What a week..

Man has it been a long week. I have meant to write a couple of updates during the week, but the time seems to not be there. I sometimes think I can't wait to get back to the real world. But truthfully speaking, I know the real world is going to be alot worse than this.

The week started with completing some shop drawings and choosing some timber. To try to avoid a hugh bottle neck in the work shop I tried to get some machining done. So I got all the timber, some really nice Tasmanian Mrytle and some Celery-Top Pine and went to town on the jointer and the thicknesser. I think I used half the forest in the making of my top. I wanted the top to be about 38 mm thick ( 1 1/2 inches), but I was really concerned about wood movement. And sense the top is just got to lay in there and be modular, it has to fit nice but not get stuck. So what I decided to do was take some regular back sawn boards and cut them into 44 mm strips and then turn them on there edges and glue them together. Like you would make a bench top, thus making the top quarter sawn timber. I also got to play with the school's new Domino. Man I love that tool. That took me most of Tuesday to do.



Then I found 2 really nice 300mm (12') wide boards of Mrytle. This would allow me to make all the components for the 2 bases units and the frames. The panels came out of the off cuts for the top that were glue in the same manner as the top and then resawed in half to form the panels for my frames. That took up most of Wednesday and part of Thursday. Along with 2 elective classes that we have to take for our degree that was the week.



Alot of late nights and not enough sleep. Reminds me of working in the real world. But that is going to come soon enough. With that said I will be job hunting here soon, hoping to starting something next year around March or April, I know that is pretty far out still. But it never hurts to get the word out. If anyone knows or maybe is looking for someone, around then please let me know.

Until next time... eat those veggies and play nice

The New Table...

So are current project is a cabinet project. It is being lead by David Up-fill Brown. He was the original head of school here. And now he is the lead instructor at The Centre for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine.

So not wanting to follow what the rest of my class is doing, by building a display cabinet or a cabinet on stand. I designed this:













Sorry for the bad photoshoped pictures, I'm still learning how to use it.

It is what I call a cabinet table. It's a modular coffee table. The top sits free on 2 base pieces. The bigger of the two pieces has two frame and panel doors that fold down to reveal the cabinet and drawer inside. But the thing that I really like about this piece is that you can create any table that you want. The bases can be configured into any combination that you can think of to form your table. The concept also allows you to store away all the crap that can collect on top of a coffee table when the guest come over. Then you can put out those books that you want them all to see and hide all the stuff you don't. (oh by the way just in case you thought that was the real thing, which I hope you did, it's really a 1:5 scale model that I built.)

So I have about 5 weeks to build this and I hope to make a couple of end tables or a sofa table to match, but we'll see.

Until then...sometimes it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

New Photo Gallery

Well I just thought I would try this and see if it worked. I've embedded a photo slideshow gallary on the side bar. So take a look and see some pictures of all my work so far here at the school.

So until next time... I am the stig

Third Exhibition and were done... (for now)

Well last night was the opening for the third exhibition in the last week. I guess it must be the season or something. This exhibition was put on by the art school from the Uni. They had a hugh diverse set up from graffiti art to some ceramics to enviromental art and then us at the furniture school. There was some really nice things there. It was also neat because they involved some local primary schools, where the children made drawings and clay sculptures and all the children were there also. So I thought that was really neat.



As for our stand I think it looked really good. It was very minimal. Which I am quickly learning thatis the style that I like. Less is more. Simple, clean lines and uncluttered pieces are what I like.

So with that said, I hope to be posting my design process of this next project. Also I am putting together another video of the show at the school. I hope to get that up this weekend.

So until then... from the mouth of my 3 year Kai "watch out pepperoni here I come"

Exhibition 2 opening night over....

Well tonight was the second of what will be 3 exhibitions in less than a week. This one was called "HindSight '07" It was a exhibition for the current work from all the students. As second years we exhibited our chairs and the first years exhibited there mirrors. Thus the name HindSight. It was a really good opening. I think that the mailing list from the University isn't the crowd that comes to these shows and buys things. No one got any sales from the opening, but it will be on for the next 2 weeks.

But the best news came during the opening of the show. They made an announcement that there were some awards to given out. They gave a few awards to local students. I guess they were classified as scholarships. But they gave one scholarship to an International student. It was classified as International Academic Achievement Award. And as you most likely have guessed I was awarded this scholarship. What came as a better surprise is the amount, it was a scholarship for 8000.00 dollars. This is an incredible blessing for me and my little family. This is going to pay for the last semester of school here. Which leave us with some money hopefully to come home with and start up again.



The final exhibition is tomorrow night. So I will take some pictures of that and some better ones of this one and post them by Friday. The photos from tonight aren't that good. I also will a short video of the exhibition.

So until then.... I can't think of any witty sayings it's to late, good night

P.S. There is a feature on the side bar. There is a place for you to enter your email address. This will allow you to receive email updates whenever I make a new post. I hope it helps.

Exhibition 1 over

Well the first exhibition of this next week or so happened last night and it was really good. It would have been better if I could report that I was 7000.00 dollars richer. But that's not the case nor did I expect it. My fellow student Jye Edwards won the emerging artist award of 500.00 dollars so CONGRATS to him.

It was a really well done exhibition. Held in a beautiful old barn, but very well laid out and set up. I was really good to set up. There were quick a few people there. But what I liked the most was meeting some of the other artist/markers.

The evening didn't last to long for Jana, Kai and I. At about 7.00pm Kai really wanted to go to bed. I guess some parents would love there kid to tell them when they want to go to bed. With Kai it's about 6.45 every night. But he was a bit wound up from the excitement of the hotel room.



I hope you aren't tried of seeing my stool, if you are well I'm sorry it's my blog. But I haven't posted any pictures of the new model, and these are pictures from the show. Well from the day after the opening, when nobody was around and you could actually see all the work.

Also we are official.

www.kalafinefurniture.com (click it on the side bar)


Is officially open. Although there are a few problems at the moment and some major updates coming soon( things like more gallery pictures and a link to this blog and a resume page). But at the moment the major things are the intro wasn't compatible. And my buddy who is doing the hosting for me www.gsonstudios.com (once again on side bar) changed the name of my homepage to the correct name, but that has screwed up my links from at the pages. So the problem is when you leave the homepage, if you try to get back , well you can't. That will be taken care of soon.



So until then my friends... Transformers, there more than meets the eye

The must see Video event...

Here's a quick peek into the workshop of the handiest man around

New Feature

Well this isn't really a new feature, more like something I finally did. If you haven't noticed already, I went through and labeled my videos. And now there is a easy button on the side menu that you can push to see all the videos that have been posted here.

I know that I have promised some other videos, and they are in the works. I hope to have a good one up tomorrow.

Other than that we are off to Hobart on Thursday for the exhibition. We are going to make a weekend of it and stay down there and have alittle break. I was just asked today to be in another exhibition next week, so my stools are going to be there also. And then Next Wednesday night the at the school we are having another exhibition for the mirrors (made by the first years) and the chairs made by us second years. A few of us second years have been informed that we might need to supply the exhibition with a few of our mirrors. Because a few of the first years have not yet finished there. And you don't want it to look empty. I'll take some pictures and post them soon.

Until then.. remember that my mom gave me Milo to grow and grow and grow...