Something to use your logs for:

stig

Patron saint of bore-cutters
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This was posted on the Danish woodturners forum.
I liked it enough that I thought I'd show it here.
Must have taken him a lot of tries, before he got it right.
It is such a beautiful, simple design.

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Wow, that makes me want to stop working 24 7 so I can go out and work in my shop and MAKE something. Really cool mang..
 
Wow,that's talent . Nice mill equipment .The table saw and jointer look to be Oliver or at least in design .
 
He sure made a lotta cuts that I don't have any idea what he was doing.

Jay, what would that sell for? $1500?
 
Dunno, but the amount of work involved tells me it's worth $10,000.

Cool trees that we remove go to Eric of www.Slabart.com. His tables are around $2500....and require far far less work, equipment, and skill that that amazing table did.
 
Jay, what would that sell for? $1500?

Someone has just the spot in their home for that nice bench, it could fetch the amount. It's art, so the fees are commensurate with the spirit that fits the buyers sense....or something like that, I guess.

Cool vid, Stig. I like how he used his mill for more refined work than just sawing the log, like bending the cut, I've never seen that done before. It's a good display of the range that furniture making entails, sometimes heavy muscleing stuff, and other times delicate controlled where a little slip up can be very damaging...means fitting yourself to the task.

He doesn't seem to do much in the way of hand planing. Certainly good tradition for that in his part of the world. Shavings are nicer than dust from sanding, and leaves an awesome surface on the wood if done right, but whatever works for ya, I think is the best way to look at it....

Wow, Jay needs a videographer!

I dunno Willie, might catch me sleepin... :) I'll try to post some things in the future too.
 
An interesting piece of furniture and an interesting video. I wouldn't have taken such a big slab on the opening cut into the log, he could have yielded one or two pieces of high grade 1X stock. But that is the amateur/semi-pro sawyer speaking. It was amusing that he had to label the logs by species. He could have saved himslef a ton of time on the table saw and the jointer by edging the slab on the mill, pretty quick and simple.I don't think I would ever use my sawmill to make those curved cuts. There is way too much risk of binding, twisting or even breaking the blade. He would be better off with a 14" bandsaw for those intricate cuts. Better control, less need for the elaborate jig and less futzing around with the finish work at the end. I can understand why he uses green wood, that is a pretty radical bend for a piece that wide, but I wonder if he has any problems with cracking and checking since he finishes the piece after only 30 days of air drying which is nothing at all for a species like white oak. I wonder how many times he breaks a piece when bending it after steaming. What a PITA to have done all of that prep work and have the piece turn to junk in a heart beat. It's pretty obvious that this is one of his production pieces with all of the specialized clamps and jigs and his speed on the bending jig. That was a pretty ingenious set-up to get that radical bend. I'd like to get back to furniture building once the other knee is replaced. A lot of standing that I just haven't been able to do the last 4 or 5 years.

Cool Vid, thanks Stig.
 
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He doesn't seem to do much in the way of hand planing. Certainly good tradition for that in his part of the world. Shavings are nicer than dust from sanding, and leaves an awesome surface on the wood if done right, but whatever works for ya, I think is the best way to look at it....

I thought of you when I posted it.
And I knew this would be your take on it.
Almost made a comment about it.
I totally agree.
When I do woodturning seminars, that is what I show people: how to get a good surface without sanding.

I hope he is only doing the sanding without an airfilter because of the filming.
Otherwise he won't be long for this world.
 
Good point, Mike, about the wood checking. There is virtually no way that wood will dry down to a stable moisture content when still in the log. Steaming does drive out the moisture quite a bit, but still a seasoning period is essential. I assumed there was drying time between the vid being completed.

I have to let 1 3/8" square chair parts sit for six weeks or so after being steam bent, before they are usable. Some species can be bent when pretty dry, and some folks get around the lack of flexibility when dry by soaking for some days, which allows quicker use. Was that White Oak he was using? One of the best bending woods...... Steam bending is cool, the wood takes on a certain sensation that is not like any other aspect of woodworking.

What an incredible medium wood is. There are endless layers of beauty in the material, the more you polish the more the colors and shine comes out, there is really no finality to it, then the affects that only age can bring. The wide species variation really makes it interesting. Easily accessible skills if you try, but just a lot of them.
 
Dylan,
I know what you mean about lost opportunity and wood that became firewood when it held such potential.
Not long ago it about killed me to have a fellow I was climbing for announce there was "no time" to let me go grab my log trailer when the homeowner added a cherry takedown to the day. I had the tractor operator roll a 60" x 38" dia. piece into my little dump trailer when the 'boss' went to look at another job, but he wouldn't give me the time to get the whole log. Would have been spectacular wood.
 
That is why I bought the mill. Recycling! We don't have many species of tree that lends themselves to fine furiture though! I also lost most of my woodworking tools in my house fire.

Did anyone notice the oval thing in the scene where he is setting the table up in his livingroom (showroom)?
 
Sorry, it was "S" shaped!

Brendon, you sayin' my shop isn't clean? :D
 
Looked like an end table or coffee table. Wonder if it was laminated bent strips or one solid piece of white oak, steamed and bent like that.
I don't doubt he could have fit it in a steamer that size.
 
I'm pretty sure that white oak is one of the few species that can be steam bend to that degree and not split out .No matter ,it was a real work of art and obviously a lot of thought went into the process .

Stuff like at is probabley limited to less that a thousand people in the entire world, if that many .
 
I recently watched a guy demonstrating his method of bending long inch and a half square pieces of dry oak. He wrapped it in a wet cloth then aluminum foil, and passed an electric hand iron back and forth over it for thirty minutes. Halfway through he poured a little water in one end to keep the cloth wet. After the heating process, he unwrapped it and put it between blocks attached to a thin stainless strap, and did a pretty rad bend around a form. It worked very well. I would not have believed that method would work in a thousand years, due to insufficient heat and moisture, but on the contrary....he had both. He said that he has a very high rate of success with the method.
 
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