Oct. 26, 2024

Last Saturday, I borrowed a palm router, which opened up the possibility of making grooves for drawers and such, so I got to work on cutting down my final large plywood board of 6mm thickness. It’s the thinnest board and really just supposed to be used for the bottom of drawers and stuff. Since I had such a large quantity of it, I thought I’d try to make some smaller side projects while I had it laid out for cutting. I had planned a herb planter and a small toolbox. It was nice to focus on a simple box for a change. I realised the wood was too thin to join together with nails or screws, so I added a stake on the inside to help with fixing it all together. I used the router for the first time, it was a dream and made a great even groove to slide in another panel. I’ve only used the straight bit so far; there are so many more bits to try.

Over the rest of the week, I finished the planter and toolbox. I attempted to stain the tool with the natural stain I had made. I’m not great at even application, so need to work on that, and the edges of the plywood stain much darker. It’s not very even yet, but I’m going with the effect. I also applied a layer of wax and linseed oil to try to seal it a bit. I still made a bunch of mistakes on these side projects, like the toolbox handle is off-centre. Funny how simple things can so easily go wrong… 

Now that autumn is here and winter is coming, I’ve been thinking about candles. I’ve also used candle jars, but since candlesticks have come back into trend, I’m leaning towards that. The jar candles always leave so much extra waste candle wax once it's burnt down since it just burrows a hole in the middle. Candlesticks seem more efficient. I have also had a lot of commentary that the classic shop candles are toxic/bad for you because of paraffin and whatever else they put in, so beeswax is the better alternative. It is more expensive though obviously. So I have been researching how to make your own candlesticks. And turns out, it's probably not that difficult! This YouTube link was quite instructive. This project may be on the horizon in the medium future… In the meantime, I bought some ready-made ones to try out.

I did two visits to the field this week. First I dug some more holes for trees and put flags onto the bamboo markers to better differentiate between oil, sewage and tree markers. That seemed to work well. Then I had a bucket of woodchips delivered to help me create a mud-free parking space, and define the oil and sewage paths. It took about three hours to spread it around. I’ve created a whole new section on my blog dedicated to progress on the field, which I’ve called Faber Forest. That section on the blog has officially launched so look out for detailed updates there! For now, I’ll just say I ordered a large delivery of hedge plants to create a border around the field, which should be coming in late November / December. The plants are a mixture of hawthorn, seabuckthorn, hazel 

Towards the end of the week, I managed to make a bit more progress on the tool cupboard, I’m now at the stage of creating hooks to hang tools and placing all the items inside. It’s really starting to shape up! I’m even trying to get my sewing machine to fit inside so I can house everything in one cupboard. At this point, I’m getting a bit creative with how to fit it all in. Hopefully, by next week I’ll have this more or less finished. Potentially minus the finishings. 

Total Likes: 0

Comments

---

No comments yet.

---