Yes, its long time no see!!

Hey all followers. As the title suggests I am way behind in my posts, I'm going to try harder because A). I know people like reading (especially my mum) and B). Google likes new material and content in websites, so here we go.

In the holidays my daughter and I spent a lovely 3 days camping at a good mates house in West Wales. We managed to have a few drinks and a little dance with the kids (9,9,6 & 3)(well, something resembling 'throwing some shapes' of sorts) but all we had was an Amazon Alexa for the sounds.....Needless to say it wasn't loud enough so I decided to make my mate a decent speaker that can boost her little Alexa's voice.

this is what I came up with.

As my mate Emma is a picture framer (taught her all I know!) I thought it'd be nice to incorporate some off-cut mouldings into her new speaker, so the front is made up from ash and oak from her mouldings and some walnut and iroko from my offcuts, very nice I hear you say. The volume knob is made from a circular peice cut from the front wrapped in a walnut veneer.

The amplifier section is a dedicated module with bluetooth built-in and had usb charging also. Its possible to add battery power/charging but this is just an indoor speaker.

I intend to make another speaker, or Music Maker with a bit more 'thump' and 'dancing volume'. My next version will have a split ash front, bigger speakers and a louder amp. It may also have App control for tailoring the sound and possibly wireless charging too. Watch this space!

Wall light - trials, fails and eventually a light at the end....

I didn't think it would take that long to develop a wall light, or a matching set of them...

Initially I wanted a curved wall /shade support but after countless fails whilst trying to bend 9mm ash, probably too tight a radius, I took the simpler option to start again. It'll do for this pair. I WILL get my bend supports but thats a bit of a longer process which entails upgrading the electricity supply to the workshop to be able to have a better (hotter) steam box. I think the wood wasn't getting hot enough to happily bend such a tight radius, I digress and remember I posted about this before, I'm happy tonight with my progress.

Here are a selection of images depicting my fails... ending up with a mounted, working wall light - as I say I'm happy enough with nearly finishing them.

As you can see from the last image, and it was always a concern of mine, was the heat the timber got to with a bulb in use but happily the led bulb I provide and specify in a warning note included with sales only gets to about 20 degrees, the timber only gets to 12 degrees at max :)

More bending fails

My steam bending journey has had a rocky week last week as I must've broken a fair few 'bends'. I think I am onto better progress this week by upgrading my workshop electricity supply to enable me to run 2 steamers and therefore more steam and therefore heat. Upgrading my supply will also enable me to have more things on at once, like the HEATER as well as dust extraction, a saw AND 2 wallpaper steamers...It shoud make work-flow a bit better and more continuous...you can see from the slideshow below most bending efforts ended in failure. I just tut to myself 'carry on' and 'on to the next one'...