Beautiful Bespoke Bamboo and Wood NZ

We've run out of commission builds and it's a bit too early to start working on Christmas gifts, so we've decided to make a butcher's block cupboard for a friend out of some pieces of wood leftover from a previous project. All pieces cut and gluing underway. Ran out of clamps (!!!) so had to stop for the day.

Finish chosen, it is time to apply and let it dry before putting the whole thing back together and returning it to it's owner.

Q: How to support the new leaf when in use?
A: After much thought and discussion, we decided the best way would be to cut out two holes in the existing support brace and add two runners that extend out through them. We needed to make sure we avoided the leg support and the new hinges and then added a new piece of wood to the underside of the leaf to act as both a brace for the lead and as a stop for the runners.

We were very happy with the result. Good support and very easy to operate.

Now that we have all the pieces, the next stages are to sand and then add a finish before reassambling. Once these are dry, we'll have a better idea.

Getting ready to place and attach the hinges. It helps when the two halves line up perfectly.

Here they are clamped in place ready for three spaces for hinges to be routed out.

And there you have it, the basic pieces for the revamped table.

Without access to the original template or router bit, the only way to match the profile on the original table top is by hand. We've hand planed the non-leaf edge to get to roughtly the same shape and will carefully sand to get a finer match. Once we've completely sanded the top and refinished the piece, the new straight edge should blend in beautifully and look like the piece was built this way from the start.

If anything, the preparations for the second cut were even more invovled. Having discovered we couldn't use the braces as a guide, they had to be removed to allow us to measure, mark and make the second cut.

When working on an alteration project such as this, the first cut is always the one we are most nervous about. Partly as we don't know how the wood will behave and partly because we know there is no turning back and this is someone else's piece. As a result, we always measure (at least) twice. Good job we did too as we were planning on using the under table braces as the guides for our custs only to discover a) they weren't parallel to each other and b) they both had slight bends to them so we couldn't use them as a "straight edge" guide for the skill saw.

We've taken on a very small project to convert a round family dinning table into something slimmer to fit a new space. The owner wants us to trim the sides off to make the table a more of a rectangular oval shape.

The edges can be the hardest thing to sand. To try and avoid rounding off edges or adding a sloping edge, it's a good idea to clamp pieces together and sand them simultaneously.

The pile on the right hand side of the bench are the offcuts. I refuse to call it waste wood as I'm sure we'll find a use for it

First cuts. We started by cutting the original pieces along their join lines and then cut them into the desired shapes and sizes. There's a bit of work ahead to clean the wood up, but we're sure it is going to be worth the elbow grease.

We've been back in the shed on and off since the start of the new year, mostly just pottering around. A few weeks ago, we received a request to repurpose singer Rimu. After a few conversations around design and sizing, last weekend we finally made a start. Here are the pieces we're working with.

And we're back. Well sort of. As is typical at this time of year there are lots of things planned, which means that we won't actually be getting back into the workshop for another couple of weeks. To keep you going, here is an article about a (newish) use of wood that you may not be aware of:

Wood can easily be turned transparent to make energy-saving windows Glass windows are notoriously bad at keeping buildings insulated, and a simple new process for making sturdy transparent wood could provide a solution

What a beautiful piece of woodworking.

I just saw this Hoppy Doodle comic about woodworking. It is such a rewarding hobby, but you do always seem to need one more tool, lots of wood to make even the smallest item and, if you are sensible, additional cheaper wood to make a template or test run a design first so that you don't waste the good stuff when you inevitably make a mistake:

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If you could have one piece of wooden or bamboo furniture custom made for your home what would it be?

For me it was a larder cupboard. I wanted to make use of an awkward space. As the corner I wanted to put the cupboard in wasn't square (it is an obtuse angle of about 130º) with a window limiting the depth to no more than 40cm, I couldn’t just use a store bought cupboard (all of which are 60cm deep and made with corners that are all right angles).

I’ve known friends who have had gaming tables made, custom storage created for wine, and special shelving units made for shoes.

I think everyone probably has at least one space they know could be better used or wants a piece of furniture to be a certain size or in a design or style that they just can’t find it in the shops.

What is yours?

We just love getting feedback like this:

Who doesn't love an outdoor bar?
This is actually the aircon cover we made earlier in the year, but we are glad to see the owner is making good use of it. It also shows the flexibility of our design - we can use the same method to build either an outdoor bar or an external heatpump cover or a bin store/cover - all made to measure to suit your needs and space.

For our next project, we are going to make a butterfly leaf table. There are still a lot of hte design aspects to work through - so far all that has been decided is that the table will be rectangular. The wood for the project, overall style, leg shape and size of top and leaf all need to be thought out and planned.

What Are Butterfly Leaf Dining Tables - Countryside Amish Furniture Butterfly dining and kitchen tables are popular, space-saving solutions for casual dining rooms and eat-in kitchens. Folding leaves cleverly self-store within the table top.

Clamps! We were between projects, so it was time to make a few useful bits for the shed.

Had a few minutes spare this weekend to tidy the wood storage area. Now we can see what we have to work with. It's amazing how often you need a small to medium bit in a project, so we tend to keep all offcuts just in case they come in useful, to save having to cut up a bigger piece.

Wow. What a transformation of the space. The aircon cover has been delivered and, after a little "weathering" outside to allow some of the pretreated oil to dissipate, has been assembled. There's still a little more weathering to go. Once it has evened out, the new owner has been advised to re-oil the wood. We think that the cover definitely adds a bit of refinement to the space.

The devil is in the detail. The top looked fine with proud bolts, but we felt it would look so much cleaner and be more practical if they were flush instead. It took slightly longer, but we feel it was definitely worth the extra time and effort to counter sink the bolts. I'm not sure the photos really show the difference this little change made.

Assembled but still waiting for a little glue to dry. We love the aesthetic of this piece and are very pleased with how well everything came together. It is going to look stunning when it has been treated and is in place.

I forgot to mention the feet! As the aircon cover as will be going on a balcony, we've added rubber feet to protect liquid-applied membrane (LAM) from any potential scratches and protect the cover from any water that might pool around the base.

What a great day in the shed! The top we made a fortnight ago by laminating panels has turned out beautifully. After a good sand it looks amazing. It has now been cut to length and the rear right hand corner removed, to allow for the pipe work.