I first became interested in woodworking when I was 8 years old and would take the train to visit my Grandfather in Magherafelt, Co. Londonderry,
Northern Ireland. My Papa Mac used to give me a saw, a hammer, some wood and a few nails. Goodness knows
what I made but I had fun and usually cut myself a bit. In later life I immigrated to Australia
when I was 19 and took a degree in Electronic Engineering at Adelaide University. I worked
as an engineer in electronics hardware design and telecommunications all my working life
until retiring in about 2010. I still do a bit of consulting to large engineering companies.
Throughout my early life I was keen on sailing and as time went on I built two racing
dinghies, re-built a 26 ft timber Gaff Cutter and re-designed and built the internal furniture
of my and a friend's 40 ft yachts. I had built up a substantial workshop by then and slipped
into furniture design and building as the boats were eventually sold.
These days, as I am sadly ashore, furniture has become my interest. I have several projects in
mind for the new house, one being a cabinet following James Krenov, which I will design. Below are a few of my past projects.
Small Lounge Table
This table was designed by me from scratch, no model, just some ideas and a request
from my daughter-in-law that she would like a small table for her lounge. I looked at
available timber in the shop and had some left-over Camphor Laurel, Blackwood and
Celery-top Pine (Tasmanian species) so I went from there. I drew out an idea and
basically made it up as I went along. The tops were all edge jointed and fixed with
Festool Dominos. The skirts, similarly, used Dominos into the leg top. The shelf
was simply cut into the legs to accept the shelf corners, no fixtures used. Glue was
Titebond II (Excellent stuff).
Waterfall Stool
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There is some history behind these stools. I first saw them in an Australian
woodworking magazine in an article by their designer, Evan Dunstan. Evan runs a
very successful high end furniture design and manufacturing business in
Queenbeyen, near Canberra. I sent him an email asking if he minded my using his
design as a model to make a similar stool. To my surprise he was most
accommodating and using the Australian vernacular he essentially said "Go for your
life, you will have trouble with the joints using the Ferstool Domino." He did not
provide any dimensions so I took the overall published dimensions and designed my
own version, which was very close to the original I might say.
The long and short of it was my stools turned out very well. I sent a couple of photos
to Evan Dunstan and he was gracious enough to say "You have indeed captured the
essence of the Waterfall stool." I did add an additional lower crossmember to my
final design, which makes it easier to sit on. As a matter of record I had no difficulty at all
with the tenon joints. I did have to make some longer trenons on the
router table but that was no problem. Where I did have some fun was cutting the
wave shaped seat side pieces. Up and down the grain with standard router bits did
not work. I had to make jigs so I could cut "down-hill" on each cut. Evan uses
a huge diameter commercial machine, which was way out of my price range. BUT I made them
and they look great. I have made 11 so far, kept 4 and given the rest to friends.
Lounge Coffee Table
I designed this project from scratch after a general idea seen on an Internet
site. Apart from the general shape, mine is quite different from the commercial unit. It
comprises three levels, each using about 1" thick white cedar boards
flattened by hand (yes they were hugely bent when I got them), edge jointed and
glued with Festool Dominos and Titebond.
The lower intermediate spacers were drawers (four, one on each side) made from
Caphor Laurel, hidden hand dovetails at the front, another cedar layer on
top and then "L" shaped Silky Oak spacers (4) to separate the cedar top from the drawers.
The biggest struggle was VERY careful cutting of the Festool Domino mortises and
the whole thing was held together with these. There are no metal fixtures in the
whole piece.
The finished unit was EXTREMELY heavy. I had to make a trolley to get it into my
lounge. BUT once there it was not going to move anywhere! The Drawers were a trial to
fit too, they have metal roller runners and soft closing...very nice!
For all of these projects I used Pure Tung Oil for finishing. I sand to about 300 grit paper, clean off all the dust, then apply 2 coats, 24 hours apart, making sure there is no pooling of excess
oil as I apply the coats. Two coats seems enough but some authors recommend
many more. No problem in doing so, it just takes longer. Tung oil is great as it can
be re-applied easily. It is a good sealer too as it is a chemical hardening process, not
an evaporative "drying" process. Smells nice too!
John can be reached directly via email at mcbratneyjohn@gmail.com.
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