Day 1 - Sutton

-

Today was my very first day of the Advanced Wood Working A-Term Course. How exciting!

I entered the Tinkeria right at 8:30am because Catherine was taking forever to respond to my texts and, obviously, I didn't want to look weird walking in alone. There are only four students in the course since this is an experience exclusively for elite woodworkers. Mr. Grisbee first presented us with a brief overview of the goals of the A-Term (gain experience with more advanced tools, create one or two projects, learn tips and tricks, etc). I was happy to hear that I have a "leg up" since I have already been acquainted with tools like "the planer" and "the jointer" during J-Term. 

We dedicated the morning to brainstorming our individual projects. Initially, I was toying with creating either a charging station for an Iphone, Apple Watch, and Airpods or a lap desk. However, after a couple more minutes on Google, I struck gold: a dog bowl stand. I decided to go with this choice since working with wires and electricity seems excessively confusing and I only do work at my desk. I spent some time researching various options and now my Google Search History looks like I have a severe dog bowl stand obsession. 

Once I felt confident with a certain style, I began sketching a detailed blueprint. I included a birds eye, side, and front view. The top part of the stand has two square trays that will hold the food and water bowl. I spoke with Mr. Grisbee and I believe I will be drilling two pieces of wood together to create this layered effect. I may also be using a "biscuit joiner." This involves cutting round-ish slits in the side of a wood piece of wood and then connecting these pieces using a wooden "biscuits." It sounded interesting but I think I would rather eat a real biscuit. The sides of the stand will have an intricate mountain/chevron design using thinner strips of wood. I am excited to include this detail and think it will definitely make the project more advanced. The corners that connect the sides to the tray will have something schmancy called "splined mitered joints." You cut slits in the corner and slide in different colored wood chips to make a sort of backbone effect. I also plan on including my dog's name on the front of the tray. I am still deciding whether I will engrave this or cut and glue letters using the laser cutter. Depending on how long this takes me, I may do an additional project.

In the afternoon, I made a general list of what wood pieces I will need from Rockler and/or the lumber yard. I am thinking I want lighter colored wood because a dark colored dog stand may look too intense. Maybe oak or maple. I also caught up with Catherine which was fun. Since she is a senior, she had lots of advice for IB and it was good to hear some tips and tricks. This is just one of the reasons why I am so grateful that Post Oak works to integrate students of all grade levels. I also had to witness some girl being super embarrassed because she left her car on all day long in the parking lot on accident. Gosh, I mean who does that? :)

Overall, I felt that today was a productive day and I am ready to begin some hands-on work tomorrow!


My Dog Bowl Stand Blueprint



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8 - Sayer

-
 The final day of the program was a tough one almost exclusively due to the final hour, which involved me actually getting my shelf home through the pouring rain. Most of the day itself focused specifically on the finalization of my shelf, mostly in regards to sanding and adding on the last pieces. Those aforementioned last pieces were the holders and the felt pads. The holders were what the day seemed to primarily focus on. The first half of the day was spent mostly with me sanding down the top and edges of my shelf while the CNC router cut out my holders. After lunch I came back and passed the results through the planer, ending up with two equally sized really good looking holders that I placed aside so I could finish the sanding. After the sanding was done however I added them to the top and had Mr. Grisbee teach me how to properly screw them in. After they were properly screwed in I sat back for a moment before beginning to work on the felt. Now the felt wasn't the issue, it wa...
Read more

Day 8 - Catherine

-
Image
Today was the last day of the Advanced Woodworking A-term and for us seniors the last day of Post Oak J/A Terms as a whole... On another note, I finally finished my cutting board! I had to veer a little from the original design but all in all, I am very happy with the final product and learned a lot in the process. I started the day by gluing the handle back onto the cutting board with the longer clamps at school. This glue-up called for an additional extremely long waiting period for the glue to dry. Since I couldn’t finish my project just then I spent the morning roaming around the Tinkeria, watching Sutton try to saw off the excess wood from her project, and even started making the A-Term Presentation slides in an attempt to make the glue dry faster. By the time we finished our lunch break, my cutting board was dry enough for the next step. Recalling yesterday’s incident, I hesitantly approached the router again. Mr. Grisbee wisely decided to stand on the left side of the router thi...
Read more

Day 3 - Catherine

-
Day 3!! Having gone to Home Depot and Rockler yesterday, we were all set to start the real work today. Mr. Grisbee gave us a lesson on how to use the planer and the jointer, two woodworking machines that help to level out the wood. My first step was to cut the huge 98" long walnut plank and shorter but equally oversized 60" maple plank into manageable pieces. As my cutting board design is 12", I cut the wood into 13" pieces to account for the planing and sanding that will happen at the end. I then used the jointer to sand out the edges. I only ran the walnut through the jointer because the maple was too wide. I found it tricky to use the jointer with the wood placed horizontally because as you push the wood through with the two push grips you are supposed to lift one hand up and place it in front of the other one to evenly guide the wood through but I apparently did not have the coordination for that. I was also supposed to mark arrows on the sides of the wood to ea...
Read more