Sick of woodworking??

[Greg O]

Ok! Fine! I am going out to the gar....shop right now and makin' some saw dust, really I am! Greg

[Andy Dingley]

Here's the ark I finished yesterday

I really need a better camera 8-(

[Ba r r y]

Precisely why my shop has XM radio.

I can pop a microbrew and do utterly silly things, like walk in circles with the radio on, all by myself.

It fits the bill so well I'm changing a bedroom into a studio for my wife, so SHE has her own place to do the same thing.

Barry

[Mark L.]

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 17:23:33 -0500, "Greg O" calmly ranted:

I had a feeling that'd scare you "straight". G'luck!

-- Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ---- --Unknown

[jo4hn]

Exquisite. That is truly inspirational, meaning I'm probably gonna build something like it. Is it still plagiarism if I tell you ahead of time? mahalo, jo4hn

[mac davis]

I was referring to a different hobby, Greg, not a cure for shop separation.. lol

Mac

[Andy Dingley]

Thanks - go right ahead.

I wouldn't copy mine though - go back to original sources and copy them, not some half-assed second generation.

Like I said, I have _no_ evidence that arks were ever built in this half-size manner. I just made it from the timber I had and sized accordingly. Most of the details came from the photos on the Early Oak site, and looking at a few other period chests. No ruler or measurement used - just a square and a pair of dividers.

I was really planning to make one from riven boards, but my froe technique isn't good enough to split big flat boards in oak. Those are pretty good radial boards, but they're sawn and parallel, not split and tapered.

I _might_ sketch some drawings of it. Might do.

[Andy Dingley]

I'm weak and stupid, so at some point I might find myself relenting.

I'd be better to gnaw my own legs off first though.

[Mark L.]

[Andy Dingley]

Have you read Toshio Odate's shoji book ?

I still can't find a UK source for this. I'm getting my own paper and oiling it myself.

[Larry Jaques]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:43:41 +0100, Andy Dingley calmly ranted:

Jay Van Arsdale's book is great, too. I just picked up the Odate book but haven't read it yet. I think I'll start that tonight. I just finished Larry Niven's "Ringworld Throne" last night.

Oiling it?

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[Mark L.]

Not yet, just finished "A Japanese touch for your home" by Koji Yagi. It gave me a few ideas.

How is it turning out. If it's not good enough maybe I can help by getting some paper here and sending it over the pond to you. Let me know how it goes.

[Mark L.]

[Andy Dingley]

Either oiling or waxing. Although I've no idea what I ought to be oiling it with. I'm using modern stuff, all the hopefully "traditional" candidates for an oil that I've tried have turned yellow in a couple of months. I still have no idea what the real oil would have been.

I do some paper and book conservation work too, so I already have stacks of Japanese papers to hand. NB - It's Kozo (mulberry) paper that's used here, or maybe Gampi for small pieces - it's never "rice paper" !

[Conan the Librarian]

FWIW, Van Arsdale's book was the one I followed when doing a shoji window treatment

He gives very precise set-by-step instructions, and if you follow them to the letter, you should be OK.

Of course, on a project like that, the devil is in the details. It was absolutely the most exacting woodworking I have ever undertaken. Tiny m&t's and half-laps, tight tolerances, fragile wood, etc. make for a pretty intense woodworking experience.

And the glueup was ridiculous. You need approximately five hands to do it.

So yes ... I am encouraging you to give it a try. At least once. :-)

Chuck Vance

[Richard Clements]

I get nagged unless I start another project with out finishing the current one. usually because I want to buy more wood, "you haven't finished the last project you started you don't need to start another one!"

and yet she has all manner of unf> >

[Joe Gorman]

Well, yo could start from scratch, providing you can find the raw materials.

source is in Germany, might be easier for you to get. just found this one in England

[Larry Jaques]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:59:10 +0100, Andy Dingley calmly ranted:

The reason I asked is because I hadn't heard of oiling it.

Can you recommend any good books on bookbinding? I asked the local library and they didn't know. That really surprised me. I fixed one broken back with a silly application of Shoe Goop, but that was for a workbook, not a valuable item. I have some old Harvard Classics I'd like to firm up before sale and I want to do them properly.

Are you doing Japanese-style bookbinding?

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[Andy Dingley]

There's one obvious one - the Thames and Hudson "Guide to Bookbinding", which is the standard student textbook on it. Seems to have gone expensive though - maybe it's out of print at the moment ?

Dover press also have a couple by Aldren Watson that are rudimentary, but simpler to follow and far cheaper.

Most of what I do is actually repair and restoration, rather than binding from scratch or even total rebinding. There aren't many books on this, but the Palimpsest list at Stanford is worth reading (archive on the web at

Are you doing Japanese-style bookbinding?

No. I know nothing of it, and I don't know anyone who knows anything about it. I collect woodblock prints, but still can't read Japanese and don't know much about their books.