My partner and I didn’t discuss much in terms of planning or our pieces speaking to each other. We both kind of struggled with how to make a container without using glue, nails, or drills and only using a wood burner, chisel, sandpaper, and a saw. We agreed we will go our separate ways over the weekend and just figure it out later. I originally wanted to slab or jig-saw my container together but, my partner sent me a picture of their container over the weekend and they had constructed it by sliting and placing pieces together-and it looked great. I then had to find another way to construct my piece in a different way. I actually knew from the start I wanted to keep the bark because I loved how it looked and felt; it gave the wood some aesthetic too. I knew I couldn’t keep it with how I needed to construct my piece so it ended up being cut off.
Once I figured out a way to make mine differently, I started to plan it out in my head. I decided to make an open face container. I wanted to hollow out the middle, sand everything down, and give it a little something on the faces with the wood burner. I figured since I did the wood shop training, I would use all the power versions of the allotted tools we were could use. Well, the one day I was able to go to the maker space, one of the employees was working in the wood shop and said it was closed. Go figure that the time I was able to be in there the shop was closed off for. I was left with using all the hand versions of the tools-which was fine- but, I knew it would take that much longer to complete everything. I ended up somehow finishing my piece but, by the time the shop opened up again, I was too far into my making to do anything with the power tools.
I started out by clamping my piece of wood to the cutting block and I used the handsaw to cut my wood into a square. Once I had the square, I then sanded it down. I made sure to sand more on the edges and faces that were cut and rubbed on with the saw. I also sanded all the faces and edges to round them a bit more. I actually find a lot of comfort and joy in sanding. It was relaxing to me and unlike a power sander, I felt like I had more control of my piece and it wouldn’t go flying anywhere if I moved or changed my hand pressure slightly. After sanding all sides of my square, I then had to figure out how to hollow out the middle. I first planned on using the power tools to dent or hollow out the middle. I figured I could use the scroll saw and just shape a square down into the square I had. Since I couldn’t use the power tools, I struggled with finding a way to hollow the middle of my piece. I asked the guy that was fixing whatever he was fixing in the lab what I could use to hollow out my piece and he said, “there’s a machine you can use to do it but we don’t have it. You could use a chisel though. There’s big ones behind you.” I grabbed one of the big chisels and the box of little ones and brought it back to the table. I thought I could use the big chisel and a hammer to just get a hole going in the middle of my piece but, I ended up not doing that in fear that I would splinter or crack my wood. I took a smaller chisel that had a flat and square like head and traced a border of where I wanted to chisel into it. From there, I chiseled and chiseled for what literally was hours and hours. The chisels were very dull which made them difficult to use and to chip away what was needed. After hours of chiseling, sanding, multiple cuts from the chisel, and blisters later, I realized it was not realistic for me to get as deep down as I wanted to with this container. I also found that in my process of chiseling, the wood began in splinter on one of the sides and each time I chiseled near it, it would move and crack more. I became very hesitant with working near that side to prevent making it worse and that also kept me from getting deeper into the piece. Once I figured out it wasn’t going to be the depth I wanted, I had to sand the inside. There were so many chips, dents, and just an overall uneven surface that the middle looked very textured. I sanded the middle down so it was soft but like I said it definitely looks worked and I had a friend say it looks like sand. Finally, I took the wood burner and smeared the sides of the tip and color the faces of my piece because I love the color it turns the wood. I then took the top part of the tip and used it to make little squiggles along the sides. Since the burner does drag a bit, it left some darker spots and gave the squiggles a leafy, rough nature look-to me it looked like that at least.
Not being able to use certain things like glue or nails really left us to be creative to create this container. Also, not being practiced with wood working and having the limitations on what we could use affected our designs and what we could actually do with the piece. Not having certain tools and knowledge of wood is a limitation and challenge in itself. A lot of challenges I had were just me not knowing how to work with wood properly and having to redirect my thought process with the tools I wanted to use and what I had to use.
All in all, I really did enjoy working with wood. As difficult as it was, I have a great appreciation for those who do work with it regularly. I can truly say I understand all the time and effort that goes into making a piece. There is a lot of patience needed and since I have that, I just need to give myself time. I would love to work with wood again and plan to in the future. Knowing that we worked with bass wood and it’s soft, I will plan my piece and making methods accordingly. I also would like to work with a harder wood just to see the difference in what it’s like and how it works with how I manipulate it. I will also make sure that when it comes to sawing and chiseling, I will be working with the grain and not against it. I can and have used my piece as an open face container. It may not have been as deep as I wanted it but, it sure works fine. My lose rings and hair bands now have a place to it.