The coffee table I’m making took a new turn the other week. Instead of the long curved bend, I decided to make a different bent piece instead. This was more because of skill level rather than any aesthetic reason (although the new bend looks much nicer I think!). The simple curve was meant to meet the legs at a number of odd angles. There was a vertical angle on the leg taper to deal with, then the angle at which the stretcher met the leg. Only two angles but they were not calculable so I found it very difficult to make work when practicing.

So … here is the new bend …

New bent stretcher

Two stretchers overlapping

Here is the table as it currently stands (without the top in place).

Base in place

I am finding it interesting to experience how this table has changed already from my initial designs and thoughts. Already we have four separate legs instead of the two wider coopered panels and the curve designed for the stretchers has changed significantly.

The wedding coffee table I am building is coming along nicely so far. I’ve almost finished the top and have build the main frame which includes the legs and aprons. So far, this has all gone quite smoothly.

Tapered leg

Table frame

This weekend however I had to venture into unknown territory – bending. Having not done this before I was faced with quite a nervous and stressful weekend ahead. The first order of business was getting together as many clamps as I could. I bought out an entire box of 15 clamps from the local Bunnings and a few large boards of cheap chipboard.

Once I was back home, I started to build the “form.” A form is simply a piece of wood which is cut to the shape you need the final bend to match. Kind of like a mould, but for wood instead of chocolate! This took the better part of a day to complete.

Creating the curve

With the form done, I moved to cutting up a heap of strips of Silky Oak. I made these around 3mm each. Still solid enough but thin enough to bend without cracking. With the most stressful part coming up next, I took a little break before diving into it. Because I only had a few minutes to work before the glue dried, I had to have anything at the ready.

Everything ready at arms length

15 clamps to hold it into place

After 24 hours in the mould, I hesitantly took off all the clamps. The result? Perfect! It still needs some cleaning up and sanding, but the curve holds really well and it surprisingly quite solid.

Bending results

I’ve just gotten my first official woodworking commission! Alright, it’s through a friend of mine but the eventual owner of the piece is someone I have never met so I guess that counts! The commission is for a coffee table to be given as a wedding gift. A reasonably safe/traditional design but with some elements of difference to make it stand out. I started sketching out some designs last night so here is where things are at so far …

The top will be made using some of the MCG English Elm I acquired. When finished, it displays quite a nice rich brown/gold colour. Inlaid into the top will be a strip of Silky Oak. This should pick up on the lighter golden colours in the Elm and add an interesting feature to draw your attention to.

Table top

Looking on from the side … I’m thinking of beveling the ends of the top to lighten the feel of the piece. The top will be supported by two solid blocks of English Elm similar to what I’ve done with another table. I will taper the legs down to the bottom again to lighten them and will also cooper them (curve) towards the centre. Two stretchers of Silky Oak will sit near the bottom along the longer sides of the table.

Side view

The two stretchers will be held “in tension” in the middle giving the whole piece some nice curves. I’m already wondering how many pieces of timber I will snap getting this right! Not sure what timber I’ll use to hold these stretchers together yet or the join that I will use to attach them to the legs. Those details will eventually show themselves once I start.

Stretchers in tension

It looks like a Valentine’s weekend full of milling wood for me!

Today I finally managed to get through to someone who could give me answers to the mysterious flag issue I wrote about earlier. The Honorable Allan Griffin current Minster for Veterans’ Affairs called me after I sent an email to his office this morning. Yes, he himself actually called! Unfortunately I didn’t get to the phone so could only listen to his message. I contacted his office back and spoke to one of his staff who was extremely helpful.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission ordered the flag from their usually reputable supplier in France (whose name I didn’t get). For some reason the flag which was delivered was not to Australian standards. The Southern Cross was reversed, the Union Jack was upside down and the entire flag didn’t conform to normal Australian standard sizes (instead it was the usual European size).

The person I spoke to informed me that a replacement was ordered on Wednesday 3rd February and the correct flag has now been flying at the site. The process for ordering these flags has apparently also been tightened and the Honorable Greg Combett Minster for Defence and his office are also on top of it.

Obviously none of this should take away from the ceremony itself nor the lives these brave people laid down for our freedom.

Case closed.

Update Thursday 11 February 2010

ABC News article regarding the flag published today.

The following is a video of the ceremony which recently took place in Fromelles for the the 250 unidentified British and Australian soldiers who died during a First World War conflict. Take a very close look at the first few seconds of the video. Notice anything odd?

If you didn’t spot it, here’s a crop of the Australian flag flying at half mast.

An odd Australian flag

Do you see it yet? First spotted by “Astro744″ on the IceInSpace forums, the Southern Cross is backwards! In the Australian flag, the 5th star of the cross should be the furtherest away from the Union Jack and instead be placed closer to the flag edge. Instead, it appears reversed. This can’t be an issue of editors mirroring the footage because even then the 5th star in the Southern Cross should still be closest to the outer edge.

So, has the person responsible for locating the flag and arranging for it to be flown at this ceremony in Fromelles completely stuffed this up by buying a fake flag on eBay, or am I completely missing something here? There are other official flags of Australia, but none of them have a backwards Southern Cross.

Update 5th February

I received this response from the RSL today:

On the surface this does appear to be so, but logic suggests no-one could make a National Flag with such an error. A more careful examination of the screen shot reveals that the flag is fluttering and folded across the vertical centre line, creating an impression that the Epsilon Crucis (5^th star) has moved towards the jack.

You could pursue this further with the Media division of the Defence Department but I seriously suggest that it is an illusion cause by the wind moving the cloth of the flag.

I have quite a logical mind and have very good spacial perception. This flag is not waving the manner described above. If you were to bend/fold the flag so that Epsilon Crucis appears on the left side of the constellation instead of the right, then there will clearly be other distortions, namely the moving of Delta Crucis (the outermost right star) towards the centre and even the complete covering of the two vertical stars (Gamma and Alpha Crucis).

I even tried to replicate the flag with a piece of material and fold it by hand to make the constellation appear mirror image. I haven’t yet succeeded.

The Department of Defence have responded only with a “we’re looking into it” response.

Update 7th February

I have posted the following video to highlight the error.

Update 9th February -- Mystery solved

The mystery of the flag has been solved.

I’m not one for a big upfront design. Spending time getting every detail documented in a Gantt chart and associated MS Word documents doesn’t sound like a good use of scarce resources. In my woodworking ventures I find that I am also averse to detailed designs of what I will build. Having recently finished Krenov’s The Impractical Cabinetmaker it seems that it isn’t just me who prefers to work like this. I clearly prefer to “compose” rather than “design.”

What is the difference between designing and composing?

Purchase it from Amazon

When designing, you spend your time documenting a faux version of what you are going to build (software or woodwork). You then take these specifications to your workstation or workbench and begin following the plan step by step. When something comes to you out of left field, you go back to your designs and re-design the changes in. Then get back to your station and keep on working until the piece is finished.

When composing, the work feels much more organic. You document/design an idea of what you want to build. In Scrum (an agile software development process) you write up a series of very brief stories which point to the functionality people want the piece to have. When woodworking, you do your best to draw a rough idea of what you want to build on a piece of paper. You take this to your workstation or workbench and begin typing or chiseling away. As your product comes to life, it changes depending on what you see and the challenges you face. You take these in your stride allowing both the output of your work and your idea of what you want to build coalesce until the piece is finished.

But software isn’t like woodworking

Some might say that software and woodworking are completely different endeavours. One is structured and planned, the other is creative and artistic. Over the last couple months I have started realising that they are both very much alike.

Software is more akin to photography & painting than to engineering & building bridges. Making software is creative. You start with an idea of what the product needs to do. You move quickly onto starting to build it. Then by getting feedback about what you are doing from your customer (and yourself) you make small course corrections and continue until the piece is complete.

This is very similar to working on a piece of furniture. You start with a basic design and then allow the pieces of wood guide you the rest of the way. The various grain patterns you see, the “weight” of the piece as you put it together and even your mistakes are elements which you use to course correct as you build.

Even taking a good photograph is like this. You might have an idea of what you want to capture but it isn’t until the scene comes through your lens and then hits your computer where you finesse it that the eventual result reveals itself.

Professional software developers need to start helping people understand this. You don’t need a detailed gantt chart and spec to deliver a premium piece of software. What you do need is a solid idea of the function it must deliver and lots and lots of reviews, communication and creative energy.

So as I begin my many and various projects this year, I hope to focus more on composing rather than design and allow the results to guide me.

The best boss I ever had—Ed Hahn, who directed Organization Development at Mattel—made it clear: You’re only work colleagues until you get to know each other. After that, you’re friends, acquaintances, or enemies. Work, Ed said, is social.

via Facebook at work isn’t an either/or proposition

Email overload

In this post, Shel Holtz talks about how Facebook is becoming a more responsive form of communication than email. Too often, important messages get lost in your email (sometimes on purpose). I have emails in my inbox which have been there for months just waiting for me to action them one day. I’ve even taken the little red flag off some because I know I’m not ever going to get to them.

Email has been around now for decades. It’s a staple of our information diet and we’ve learnt how to deal with it. We have even developed specific behaviours around email, mainly because there is just so much of it to deal with.

Shel describes a distinct difference with social networks. The difference being that there is a strong desire to respond when a friend contacts you via Facebook, Twitter or other “social” tools.

• Is this just because social networks are still a new phenomenon?
• Is it because the “status update mountain” is still a molehill, unlike the “email mountain” becoming Everest?
• Or is there perhaps something else at play here?

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I’ve been playing with Google Wave for a couple of weeks now and am very impressed with the engineering feat they’ve delivered on. It is quite a rich application on a very extensible platform which will be interesting to watch grow. There are however some things I feel that need to happen before this can become truly mainstream.

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Meditation Stool #1

The other evening at my meditation class, one person asked me how long it took me to make my small meditation stool. I made it over a weekend and it only took me 3 or 4 hours to pull together and apply the finish (not including waiting/drying time).

On my way home I found myself thinking about this a little more. It didn’t take 3 or 4 hours at all. It took more like 155 years + 4 hours and is still taking time as long as it continues to exist.

Perhaps it was the after-effects of meditation, but I began to realise quite acutely how long a piece of wooden furniture really does take to make. The tree has to be planted, grown, harvested, milled & dried. Then the furniture has to be fashioned. Finally, the timber continues to change over the remaining years of its existence.

Nothing more to say about this yet, except that this brief conversation has changed the way I view my working with wood.

After my last post on the differences between technical and adaptive work, I immediately started thinking about the challenges we see around us and tried to pick apart the technical and adaptive aspects. Here are my brief and random thoughts on these.

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