I milled up stock today for the sculpture I described a few days ago. The idea is to assemble same-sized pieces of many different kinds of wood (and copper) to create the look of a building that has fallen into disrepair and been rebuilt several times.
I began with a bunch of scrap I had laying around (I am a major wood packrat): small pieces of Doug Fir, Poplar, Cherry, Black Walnut, Maple, Alder, Aromatic Cedar … Some were thick enough that I ended up re-sawing them on the bandsaw before I sent them through the planer.
Because I was using up some scrap, there were a few short pieces I tried to plane, in the neighborhood of 5-6 inches long. One piece of poplar shattered inside the planer, I think because it was not long enough to be engaged by both feed rollers at the same time. No harm done, but it made a terrible noise! So, word to the wise: only plane pieces longer than 6 inches.
After more planing, I cut the pieces to width and length on the table saw, ending up with a pile of 139 pieces of wood 2 3/8-in. square. Amazing how the pile shrunk from the first photo! There goes another bag of sawdust!
I am already liking how they look all together. Tomorrow night I will drill a 1 1/2-in. hole in each one.
Gabe Says:
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 pmVisit Gabe
Looking pretty good. How are you going to assemble them? And are you going to use a forstner or a spade bit to drill the 1 1/2″ holes? I like how the wood grain is running in different directions.
Dave Says:
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:31 pmVisit Dave
Definitely Forstner. Some of the pieces are pretty thin, and a spade bit would rip ‘em to shreds. Plan is to use a little Titebond and a lot of masking tape to clamp things together. I think I’ll use epoxy for the copper pieces.
Gabe Says:
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:43 pmVisit Gabe
Do you like the thicker gray Titebond? I prefer the regular red label Titebond. I think that it is easier to work with and sets up faster and is stronger. Have you ever used the spade bits that DeWalt used to make? I still have a set and they are awesome. Unfortunetly I don’t think that they make them any more.
Michael Says:
January 25th, 2007 at 8:24 amVisit Michael
One more thing….
Is that a piece of figured maple in the top pic, or is it just saw marks?
Just curious!
Dave Says:
January 25th, 2007 at 2:53 pmVisit Dave
Just saw marks. It’s the stock blade that came with the saw, and isn’t the best cutting blade in the world.