Sacked by the "downturn", an unemployed architect touring the country in a bus...




I used to live in New York City. I designed homes for the tycoons of Wall Street; Park Avenue, Scarsdale, Greenwich. It was great fun. And, after years of saving up for a down payment, I was just about to buy my own little place in Fleetwood, half an hour north of the city, when the economy fell apart. Architects are like canaries in a coal mine when the economy slows, and true to form, there were massive layoffs in firms all over the country. Devastation of the profession. So, I decided to try to find something else to do for a while. I bought a 23' school bus and I'm on the road to see if I can figure out what that might be.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Another test seat...

Click here for a Flickr slide show.  I laid out the pieces on some MDF the same dimensions as my Zebra wood, so that I could confirm the book matching of the grain and the efficiency of the layout.  Then I cut the pieces to rough size and used my tablesaw jig to make the finish cuts in about 20 minutes.  Then I used my router table jig to cut slots in the edges, 90 degrees at the flat connections, and tilted at the dihedral angle connections.  I put the new seat together with splines.  Sweet!  Since these photos, I've laid out and rough cut my Zebra wood.  Then I tried to cut the Zebra wood on the table saw in the jig, but the blade is not sharp enough for a clean, unburnt cut through the very hard Zebra wood.  I have to get a good crosscutting blade before I continue.  Drat.  Plenty to do 'till Monday; sand all the frame pieces to prep for finish (I have to find a dust free space to do the actual finishing), cut splines from Afromosia, build a clamping jig for gluing the seat components, cut out the back rest and arm rest pieces...  Still lot's to do, but I can see the end.  I'll post pics tomorrow of the book matched Zebra wood seat.  It's great :-)

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