Boxes at the Victoria and Albert museum

We Popped into the Victoria and Albert museum after visiting the natural History Museum. What a treat!! In nearly every hall there were great examples of boxes from around the world and history. Here is a few! I took over a hundred photos! Of course the conditions for photography were not the best, but at lest these have come out reasonably well! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, they have given me a lot of ideas and inspirations!

The Loom!

The loom is a medieval braid loom! It was used by the medievals for making braids. They used braids instead of buttons to tie shirts together and in their hair and all sorts.

The problem has been that the pegs need to fit tightly, but not too tightly into the upright supports. On the original I had to copy, they were held on with a wooden nut that was threaded at the back. To give it more authenticity I can't repeat that! I just need something that will hold the peg square while it is under tension with the threads on and pulled tight. I want to use a simple peg in a hole with a snug fit approach! Easier said that done, but I am getting there!

Update on changes!

I have been quiet on here for far too long! I have two outstanding commissions and one new one. The outstanding one's are a garden bench and a loom. The loom has been proving to be a real challenge, but I have managed to work out at least one half way decent solution and one solution that is finally achieving what I wanted from the beginning.

This solution has meant building a jig for my lathe that houses my router. This will enable me to turn the wood on the lathe with machine accuracy. Apologies to any purists who want all hand made!! Unfortunately, I haven't got the life long apprenticeship to call on, so need to use anything I can to achieve the results I want!! With one quick play with the new jig I was able to achieve something that I hadn't managed in several attempts by hand. The jig needs refining but it is working! (The second picture above shows the router on the MDF box jig, the next two pictures show the little motor that I attached to drive the lathe very slowly)

The other new edition to the workshop is an Incra fence on the router table. In a previous post I talked about my home made version, but I still liked the look of the Incra for accuracy and efficiency. (The top picture above shows the fence mounted onto the router table)

The new project is a long, narrow book case for a hallway. It will be used to house toys and things that spark feeling and imagination in a counsellor's therapy room.