Woodwork workshop.

1/12/15

In today's workshop I began to sculpt the back base, frame and final arch for my sculpture. I started by getting all the measurements for each piece of wood I needed. My instructor, Brad, then cut out a piece of wood for the back base and arch as my measurements were two big for the band saw. 

For the arch I used the clay arches I had made in the ceramics workshop as a stencil so that I knew the pieces would match up because they would be the same size. I then cut out the arch using the band saw and the bobbin sander to sand it down. Doing this I accidentally cut over the markings using the saw and then when sanding to make it even again, I in fact made it worse. To solve this I simply drew a more even arch and used that mark to sand it evenly. 

For the frame I used two long pieces of wood and a router to make a rebate at the edge of them for the back base to sit onto. Using this machine I had to higher the drill bit every time I made a groove until the right height for it was achieved, this was so the machine was not over stressed by taking large chunks of wood out at a time. As the wood became to splinter because it caught onto the fence. Brad coated the fence in three layers of masking tape to stop the wood from catching, on the last run through on the machine the masking tape was removed so the drill could remove the small amount of wood remaining because of the distance between the tape and fence. 

Measuring the pieces of wood to the back base I marked out the length of wood I needed and used a mitre saw to cut out a 45 degree angle into the wood. To ensure that both side of the frame were the same size, I set up a piece of wood to rest the frame piece against to ensure it wouldn't move. I did this for all four piece. I then used a frame clamp to clamp all the pieces together and slotted the back base in to ensure the frame was the right size. As it was slightly big I used the mitre saw again to cut down each frame piece until the base slotted in perfectly. After that I glued each piece together wiping away all excess glue and placing the back base back in again while it was still clamped to prevent the frame warping and becoming a rhombus shape instead of a rectangle.