Saturday 22 February 2014

75th Anniversary Carved wooden book..

A school local to us is celebrating their 75th Anniversary..

I had heard that they were celebrating by doing all sorts of events, like dressing up in 1940s clothing, an open day for former pupils to come and look around, and other things to get the kids involved with.

I was sort of asked / volunteered to go in..

A few days later, on the morning, I had got all of my tools ready to go. And an old dressing table top in Mahogany to use for this piece. I found it in a skip, in reasonable condition but with a split either end for the first 9" right in the middle of the top..


So here's that top before I cut into it..


So 9am arrives and the children start coming into the DT room, one class at a time..



So this is my sketch, which I did in front of the children.
So they get the fact that there was no preparing of parts for this event..


So I cut it down the middle, then cut an end off. 
Then started shaping the inner parts of the pages.


After the shaping..the piece was cut in half down the length, then set out on the bench as above.


Around lunchtime, after showing how I was working the timber, and allowing students to have a go at carving some wood. I was done on the first side.
With the 'lines' carved out to represent each persons 'story' through the years between 1939 and 2014.


In the afternoon, I flew along, no students, no interruptions.. just lots of carving

And just so the school could see how it was all going, there was chance at the afternoon assembly to show off the work done that day.. quite embarrassing.. but felt pretty good.

I took it back to the workshop, over the next few days I added cuts to resemble pages, with grooves and splits..

click on the photo to enlarge





An off cut was used to add a spine..
The back all left scruffy..as would, a well used book of 75 years



The bottom, unfinished here..
(the centre glue line was later rounded to look more like the pages going into the spine)
With my stamp..and more grooves.



Sealed and waxed, ready to go back to the school.


If you would like a piece like this for your school, club or organisation, 

or for a loved one, please contact me for details.

I hope you like what I've done here,

There is more in the carvings section and you can follow me live on Twitter

Thanks for looking

All the best

Jamie


3 comments:

Jeremy said...

Nice work. A nice display piece and opportunity to expose another generation to working with wood.

Jamie said...

Thanks for the comment. The kids loved it, they were so keen to see what can be done by hand, and how it was made. A lovely day was had by all.

Thanks again

Unknown said...

The closest I had to a woodworking class or demonstration in school was when the teacher broke the 1m blackboard ruler across my desk in frustration... What a great experience you've given these students!