How to make a sanding block

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What is Sanding ? It is is a tedious, yet a necessary activity in the process of woodworking. Using a sanding block is much convenient than trying to sand with the sand paper folded. The block allows for easier application and equal distribution of pressure on the piece of wood and hence gives better results.

How to make a sanding block at home

Though sanding blocks are commercially available, you can make one at home. 

1. You would need - A palm sized scrap piece of wooden block. If not, even a detergent bar would do. A Scorch bite (Cork is normally recommended) for the smooth underside to lighten the impact on wood. A screw / nail for a better hold.
2. Stick the scorchbite onto the block using fevicol.  The screw / nail is drilled into the top of the block.
3. The nail / screw is primarily for a better hold when sanding. It allows for an easier grip of the entire block between your fingers.
4. Insert a small chunk of sponge around the nail / screw to protect your fingers from possible irritation / pain.
5. Cut the sand paper to a width longer than the block for you to hold it during the process of sanding. While a folded sand paper serves the purpose, it can put lot of strain on your arms. You would most certainly find it easier now to sand flat surfaces using the block. 

~ Somu

P.S. Linking in : Kreative Korner

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- Somu

Pencil sketch of one of my favourite subjects

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Pencil Sketch - Horse

Yesterday, I was done with work, made dinner pretty early in the evening and was wondering what to do for rest of the day. It has been a long time since I took my art book out. So thought it would be a good time to do something with it. So here is the outcome- a pencil sketch of a horse. I have not tried much of sketching and this turned out pretty decent. Now I am all excited to try out more of it.

P.S. Linking to Colours Dekor

Inspiration : Deebeeaar

- Somu

Bamboo room divider / wall decoration

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Bamboo Room Divider / Wall Decoration

Bamboo Decoration

Room dividers are a great way to provide partition in a room with larger dimensions. Most commonly, these dividers are used between the living and dining space, when the hall and dining rooms are part of the same larger space. Some of the often used dividers are : wooden dividers, screens, book shelves, or the folding wooden panels. 

Bamboo dividers can be a wonderful addition to the décor of the room and is a nice deviation from the regular space dividers. Because these partitions are not solid panels, they also create the perception of a bigger space while at the same time creating the much needed divide between spaces.

This particular divider can also be used as a wall decoration unit. In this case, we installed the bamboos in the backdrop of a plain wall to provide the wall emptiness with some glitz. The bamboo sticks were sanded, varnished and the artificial leaves added to the grand finale effect.

Let us know what you think.

And thanks to Emreen, for, she is the one that led us to the bamboo leaves (KUSAL).

- Somu

Bamboo Brigade - Room Divider / Wall decoration

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Bamboo Room Divider / Wall decoration - Before

Bamboo Room Divider / Wall decoration - After

Quite an exciting project, but just as time consuming and laborious too. The need was to make a bamboo unit to fill up a non-intrusive wall space.This is something that my friend saw at a showroom and wanted us replicating it. Since we were already working with bamboos on a different project, we jumped at the opportunity after browsing through some images on the net.

Bamboo as a raw material is readily available, inexpensive and is easy to use These bamboos are less than an inch in diameter. The hardest part of the project was to sand the bamboo stems to remove the waxy outer coating and to achieve a smoother surface. The slowest part of the project was the time it took for the oil paint (green) to dry. Once dried, it was varnished.  A hole was drilled in each of the nodes in the bamboo for a leaf to be inserted. The bamboos were made to stand by screwing them onto a wooden plank.

The base is a regular black box made from 19mm plywood planks. The planks were joined together using 2 inch screws. No other fancy joining technique used. The insides were painted black while the exterior was covered with black laminate. The box was stuffed with thermocol after placing the bamboos in place and finally covered with pebbles. Only thing missing is the bamboo leaves.

We delivered in late in the night yesterday and so, we are yet to get a full fledged feedback. We are sure some changes here and there would be required. Will follow up. And considering we have been onto this for the last 45 days, we are gonna take a well deserved two weeks break from woodworking :)... So,here it is - a bamboo room divider.

P.S. Do you know where we can find artificial bamboo leaves in Chennai ? Would appreciate any pointers in this regard.

- Somu

Baby Proofing the Balcony

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Though we didn't build anything here, this DIY deserved a post merely for the functionality it offered and the ease with which baby proofing can be achieved. We thought some might even benefit from it.

We have seen this in couple of places in the neighborhood and so when we had to baby proof my bro's balcony, we knew exactly what to get and where to find it. Here are some pointers:

• The mesh is made of fiber (So we were told) and is available in any local hardware store in large rolls
• It is priced per square feet and so the balcony railing measurements are needed for the purchase
• Though it comes with a reasonable price, you may want to check with couple of hardware stores to get the best pricing
• The mesh can be secured to the balcony railings using plastic tags. No fancy tools required.
• It can also be used to cover gaps between staircase railings inside your apartment or in the common area
• And it takes less than one man hour to fix it



Balcony Baby Proofing

The fiber mesh is a good alternative to rusty iron / steel meshes or the clumsy nylon ropes tied between railings. It has a plastic feel to it, is flexible and quite strong, can be trimmed using a pair of scissors, and comes with very reasonable pricing. So, if you have wide railings, here's an easy cost-effective way to cover the gaps.

Also check out the picket fence project

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- Somu

Mini project... Corner shelf / stand

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Preethi likes to fill up our balcony with lotsa green patches - from herbs, to ornamental and flowering plants. What started with just one pot, has now mushroomed to over 15 and is looking at ever expanding. This particulary never gets a thumbs up from me as it pervades into my carpentry work space.

 Guess she thought, one sure way for me to appreciate her balcony garden, is to have me make something for the garden itself... and maybe that's how the need for the corner stands / shelves emerged. I would have preferred to make the stand with a rounded (quarter) curve, but then it seemed to intrude too much into the already small balcony. So, a triangular stand it was and making it was quite easy . All I had to do was to cut across a square plywood (cut to the required dimension of the corner wall space) diagonally.

Corner Shelf / Stand

I used a .75 inch thick / 1 inch wide plywood  beading (L-Shaped and screwed into the wall) to support the triangular plank which was in turn screwed to the L Shaped plywood beading. The plank was sanded and stained before it was installed and now is ready to bear the load of more tiny tots in the future. :)

- Somu

Embroidery... Door hanging

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I am very excited about getting my hands on some needles and thread this time. We were needing a traditional looking door hanging and I decided to make one. I spent some time in choosing the color of the fabric and the thread. My obvious choice was to go with a red fabric with traditional colors like chrome yellow, turquoise blue and leaf green. Things one would need are: Embroidery hoop/ring, needles, Floss/color threads, scissors, fabric, decorative mirrors, golden bells (I got them from RS Stores, LB Road, Adyar).

Embroidery

I started the project by sticking a sheet of newspaper at the back of the fabric basically to make it stiff. We had a simple design in mind and started with the borders in black. The design you see has back stitches in black and cross stitches in green for the borders. The second layer was done with chain stitches in blue. I filled up the center by sticking the mirrors to form a pattern and outlined each with Abla embroidery. It was a very time consuming exercise but it was worth it. As there was a lot of gap between these mirror patterns, I filled it up with small flower and leaf designs using chain and fish scale stitches. The outcome was decent enough and we hung it in our door way.

Hand Embroidery - Door Hanging

I feel little satisfied and nice every time we step into the house and see some vibrant colors warmly welcoming us. It was a great experience and now I am simply thinking of the next idea.

- Somu

Photo Frame

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DIY photo frames (Learn how to make a photo frame) are fun to make and can be made using simple plywood edge reapers that are available in the local hardware store. While there are many designs available, one can also opt for various color finishes based on their choices and taste. 

 For these two frames, I used carved wooden reapers (sometimes used for plywood edge banding) for the frame face. I placed a 4mm glass plate cut to the required dimension on which the photo can be positioned. The rear of the frame was filled with a thin sheet of OST to secure the glass in place. Sanded,sealed and stained (walnut color) the frame to give it the desired finish.

Photo Frame Made at home

DIY Photo frame

Some limitations though. The 45 degree diagonal cut is still not perfect due to use of hand tool. The 4mm glass adds quite some weight to the entire frame. My regular supplier didn't have anything lesser. So I still need to scout for the 3mm or 2mm glass plates for my next work. And guess, am still at least another 2 frames away from achieving that elusive perfect professional finish.

You can make these photo frames for your personal pictures as well as for your art work on canvas. Depending you whether you want it displayed on a table, or hung on a wall, you may want to use a stand or a clamp in the rear of the frame. Click here to learn how to make a photo frame at home

P.S. Just for the records, there was no specific reason for using a Katrina Kaif photo for the purpose of this post.

- Somu

Child safe Picket Fence / Door Barrier

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Child safe door barriers or safety gates / picket fences are a must in homes with little babies and toddlers. They are very effective in keeping kids away from areas within the home they are not intended to be in. At the same time, these baby proof doors also help create a safe boundary, within which kids are free to roam about and play.

Potential areas where the babies need to be kept away from are the kitchens, balcony areas (learn how to baby proof your balcony) and stairways. This DIY door barrier / picket fence was built to keep my niece away from the kitchen especially when the grinder is on. We built this fence using wooden sticks that are about 2 inches wide and half an inch thick.Considering it was supposed to be baby safe, the first thing I did was to ensure all the edges are made blunt and the surface is smoothed using sand paper.

Child safe barrier - Supplies

The wooden sticks were nailed together (7 vertical sticks nailed / screwed onto 3 horizontal sticks). We made two similar gates which we joined together using regular door hinges in order for the doors to half open. What you see below is work in progress for one of the gates. The gate was painted (learn how to paint wood) and varnished for protection.

Baby proof barrier doors - WIP

The two gates were joined together using hinges and one side of the gate was fixed  (again using regular door hinges) to a wooden panel installed on the side of the wall. You can see a break in the middle of the gate indicating the hinges (marked in the picture below).

Child safe picket fence

As you can see, we had to coordinate the color to ensure that it matches the kitchen cabinet colors. Fortunately for us, the kitchen entrance and the Grinder section were at 90 degrees to each other. The installation was made in such a way that the kitchen entry is blocked when the gate is closed... and the grinder area is closed when it is open. And because it was along the corner, it also became non-intrusive providing easy access to the kitchen when the grinder is not in use.

Baby Proof / Child Proof fence / door

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Over to you : Tell me how have you baby proofed your home ? Did you have an off the shelf product installed ? Did you make one yourself ? Share your thoughts and ideas.

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P.S. Linking in : Colours Dekor, Lines Across My Face, Kreative Korner

- Somu