What's this?

in #woodworking7 years ago (edited)

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Many times the slices of wood I use aren't wide enough for the piece I'm working on. So, I have a choice to make. I can either cut the live edges off so they are straight edges making it easier to join the pieces together or I can maintain the shape of the live edges as much as possible and join them together which is much more challenging to do. Take a look at these pieces and you'll see what I mean. This is a footboard and is made with 4 slices of a log. I marked the areas of interest on each picture so you can hopefully see what I'm talking about. You can zoom in on that last picture to see the detail.

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I like the idea, how much time do you spent on such a piece?

I don't track my time but guessing this one took about 15 hours or so.

Do you use hand tools only for joining or a router copy jig?
Should stop complaining about the time I spend for tops..........

I very rarely use a router. I use a variety of tools depending on the join type. So I can't answer that directly. Joining those pieces for the footboard in that picture I used a saber saw believe it or not.

I do t get hung up on time any more. I've proven to myself that I can build stuff in less time because I'm using dimensioned lumber. However, the character of the wood is lost in many ways. I like shaping the pieces based on the grain asmuch as I can. So if there's grain that runs around a knot for example I may use the grain as my cut line. That's takes a lot more time. There's no way I could make a living creating pieces like this. I'd never recoup my labor. Starving artist kind of deal.