New BBC4 Series 'Genius of British Woodworkers'

[Joe]

Now Pugin I do like.

- Joe

[pwdrive]

I once watched a program about him Joe which was very good, a mate of mine goes nuts over Pugin.

Lawrence.

[Retired]

Hi,

You pay your money and take your choice. we are all different.

30 years ago I built a fitted kitchen in our first house using genuine Contiplas white boards with softwood frames and it looked excellent.

My own taste though is in dark solid hardwood. I've made most of the furniture both fitted and free standing in our bungalow and it never ages. The kitchen has evolved during the 25 years we have lived here and the last addition was wall paneling; this paneling was constructed of 6mm plywood and solid hardwood framing; stained in dark oak and matt varnished. Frame joints vary in that the wall units in the kitchen had proper through mortise and tenon joints but the base units have biscuit joints. Shelves of white Contiplas are fully supported to prevent sagging.

I wouldn't want over elaborate furniture with lots of intricate carving but I do like to see simple mouldings such as beads and coves. I find well finished hardwood just begs to be touched and stroked.

My new computer desk is constructed of solid oak frame and MDF panels covered with Contiplas; a strange combination given my love of solid wood but I like to experiment and the desk is proving highly functional.

When I restored the Ekco T311 TV I couldn't find any decent 6mm plywood so resorted to using 6mm moisture resistant MDF as a substrate for veneering; this was the first time I had ever veneered MDF and I found MDF far superior to plywood it being more stable and no plywood grain direction to worry about.

One of our neighbours has had three brand new kitchens fitted in the last 25 years; there was nothing wrong with any of the kitchens other than they were deemed out of date?

Chipboard; OSB and MDF are wonderful board materials. If a painted finish is needed then MDF can be routed to add moulding detail. Veneering both sides of MDF gives a very stable decorative board.

Two of our bedrooms have solid pine furniture installed; fitted wardrobes and wall paneling still look good even though I made them years ago for the cost of materials.

Perhaps one day I'll panel our front room out in oak which is something I would like to do and whilst at it add new oak window frames.

Whether using man made materials or natural timber I simply like woodworking in all its forms.

Kind regards, Col.

[Radio Fixer]

Pity you aren't nearer Colin ... could find you lots of jobs . Well done to you and you enjoy it as well.

Whats OSB?

thanks Gary

[pwdrive]

I have to say that the furniture in our house is rather sparse to say the least. what we have is mainly hand me downs, I made the bed frames myself, no fancy joints, all butt joints glued and screwed with some Larch slatts on top, I built the wooden supprort frame for the consevatory the same way, all the 3 x 2 uprights were butt jointed to the sole plate with PVA glue and 5" posidrives driven through the sole plate from underneath and into the uprights, really solid, it hasn't moved at all. I built all the kitchen unit frames the same way out of 2" x 2" not a joinered joint in sight, not got any doors on them yet, the doors will be MDF with a simple stop chammfered 50 x 19 mm timber frame planted on them and painted a light colour.
I always use the keep it simple approach when designing/building stuff.

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

Having said all of the above I can do timber joints, the link below shows the last job that me and a friend did, all the external oak frames with all the curved braces etc all morticed and tennoned in French oak the differnt lengths of the horizontal support beams were joined using locking scarf joints, we also did all the oak roof frames etc and four gable ended verandahs on the other side of the building which are out of sight in the photo's the gable ends ran consecutive and we used comb joints on the 9 x 9's, two gable returns sharing one post, all a bit complex, we also did a lot of the internal oak feature work, a lot of oak went into that job.

http://www.jwrihoy.com/commercial/the-farmhouse-hotel/

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

Just found a video showing how we did the gable roofs and verandahs, it shows the type of construction and the pegging arangements for joining all the oak timbers together, it's 57 seconds into the video.That part of the construction was difficult as the whole farmhouse was cannopied during the construction phase and was covered in at the sides as well, we only had a narrow walk way to work in, the gable and roofing timbers were hoisted into position with a ratchet chain block, not an easy job, there was only the two of us, all the oak jointing pegs were hand cleaved in Romania of all places, we used to buy them by the bag load, very good they were too. Some of the internal oak cieling beams in the main function room can also be seen in the video, they are not clad, they are the real deal 10 x 10 oak.

Lawrence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8o86koPr2o

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Gary; being handy with tools has one serious drawback; I'm forever being asked to do jobs so have now learnt to keep my head down.

OSB Gary is sheet board material and you will have seen it around; it is made up of what appear to be big flakes of wood compressed and glued. It's something I've never used but it is a common product and readily available;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriented_strand_board

Very well done Lawrence and thanks for sharing the interesting video. Working with so much oak must have been very satisfying and the finished job should last a great many years.

I've seen Oak timber framed buildings erected on TV and its always fascinating to watch. Many of the joints on these frames are hand cut although portable chain morticers speed the job up.

A number of times I've toyed with the idea of buying a stock of green oak and stickering it to air dry. One year plus one year per inch of thickness is the general rule for air drying. The last time I checked I could buy green oak at around £6 per cubic foot with dried oak costing around £23 per cube. (Ten years ago).

When I paneled the kitchen I bought a single 1" thick sawn board of Meranti and this cost £35 plus VAT.

Most members will have bought ready planed softwood but hardwoods such as oak are sold as sawn timber in random lengths and widths which can make it difficult assessing how much to buy for a project; hardwood can be bought machined to a cutting list but this can bring tears to eyes.

I can get high on the smell of timber and being in charge of the timber department at work I used to enjoy my daily fix.

Kind regards, Col.

[pwdrive]

Hello Col, yes it was a good job to do although we were under considerable pressure, all joints etc were cut off site, we worked to snapped center lines and used trig, it is spot on that way. We cross cut the beams with a very larger "hand held" circular saw, most of the mortices were cut using either a portable Makita chain morticer or a Maffel chain morticer and cleaned up with hand chisles.
The tennons were cut using a chainsaw to within 3 mm of the line then finished off with a power hand planer, the cut for the shoulders were done with a Festool circular saw running in a clamped on guide. Initial clean up of the beams was done with a Makita beam planer, and finished off with a belt sander. The posts on the undercover walkway along the front of the building were a pain in the bum to line up, they sat on short granite pillars, the pillars had a hole drilled inthe top to take an SS locating pin, they were cut and dressed at the local quarry, when they arrived the locating holes in the top were out, no two were the same, the masons were supposed to set them out but in the end that particular job was left to us as our own spec was + - 1 mm for the alignment (you can't bend large oak like a piece of 4 x 2) we used a laser level and got them all to spec in the end.

Lawrence.