My love of Danish oil

Danish oil is my preferred finish to all my work. This is because the transformation it brings to a piece.

The images below shows what amazing features that danish oil can bring out in the oak. This waney edged coffee table top had many features to show off even before the oil was applied to it, but coupled with the oil the results were outstanding.

With the oil rubbed in with a microfibre cloth, just one coat (there will be 5 in total) transformed the piece with patterns, colours and lines that were unseen until the oil was applied. The golden colour which the oil has also gives off a warm feeling from the furniture once it is completed.

 

The results of Danish oil still amaze me. I love it and it is a bonus that it is also so easy to use.

New custom coffee table.

I have been asked to make a coffee table for a colleauge. He picked out and supplied an oak beam to use for legs and rails and a lovely waney oak board with a large knot in it which will be an amazing feature to this table.

The oak beam provided to me needed to be cut up to use for the legs and the rails. I used a table saw to machine to beam down into 4 chunks at 75mm x 75mm. I planed two faces flat and square with each other and used these edges with the table saw to cut the other sides of the timber square. I then check everything using a tri square and everything was spot on. The legs were 68mm x 68mm finished size before cutting the design into them. I used the remainder of the oak beam to cut out the rails.

I worked with my colleauge to design the table to his liking. He was certain on the design of the leg as it was his own. Plain rails was what he wanted so no detail on those. I set out marking the mortice and tenons which is the fixing method I am using for the rails to the tops of the legs.

After a lot of mallet and chisel work the mortices were chopped out and the tenons fit nice, tightly and all square. I placed the table top on the constructed legs and rails to give an idea of what the coffee table will look like when it is finished. The height was perfect and my colleauge is over the moon with it. I have some sanding left to do, glue the rails and legs together, 4 x buttons to make to fix the top to the rails and a generous 5 coats of danish oil which will bring out the beautiful lines and markings of this piece. There are many, many medullary rays in this table. Finished images are soon to follow!

 

Oak beam bed frame finished!

 Following up from a post on the 29th December 2011 I am pleased to say that my oak beam bed frame is now completed! I have a few pictures to share of the build and a brief run through of what to picture are.

The 3 pictures you see above are what the oak was like before I began working on it. 150x150 beams and a 35mm thick waney edged board I found and used for a head board. In the last image one of the oak beams releaved some amazing medullary rays (silver grain) once it was sanded down.

The timber rails joining the foot frame of the bed to the head board frame were Ash in stead of Oak. I went for a change when I saw this was available to me and the grain patterns were unreal! I was glad I used this once I saw it. The foot end of the bed was sat on top of 300mm legs which were fixed using mortice and tenons. These were fitted tightly in place and an oak peg was used to hold the joint together.

The last image is to show the design of the bed and to test fit the joints which are mortice and tenons.

The head board joining was hand cut using a tounge and groove fixing method. Once the pegs were driven into the frame joints it pulled the frame tight together sandwiching the head board tightly in between the upright posts to make up the head board frame as seen in the second image of these three.

The last image is the bed frame joint work completed and fitted together. No pegs have been driven in yet so the frame can be taken apart to easy moving. The jobs left to do was to groove out the Ash rails to take for the mattress and pine bed slats. I used pine for a bit of give and flex for under the mattress.

I used 12 slats in total. Each one was 25mm x 100mm spanning the width of the bed frame. This easily supports the mattress with no sagging what so ever.

I gave the whole bed frame a danish oil finish to protect it and to bring out the beauty of the oak and ash.

Sleeping in the bed after getting it home was fantastic. It is as I wanted it to be. A solid, sturdy bed that looks different to anything else. The large beams dwarf everything else in the bedroom and makes a real presence in the room. No movement, no creaking from loose joints and no sleeping in a bog standard bed. Perfect!

From the 6 year dried oak beams to the finished bed frame was all hand made. All joints were worked out and cut by hand. The mortices were cut using a drill and chisels then everything knocked together using a rubber mallet. A belt sander and a drill were the only power tools I used for this whole build. Creating and making something by hand is extreamly rewarding. So happy with this!

Blogging app for my phone.

I have just found and downloaded a blog app on the android market to see if I can post while working on my projects. Hopefully so I can post to everyone so they can see what I have to do at certain stages of my builds. I hope I can use this app to post regularly!