sutton046

The big jarrah cabinet I am making has been progressing slowly. Embarrassingly slowly. Interestingly, I have had an unprecedented number of group activities this year: across the Festivals, workshops, and school programs that I do. It's taken me be surprise, really, though it is what I have always intended, to transition from custom furniture to more group activities and teaching. My customers awaiting their beautiful jarrah cabinet have been incredibly patient. For that I am extremely grateful - but ultimately it will have been worth the wait. No question. I am pleased to say a big step forward has taken place. The other day a friend came over to help me with the big glue-up of the top section. Phil's assistance was most appreciated, as it was a big job I couldn't do on my own. There was a huge amount of preparation before this event, with all the panels and fixed shelves having to be prepared and glued up, accurately cut to size, and every joint cut and test fitted, bef...

Today I was involved in a fun Earthcarers activity at the Karrinyup Community Centre. All around the idea of making Christmas presents, there were a range of workshops to chose from, with people making soap, dukkah, dream catchers,  tea-light holders, and more. I was running the workshop on recycling pallets and wooden crates. It was a hoot. With ute and trailer loaded up with pallets and crate material, I arrived on site. My demo piece : A "folded pallet" garden seat. The seat pictured above was a demo that I had made a couple of days beforehand, just to help convey some the wonderful potential of pallets for making stuff. This pallet was from the Czech republic. A folded pallet, as I call the method, required one pallet and just  couple of other pieces of timber pulled from another pallet. Making a pair of Stilts. Wheel chocks from a pallet which once shipped a ride-on mower. What better use for them? Those wheel chocks nailed to the sticks just screamed of stilts. They jus...