Woodworking

While on my quest to learn about the traditional crafts (see my blog post about blacksmithing) I decided to spend some time in the wonderful workshops we have at Chelsea. I chose to do woodworking and make a cruiser skateboard. In the end I made two. Follow my progress below.

The first thing I did was think out my project, draw designs and buy wood.

After the wood arrived (they have a service that delivers it directly to the school, which is very useful when you can only order in huge sheets of about 1.20 by 2.40 meters). I cut up the wood to the sizes I needed and made a press to bend the wood in.

I glued three pieces of 4 mm thick plywood together and put them in the press to bend and dry. Above you can see the glued wood inside the press. And let it out to dry for 24 hours.

Here you can see the wood is nice and bent. I drew on the pattern, cut it out on the bandsaw and sanded it into shape. Afterwards I rounded off the edges and sanded the whole board until nice and smooth, ready to be stained and varnished.

Here are the two boards in their final shape. Now they had to be stained into a design (by taping off some parts) and then varnished.

The two finished boards side by side. 

I have learned a lot from this project and it was great fun to do! I definitely fell in love with woodworking and hope to do other projects in the future.