Wooden pram in Elm

I just loved making this wooden pram.

When Helen brought me a picture of the type of pram she wanted for her little daughters 2nd birthday, like this but more handmade, in lovely wood, just natural...

The way you make things... I just had to say yes.

This is from Myriad

I'd got a few weeks, so I was asking around timberyards for something a little different. An old yard with loads of reclaimed wood came into mind. I went to see them and remembered that they once had a quantity of thin Elm planks that were from the end of an old barn.

I found them, tucked away under loads of other timbers, not as many as I thought.. 

So I had what was left.

 click on photo to enlarge

The grain in this Elm was wonderful..

It had all been protected under a few coats of Sikkens, and this just peeled away, like peeling gloss paint from an old window that wasn't keyed up properly. So I let it dry for a while..

I invited Helen in to see the timber and we set to working on patterns. That way we could come up with a design that would work with the doll she was making.

Made not just suit her little one's needs now, but also as time goes by, it could have the wheels and handle removed to just leave a cradle. So most of the joints are fixed, but parts can be removed for repairs if needed.

Not many photos of the pram during build but here are some of the finished pram.

List of timber used;

• Elm - recycled
• Oak - from off cuts
• Cherry - from offcuts
• Sweet Chestnut - from a friend, who is a local Woodsman. - offcuts 

Here it is finished

And here is the finished pram.. I just love the recycled Elm body of the pram..

.. fabulous colours..

Even the waney edge has been left on in places, then just rounded off to soften the edges

Helen's daughters initials CRC carved into the back of the Elm

The 'rolling pin' Sweet chestnut handle, suits little hands and good for adults to carry too.. 

The ends of the Sweet Chestnut coming through the side of the Oak handle supports.

Wedged to hold the handle in place and firm. 

The wheels are in Cherry, with Sweet Chestnut hub caps

Helen came in to pick it up, and bought Lucy the doll to see how it all fits together..

A labour of love on both sides, it worked really well.

Helen emailed me.

Thanks for looking

All the best

Jamie 

Take an old Pair of jeans...

This blog post has been in 'drafts' since March last year, I was going to do a photo type instruction, but just don't have the time anymore, so just a basic instruction,  but feel that now would be a good time, as more and more people are recycling things. I hope you like it, if you do you can follow my blog and get updates when I publish new posts.

cheers

Jamie

March 2nd 2014

A new apron

In the workshop I'm finding that my apron of twenty years is getting more grubby, and when I'm oiling a timber bread board or serving board it's really suffering..

So what to do..

I don't keep rubbish, (I'm sure Lynn would disagree.. well I try not to)..  but I haven't thrown a pair of jeans away for a while, and then when I was trying to work out what fabric to use for a new apron.. I thought, That's it.. jeans..I've got three pairs that were going to be used for something else...but... (I'll tell you in another post)

They fit me still, with some thinning on the knees..and the length of the leg, is just right for the length of my body, for an apron.

Ahh..therefore, a ten year old's jeans would suit the height of a ten year old..

Simple..If you are a larger person, you need a larger apron... you have larger jeans..

You have to use your old jeans. That way you get to re-use your old clothes. If there's a hole in them, then we'll cover it with a patch or a pocket. or your favourite band patch or football club

Right, now for my pet hates..Boyfriend jeans..I hate them, honestly girls, they were just wrong. And if anyone said you looked good in them..they were lying, I'm sorry to have to tell you that ladies.  (Yes, I lied too)..

And if you still have them and you're not going to wear them again... cut them up..

I spent all of that Sunday working out how best to get a pair of jeans to work out as easy as possible.

One pair of jeans into one apron... an apron you can wash with the work-wear or other jeans..easy

                                                           So this is my first apron..

click on photo to enlarge

So with minimal sewing you can achieve a pretty good apron. 

A quick 'how to' for you... 

1. The centre panel and left panel are still original seams (left leg, front & back)
2. The right hand panel is the back of my right leg
3. The bottom seams are the bottom of the jeans
4. Patch pocket at the top is still in the original position (bum pocket)
5. With the waist pocket made from the front of my right leg (avoiding a hole)
6. The top seam is that seam just under the waistband...have a look, it does make sense.
7. Finally, the neck loop and waist ties are from the leftover thick seams.

go on have a go.

All the best

Jamie

Wenge chair arm fix

Just a short post

Antique Yew Windsor Bow chair

The deeper you dig, the more you find..

Steve bought this chair in for me to repair after he had fallen over and landed on top of it, easily done. And at first glance there was a fair bit to do, but not too bad.

Here's the finished chair.

List of jobs to do.

1. Crinoline stretcher broken joints both ends. One broke clean off at leg 'clean break', the other split from right hand end.
2. One broken stub stretcher joint (needs doweling back into crinoline stretcher)
3. One split stub stretcher at the crinoline joint (that had previously been restored) Needs a new piece of Yew scarfed in.

Here's the chair before I started working on it.

Yes, that's how it looked..

Top of the photo shows the stub stretcher with the previous fix,

bottom of the photo is the split crinoline end..

Top of this photo shows the broken tenon/spigot

bottom of the pic is the 'clean break'

So I started by fixing the scarf on the one end of the crinoline

Using an old piece of Yew I sorted out the scarf joint.

I planned to shape some of the old timber into the shape of the new,

this will help lose the perfectly straight joint line and blend the colours in.

This is the repair to the split stub stretcher with the old dowel.

That old dowel has been removed by planing the area flat to take the new piece of Yew.

The new parts have been fitted into place.

I've copied the whittled ends of the stretcher to ensure they look the same.

To get the crinoline and stub stretchers back into the sockets of the legs, I had to loosen the back legs. One of them came out quite easily, the other was a bit tighter, but what I found, was that the rear of the Elm saddled seat had lots of woodworm, the dust was just falling from the seat with each tap of the hammer.

After Setting the legs back in place, and using sash cramps to ensure the back of the seat was going to be structurally sound and included in the glue up of the rear legs, I treated the woodworm. With a quality woodworm killer, using a syringe, I injected the fluid into every hole and crevice in the chair.

I then noticed that the seat either side had a split in the edge, just a small step in the Elm

Here it is, just by the two holes.

And the other side, not too sure what the yellow patch is but I left it alone.

When the legs were out there was no evidence of a fixing screw so..

With no evidence of the split across the seat,

but you can just see a crack line between the spindles.

I then decided that the chair needed all the help that I could give it. So a week or so after the woodworm treatment was dry, I used another syringe to inject a very strong resin adhesive into the old flight holes. Over 80 holes were filled, with the glue occasionally coming out through some of the other holes.. I used at least three 30ml syringes full of adhesive.. 

that's a lot of glue going down 1.5 -2mm diametre holes.

After the adhesive was applied I then removed all drips and wiped out the adhesive from the flight holes, I was after a small dimple in each hole, that would then be a pocket for a small amount of dark wax. This would then give the appearance of very old holes that had been filled with waxing and polishing over a period of years.

It's worked really well, and the chair is now looking great.

After stain and polishing, then a few coats of wax polish the chair was done.

The chair has had a few more wax polishes since these photographs were taken, 

and looks even better.. I'll be sad to see it go, it's been a roller-coaster.

Till the next time

Jamie

A year ago, looking back to 2013..

Well..

It's been an interesting year. I managed to get myself a workshop within The Ruskin Glass Center part of the Ruskin Mill Trust set-up..

I spent a little while getting things set up.. Benches and tables to be made, some organising of the workshop space and getting to chat to some of the visitors to the center. With just a few jobs to do for people, the work started to come in, with a few of my college pieces on show and other jobs on the go, I'ts easy for visitors to see what I can do. With more work going on my blog, then came work from all over the UK..and my work started to go oversees too..wow

I'm still in my first year, but I have made an impact on the center and with others on the internet, and through Interior designers and stylists..

I restore, re-make, re-build, re-use, recycle.. re ..all of it.. I just make things using wood and any other medium..and I love doing it. If I keep doing what I have been doing, and keep going in the direction that I want to go in, then I believe I will make a very successful little workshop, where I will be happy to work and people will be happy to visit and trust me with their pieces.

I really look forward to 2014, It will be one of more interesting commissions, more projects that I have on my todo list, and more one-off pieces that go into peoples homes, catalogs and magazines..

Here's a few of my favourites..

Thanks for looking

All the best

Jamie

Paul Spriggs chair

Towards the end of 2014

I had a couple come into my workshop, after looking through some of the work I do, they explained about a set of dining chairs that their daughter had, it sounded great, Oak chairs with rush seats in an Arts and Crafts style.

They mentioned a slight problem with one of the seats. One of the rails had broken and dropped slightly.

King Edwards's School Birmingham

Remembrance Sunday..

Last night I attended the opening of the King Edwards's School First World War exhibition.

Invited because I, with young Tom Oakes (my apprentice for the next year) have built Oak display cabinets for the exhibition held in their beautiful Pugin chapel.

The initial phase of the exhibition focuses on the early stages of the conflict and the raising of the Birmingham City Battalions. Over the next four years the literature and artifacts will be refreshed to reflect on the anniversaries of landmark events and more personal stories of the 1,411 who served in the war.
So the cabinets will only be opened and 'set' occasionally, and the top 'Crest' rail is removable in order to slide in new panels. And simple, so that when you are viewing the artifacts, there are no distractions for the viewer.

Here are a few pictures from the opening night...

click on the photos to enlarge

Firstly, one of the three Oak cabinets designed by myself and Simon Meddings.

Finished in traditional Button Polish.

This one has an audio phone. notice the simple details and lines.

The cabinets have been thought through in every detail.

Looking down towards the Alter

The three cabinets back onto the three pillars.

The Alter has been transformed into a viewing area and made more comfortable using two of the old pews from the chapel. This is all so well thought out.

During the evening the Chief Master introduced and pressed the button for the first time on the documentary film about the experiences of JRR Tolkien and his closest friends in and around the time of the First World War. The documentary was produced by Elliot and Zander Weaver, both Old Edwardians, I learn't so much from it, so compelling... It was quite hard to watch at some points, what the soldiers went through was terrible.

Zander and Elliot, you have done your school proud.

After viewing the documentary, I chatted with the Chief Master, John Claughton who beat me to it when he said that Pugin himself would have designed the cabinets with that detail if it could have been made in that way. He also told me about  some other Pugin work within the school that I would like to see. Very generously he was willing to show Tom and I around parts of the school to see some stunning work.. It was beautiful.

Then it was a short walk to the performing arts centre for a reception where drinks and canapes were served, with a warm welcoming speech from the Chief Master, who then went on to tell more details of the guests. Including a lovely anecdote about my viewing some of the Pugin furniture just ten minutes before and some very complimentary words about the cabinets.

click on the photos to enlarge

Quite a few comments from the guests on the cabinets were welcomed by Tom and myself.

Link to King Edwards Great War Exhibition where there is BBC featured news item.

Where it started

When Simon Meddings and I had our first design meeting in this beautiful space, The curved lines of the Equilateral Arches or  the 'Ogees' were wonderful and I felt that we had an opportunity to use this wonderful feature in the design. We needed legs and some timber rising in the centre section to hold the panels with all the information. The design you can see in the photos was going to happen, with lots of laminating... We agreed that we should use all of the vertical lines in the stonework, mullions and leaded windows, and bring those lines down onto the York stone flags.. 

I needed to add some structure to the bottom of those centre Arch laminated legs. So I suggested they share the same layout with rails and stretchers as the Alter table. 

Simon can seriously draw well, so as I was rough sketching ideas, Simon was making the sketches look wonderful, to better scale and perspective. I can see it in my head, but getting it down on paper is not as easy as I would like.. More practice for me then...

A lot more to follow as I sort through the photographs.

All the best

Jamie