The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
We’ve been wanting to do a tiled table for a while now, for several dog-related reasons. We’re hoping that the tiles and metal railings will prevent him from eating the damn thing, and hopefully help cool him down in the summer heat. We did it with the oldies while they were here over xmas. It almost looks like we knew what we were doing, and I’m super happy with the final result.
It has character flaws, it’s far from perfect, but for a first fully completed knife, I’m very happy with the end result.
Now I need to think about what I want to do next.
Katy’s always wanted a round kitchen table. We upcycled one from Facebook marketplace. Old school solid wood and extensible. Gave it a damn good sanding then two coats of mat black that, in this heat, only took 5 minutes to dry. The top is still the same color of untreated wood, that’s only a poor lighting artefact. Now we need to sand and paint the chairs to match.
This is after rough grinding, fine grinding, hand sanding, polishing and sharpening. Need to buy paracord for the wrapped handle.
How shiny is it now, you ask?
This shiny.
Sherlock Holmes two-book hardcover set
This project was the first one I took at La tranchefile. It was the restoration of a two-volume hardcover set of the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes. It was in a pitiful state, bearing water stains on the covers, some torn pages and was generally looking quite battered. I started by completely dismantling the book, preserving the original spine lettering and cover pages (that were later used to complete the front and back covers).
The folio pages were trimmed and glued back together, then bound in cloth-covered cardboard. I’m really proud of how this came out, seeing as it was my first attempt. It’s a really strange experience to bash a book with a hammer and then take sandpaper to smooth out the rough edges of the pages. Now granted, paper is basically a wood-fiber product, but still, it’s not your day-to-day experience.
Split-open hardcover memo pad
This was the second project I did. I originally saw something similar at Omer deSerre for a ridiculous price, and shoddy workmanship. I decided to try my hand at making some for myself. I ended up making two (and gave one to someone without taking a picture first, d’oh!). The worst part was figuring out the angles to cut and fold the paper to cover the cardbord backings. The hinges are gray cloth, and the paper was bought at a wonderful paper store on Fairmount, near St-Laurent.