Hello again. As you can see this is the second post in 3 days and it is not just because Mylene and Rya are in Calgary and I get bored once the machines are turned off if I haven't left myself any hand work. This post is devoted to something muy (very) excitante (?exciting?)!! Today I cut the crest rails, the top piece of the back of my chairs. Now without going into to much technical detail I hope to show how cool it is and share a little grain graphics enthusiasm. The piece pictured above is the end result...whatever, right? Wrong! Here's why:
This little member, only 13" long in my miniature scale, began as a 2 1/4" by 2 1/4"by 14" piece of perfectly rift sawn white oak. Perfectly rift sawn means that if you look at the end of the piece, the grain will go diagonally, corner to corner at 45 degrees. Tecnically anywhere from 30-60 is rift but for this I needed 45.
The key is that the end grain must be rising from front to back. You'll see why shortly.
After tracing my templates, which are also shown above, one for the front, one for the top it was time to cut. This involves first cutting the shape out based on the tracing on one face. Then you stick the pieces back together with double-stick tape so you're still working with a nice square piece and then cut the second faces pattern.
Here's the result.
The cuts have been made, now it's time to take apart the puzzle and reveal the little gem inside.
Anyone excited yet? As you can see, the cutting divides the piece into 3 part both on the horizontal face and the vertical face. Our little precious is tucked right between the top and the bottom of the middle section.
And alas, there it is, with the two red pens pointing at it.
Now if you're still saying, "who cares? What a waste of wood for such a little piece," let me explain. Notice the grain and how it follows the curve of the piece? It does that on all four sides. It's not by chance, but rather almost like magic! Since I started with that perfect 45 degree rift sawn piece (and remember the grain was rising front to back?), as the concave cut was made into the depth of the piece the grain rises with it because we're basically climbing the 45 degree slope we could see in the end grain. The end, where the cut was more shallow only just begins to rise. (Click photo to zoom in)
Sorry, I tried not to get into the technicalities but once you understand it, it is pretty cool. We do a lot of manipulating grain for all things but nowhere is it more exciting than in this case where you get a complex shaped piece that looks like the grain lines are painted on perfectly. Plus it comes wrapped in a cool puzzle box that you have to take apart to find the treasure inside.
If you held on this far, thank you and I hope that all made some sense.
when i first did my first "grain painted on cut" on a leg i flipped out. now if only every board at the lumberyard was rift sawn aye!
ReplyDelete