Before we were let loose on an unsuspecting new tutor, the whole year had a crash course in basic woodwork conducted by the ever patient Simon so as not to look like complete muppets! I for one was extremely grateful!
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We covered how to use a chop saw safely! |
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Making a mini flat and skinning with ply |
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How to get things square |
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How to mitre corners |
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In either direction! |
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Predrilling holes to fix securely without splitting the wood |
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Routing using a hand held router |
The walls of any set are called flats and the first thing you need to do is work out how many of them you need and what size. Basic size for us was 4ft wide by 8ft high as this is the size ply skins come in. Windows and doors need to be constructed out of a seperate flat not inserted into a large one, this means you may need to make headers or footers to suit the size of your window and door opening and put the window and door frame into, above or below that. Make sure any three dimensional elements in the room such as bay windows, alcoves or fireplaces have been included in any calculations.
Our rooms will not have a ceiling as we are hoping to suggest a greater height to the room than we have space for therefore neither our windows or doors will have a header but will continue to the top of the flats.




Any overlaps in the ply can be routed flush with a palm router - note the highly technical dust extraction!
Our finished flats neatly stacked and ready for assembly.

Before we assembled the flats we painted the bottom 3ft mahogany to create the centre of our wood panelling. The paint effect was achieved with a coat of red oxide followed by burnt umber and a final graining in black from a stiff brush.

It helps to lay the flats out into an approximate position prior to joining as this saves time. Always start in a corner and work out from there.
If you have any flats that are a little difficult to persuade flush a wedge can be used to raise the bottom while fixing.
This is the study assembled and I am touching up a section of the alcove for the bookcase that we missed when painting.
The doorframe is a double thickness of two flats joined together, one in the study wall and one the living room wall. This does not have to always be the case, frames can be double skinned to provide two surfaces or the depth can be increased with blocks of wood cut to size and screwed between the flats.
This picture clearly shows the short footers made for the base of the windows.

Wood Panelling






The dado rail was the last to go on the panelling. We made it ourselves as the budget would not stretch to further mouldings from Wickes. When making dado calculate the amount you need for the room then allow an extra 10% for joining and accidents!
First we cut pine into 1"x 1/2" 6ft strips to make routing easier. To achieve a fancy moulding the wood was passed twice through the router with a different profile bit attached each time. The technicians set up the router for me with a guide to prevent the wood slipping.
Once it was routed we painted it in the burnt umber and gave it a coat of gloss glaze prior to fixing with grab adhesive.

Flooring
The flloring was very simple if time consuming. We painted 8ft x 4ft 3mm ply skins with a mahogany woodstain varnish and laid them onto the floor with threshold boards to join the rooms. This was effective but proved to attract any dust that was around and had to be constantly dusted off. Eventually we laid boards down for people to walk on.
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