around the place. Those saplings, two and three inches in diameter at most, are calling out to become chair and table legs. Because wood shrinks as it dries, I won’t be able to do anything serious with the trees we cut this winter until sometime in 2007. But I still can try to play with the thinner sticks, which dry quicker, especially if I’m not really serious about the product. I made a first try this weekend. Here is one one-inch-diameter branch, with its end cut down to 3/4 inch with a hollow auger (now that’s a tool I didn’t know existed until a couple of months ago!) and fit into a 3/4 inch hole in a scrap board; a chunk of 2×4 with a 1/2 inch hole bored in it; a piece of scrap birch plywood; and a few sticks. What do I have on my mind??
When I brought it up from the cellar Arlene recognized it right away, although she said that her first thought was “a rake??”.
No, a music stand so I can practice trumpet.
Charley and Arlene feel that there’s too much sawmill and lumber yard wood in this project, that it would be better if the wood were more consistent. I think I want the bottom piece of the actual music rack, the piece of thin plywood that the sheet music sits on, to be smooth plywood. I agree, I’d prefer the rest of it to be more tree-like. As a step in that direction, I cut a chunk of log in half to be the base. When I planed it smooth on the bottom, I got a beautiful even-grained shaving:
I think that’s from a log that we cut off a fallen tree somewhere along the edge of the property. That’s a good sign that there’s good woodturning material growing here. I’m looking forward to getting a lathe someday and learning to use it.