It’s the pointy end of the semester, when essays and assignments are due for assessment. Two essays completed, the Bauhaus and Australian modernism between the wars; still have to do a tutorial presentation on John Bracks and an essay on Design and the work of sculptor, Henry Moore. Then I have to give a Web 2.0 assessment presentation for ‘working the web’ and complete my 2 woodwork projects, the working surface with a drawer’ and the workbench.
So the work load is getting quite intense. Last week-end I spent my time building
building a new twisting jig. As you can see, the leg is inserted into the RHS holding crib, after steaming for about an hour and a half, and then the twisting crib, on the LHS is fitted over the other end of the leg. The leg is plastic only while it is hot, so the process of getting it into the jig has to be done quickly. Then the leg is twisted by turning the plywood board on the LHS. When the right degree of twisting has occurred, in this case I wanted a 90 degree twist, the board is locked down by inserting bolts and thus fixing the twisting crib. The wood I’m using for the legs is European Beech, which is supposed to be good for bendin. I decided to split the leg into quarter lengths as I thought this might prevent the un-twisting that occurs. This decision seems to have caused a few headaches i.e. the leg becomes difficult to get into the jig, and then there is the problem of gluing the four sections back together.
Drying time is another problem: ideally the leg should be held in position for 2-3 weeks before gluing but I just don’t have the time. So far I can’t say that my experiment has given me the results that I’m after. I think that I’ll have to shape two more legs and this time I’ll try twisting them without splitting them into quarters. I’ll have to attach a long twisting arm to give the necessary leverage.
