yunika.dk » Workshop

Going even more old school

tmk — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 21:44:53 +0000

In October i visited a friend in Jutland and on my way home I went to see my parents. With me home I brought the only to frame saws left from my grandfathers workshop. When I was six years old he promised me that one day I would get one - and finally over 30 years later I inherited the last remains. I've been refurbishing them and to some surprise I really like working with them. Even though it is very logical I never thought about the fact that the blade on a frame saw cannot bend and thus easily makes straight cuts with a slim blade that doesn't get stuck. [gallery link="file" ids="1111,1110,1109,1108"]

My local store is running out of wood!

tmk — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 08:07:56 +0000

My local supply store that used to be a machine wood work shop is running out of massive wood - and they are not getting any more. Luckily they still have some left so I need to pick up as much as I can afford before it’s to late. I just purchased these to pieces - the small one beechwood for a coffee table (made by order) and the other one is oak which I hope will be enough to make a table top for our own new dinning table. It was really practical to be able to pick up hardwood locally but it seems that I need to find a new supplier…

Relaxing in the workshop

tmk — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 22:00:44 +0000

One of the great things of us getting the workshop is that it gives us an extra room at home - away from home. It hasn't only become a room where we do our creative work but also a recreative space where we invite friends - or like me hanging around til very late just listening to music and drinking some wine. I just wanted to share a couple of pictures that is not just wood and woodworking. Most of these where taken around christmas when I was working on christmas gifts and just enjoying some time off. Lunch with a beer and classical danish meat balls. Nice and tidy workshop with a glass of wine ans a couple of smokes. Listening to my favorite polish piano trio. Looking at the lava lamp that I found in our attic - I got from my younger brother - maybe when I was 20 or so years old. - and I really really like Rickie Lee Jones, at least this old stuff.

A video tour of the work shop

tmk — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 22:25:38 +0000

The last week I’ve been working on a video tour of the work shop as well as presenting a few of my favorite pieces. Working with video is new to me although I’ve been composing music in the past so at least some of the concepts are the same. I must admit that I’ve enjoyed the process and hope that you will get a good sense of both my work shop, my works and the passion that I have for it.

Most of the video footage was shot with my iPhone 4S, my brother took the one of me with his Xpreria phone and my works are pictures taken with my Canon Mark 5D Mark II camera with a Tamron lens.

The music, a track called “Coal Train” by Triplexity, was found on Jamendo. It’s a nize jazz tune that suited my emotional state perfectly. The breaks are great for transitions and the feel is pretty close to the work shop. Another detail is the “reference” to my favorite saxophone player – John Coltrane.

Admittedly I feel I still have a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to doing my next video. Tips and tricks on keeping your hand steady while iPhone shooting is more than welcome – and maybe something about making a real “ending” instead of just a “fade out”.

Take care, Love Troels

Burnout and a new work shop

tmk — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 21:56:58 +0000

Woodworking in my kitchen has been a blast but let's face it - its small and makes our appartment an eternal dust trap. Since the building we live in actually had a spare room in the basement that has previously been used as a workshop my suggestion to rent it was approved. So for last couple of months I've been establishing a new workshop in the basement and I would like to invite you in for a glance. A lot has happened since my last post more than three months ago. Of cause I've been doing a lot of woodworking projects that I haven't managed to blog about yet and life has been tough. About two months ago my head just went blank one day coming home from work and the world crumbled. Unable to get out of bed, make food or feel anything. I just knew that "this was it" I couldn't take the work pressure anymore - and I'm still in treatment and still on sick leave - but things are getting much better. Part of my recovery has been to establish the new workshop in the basement - plastering and painting walls, furnishing the place and moving all my stuff from the appartment. Its really a fantastic oppertunity for us to get that extra creative room. My girlfriend can make jewelery and I can do my craft projects - and we've gotten another place where we can be at home making it a great place to just go and "be on your own". The new workshop with tool storage on wheels rebuild from the desk originally in the room and my old workbench redesigned to be a high precision sawing table. My newly purchased old school european style workbench. Our resting area where we can sit and relax, read magazines, listen to old CD's (finally found use for them) or have a cup of tea or coffee (or beer). My girlfriends jewellery making corner. Early installment where I just used my old workbench. Desk with a metal vise perfect for both computer and creative work - or just listening to music. Rough walls after plastering.

Size really does matter!

tmk — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:26:54 +0000

While being very satisfied with what I've built so far in my tiny workshop in the kitchen I've found that it has limitations. Working on pieces longer than 60-70 cm is a hazzle due to the limited space around me and the dimensions of my workbench! On a happy night out I promised a friend that I would make him a picture frame for a poster - we're talking 80x60 cm or bigger and I was confident that it wouldn't be a problem! While talking to another friend he challenged me: "make it as thin as possible" - and that's what I set out to do:

Create a picture frame 80x60 cm with a frame as thin as possible.

I took out my sketchbook and started drawing up lines for the joins - and I even did so in 1:1 as I knew the size limit would be 2 cm in width. So with high spirits I started with the saw, the planes, the ... and found that my workbench will only handle wood at lengths of 80 cm if I added another dog hole and had the vise turned out to its limit - and the edge of the workbench is so close to the fridge that planing the pieces was like "oops there is the wall" and then doing it again - but I got there... At least until I started doing the joins. The outer parts (the dovetail) is along the grain of the wood and was fairly strong, but the outside pin on the inside... So little wood and so much tension. Bottom line - after completing 1/2 of the joins they where all broken - and when I started doing an alternate version the wood itself cracked!

I think I was feeling a little bit hopeless but carried on...

I had the wood but as one of them was broken I cut the other piece in halves - and changed my strategy for the joins. I was down to a frame size of 60x40 and it really made life easier on the workbench. I completed all the joins and the finishing work in a short evening - and it looks great and still has the finesse of the "Touch Me" series even if the joins are not dove / fish tails. For the glass I wanted to use a piece that I picked up a couple of months ago on the street. It was enough for two frames that size - so I set out to cut the glass on my kitchen floor. The first one cracked because I didn't have a soft enough surface underneath - I fixed that! The other one was perfectly cut... but was 2 mm too wide!

Guess what happens when an amateur glass cutter tries to cut off 2 mm excess glass on a kitchen floor?

If you didn't guess he yells our "DAMMIT" at 11.47 P.M. in the night! The aftermath is that I need to acknowledge the physical limitations of me and my workshop - or change them! In a couple of days the people in the neighbourghood will leave stuff on the street as trash and maybe I'll get lucky and find another piece of broken glass - and Kasper will get his (smaller) frame... In action [caption id="attachment_329" align="alignnone" width="770"] "L” of the frame.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_331" align="alignnone" width="770"] Planing the pieces succeeded and least it looks cozy in the workshop :-)[/caption] [caption id="attachment_327" align="alignnone" width="770"] The ones on the right - thats the ones that broke![/caption] [caption id="attachment_328" align="alignnone" width="770"] The glass for the frame - before it cracked![/caption]

Softening the edges

tmk — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:25:55 +0000

One of my central ideas for the "Touch Me One" furniture series are the contrast between hard edges on the inside and very soft and smooth edges on the outside. I want the pieces to be tactile, delicious, beautiful and loveable. When I worked on the chair I chose to complete it as raw prototype without softened edges. Its main purpose was to let me see how the proportions work in real life. For the footrest the purpose has been to test shaping the soft edges and making a piece much closer to something real and finished. Soft meets hard In the process of planing the edges. One side A finished raw side of the footrest. The raw pieces All the raw finished pieces almost ready for glue and assembly. A little helper I made this little helper when I was cutting the dovetails - an adjustable ruler with screews allowing me to set it to a specific depth and just mark a line. I think it took 45 minutes to make and literally saved me more than 2 hours of measuring. Tool construction is an essential part of woodworking!

A workbench in our kitchen

tmk — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:01:41 +0000

While the little workbench on a shelf was a big improvement it was far from problem free. When chiselling wood I would slowly pull down the shelf, and the stability and size was a constant problem. So inspired by videos on Youtube I started constructing my own workbench. It was done during last years summer vacation in July. Our apartment is 56 sqr. meters - so fitting a workshop into the kitchen is an achievement in itself. It is done using cheap glued up beechwood and can be disassembled. Initially constructed as a table that the small workbench could be mounted and stored on - but I ended up purchasing a real vice on eBay. Today it has become my almost daily retreat where I create, think, relax - and like now write a post on my blog. When I was a kid I always wanted a small "safe room" where all the things I needed was collected, so I didn't need to go out in the "dangerous" world. The kitchen woodshop has become that - even though I don't fear the world (that much) anymore. TODO: Add original images

How it all started

tmk — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:14:45 +0000

I love music and have been into HI-FI stuff since my father gave me my first B&O transistor radio when I was six years old. I've been getting more and more into LP records and analog sound - and around May last year I purchased a "The Fisher" tube amplifier. It's a beauty from around 1959 and it really sounds great! The orinal wooden cabinet had been lost and only the raw amplifier exists. My DIY thinking: I'll just build one - thats the image on top - and even if it looks ok, its skewed everywhere and it looks like - well - a plywood box around a fine piece of musical equipment. At my girlfriends' brothers house I saw that he had a workbench in their small cellar and I though - "ohh, they come in smaller sizes". A couple of days later while reconsidering my cabinet, I realized that was what I needed - a workbench - and searching the local version of eBay I found a small one almost for free and I picket it up the next day. I set it up on a shelf in our newly finished kitchen and then I started practising (I knew I wasn't capable of doing the beautiful cabinet yet). Youtube really is great - there are a lot of videos on how to do different stuff including woodworking. I ended up searching for "workbench" and stumpled on an incredible amount of (mostly american) videos of people building their own workbenches ... It is fascinating what the love of music and a simple set of tools can lead to - we have a lot of saw dust in our kitchen... Getting back to the amplifier - I've picked up some merbau wood from the trash on a building site and I'm planning to build it sometime this year.