Week Two: Sanding and Rings

  This week I was able to start helping with projects. Since this is going to be a test piece it isn’t a big deal if I mess up, but If I don’t and if they look good they could wind up being the final.   

Small wooden shapes and wedges

  To start the day, I continued sanding the pile of wooden shapes from last week. Dennis decided to have a metal circle that connects with three of the shapes. Then he and I took the shapes and figured out the size of the circle he wanted and then I would make a wooden wedge that would connect the three shapes at the top. In the ring, he wanted to have the shapes sit in thirds of a circle. We measured where each shape would sit in the circle. I then took the metal rods cut them to size and with a roller, I shaped them into the right size circle. I screwed holes into the wooden shapes and looped the metal ring through. Dennis then showed me a trick that’s simple but sneaky. He told me where the two ends of the ring are cut to hide them in the hole of one of the wooden shapes that way the ring would seem seamless. Very sneaky, I will be using this helpful tip in the future. I did two more of those and left for the day.

  The following day Dennis had me make more rings for the larger wooden shapes. He helped with the first one, I made the second one. Then I finished making wooden wedges to hold the tops of the sculpture together. The rod was the right diameter. I measured the right height and where the thirds would be, then I cut out the thickness with the band saw. Dennis put a zero clearance insert in, that allowed me to get close to the blade and not have the little wedge get caught in the hole. I made a few of those, when Dennis decided to try another approach. We took the whole wooden rod and found the thirds then ran it through a table router. I never worked with the router before, so Dennis showed me how it works, the different bits that can be used for it, and how to change out the bits. We found the right size that we wanted and put that bit in. Then we centered the bit to the rod. Dennis did a couple cuts for practice, then had me run a portion of it through. The router I found was difficult when running the rod through and the first few inches that went through came out wavy instead of a straight line. I was able to get a few inches where it went through straight and was able to use. Dennis said it might be a difficult approach to take. I think it was just that I wasn’t prepared for the tug of the router and threw off my grip. I’m sure if Dennis were to have taken over it would have been better. But since I was able to get a few inches it was fine. He said trying things in a different way with a different tool is good experimentation. If it doesn’t work for that project at least you will know for another project for the future. I went ahead and cut the thickness out of the precut rod and put them on the wooden shapes.

The Larger and Smaller piece put together.

 Dennis wants this piece to be a hanging sculpture, so he told me to drill a hole in the wooden wedges and run a cable through them. He gave me bolts to put on the ends of the wire, then I crushed the bolts to stop the wire from running through. Then I did the similar process to make the loop for the other end. I ran out of bolts, so I ended the day with that.

  Wednesday, Dennis had picked up more bolts, so I finished making the wire to hang them with. We still had another ring that we could make, so he wanted to see how the smaller of the wooden shapes looked with the ring going on the outside diameter instead of the inner diameter. The outside diameter is the same size that I was doing for the larger shapes, so I went ahead and made that ring. I then put them all together with the wire. There’s an area in the studio where he told me to hang them up on to see them better. After hanging them up. He wasn’t sure what to do with them next, so he had me start sanding another project. He had me start with a grit of 120 and worked to a 220. I never really had to pay attention to much about surface texture before, this was new to me. It was oddly satisfying to see how much smoother the wood got after each grit. I sanded a tiny test piece then most of the larger piece. By that time my hand was vibrating from sanding, so I called it a day.  

  This week while starting to work on projects I learned a lot about different tools and techniques. The router was a new tool I never used before and learned the ins and outs of that. I do think I need more practice with it though. The sneaky technique of making the ring look seamless by hiding the ends in the wood was something simple but just as clever. Next week I’m looking forward to starting the painting process for the hanging project.