During the design and make module i wanted to make the legs from wood as i have little experience with wood work. I chose to use Pine, primarily as it was cheap and easy to acquire but also because it is naturally light weight and can be painted or stained easily. As my product is low to the ground and needed to be movable, wight was important issue when picking materials, meaning i needed to use my knowledge of working properties of wood.
When working with the material i encountered a few problems with using cheap pine which i did not foresee. I discovered later on that the long strip of pine i purchased were severely bent, something i did not notice in B &Q as well as something i had not even considered looking for! I did however look for planks with the least amount of knots as i know that this weakens the wood and causes splitting, this was rather difficult as most/if not all the planks had many knots in them.
Although picking a cheap wood seemed like a good idea at the time, I should be more selective with materials in the future, as you get what you pay for in most cases. I combated the problem however by planing the wood down to try and take out the bends and then selecting the straightest parts of the planks with least amount of knots. This created a lot of waste materials and money although i tried to use the bed wood as practice pieces.
As pine is also a very soft wood the legs were easily damaged and marked during the manufacturing process and also when marking out which spoilt the final finished product. Fortunately i was painting the legs which covered most of the marks. If i work with this material in the future i will make more practice pieces to avoid mistakes on the final parts, and take greater care to avoid damage.
When selecting wood in the future i will consider the working properties closer before committing myself to a material and not be swayed by cost and ease of acquiring it. If I do chose to use pine in the future I have more knowledge of the pitfall and advantages and will work with it more appropriately. I should have used my knowledge acquired from the wood presentation better as i could have avoided a lot of the mistakes by referring back to that piece of work.
When working with the material i encountered a few problems with using cheap pine which i did not foresee. I discovered later on that the long strip of pine i purchased were severely bent, something i did not notice in B &Q as well as something i had not even considered looking for! I did however look for planks with the least amount of knots as i know that this weakens the wood and causes splitting, this was rather difficult as most/if not all the planks had many knots in them.
Although picking a cheap wood seemed like a good idea at the time, I should be more selective with materials in the future, as you get what you pay for in most cases. I combated the problem however by planing the wood down to try and take out the bends and then selecting the straightest parts of the planks with least amount of knots. This created a lot of waste materials and money although i tried to use the bed wood as practice pieces.
As pine is also a very soft wood the legs were easily damaged and marked during the manufacturing process and also when marking out which spoilt the final finished product. Fortunately i was painting the legs which covered most of the marks. If i work with this material in the future i will make more practice pieces to avoid mistakes on the final parts, and take greater care to avoid damage.
When selecting wood in the future i will consider the working properties closer before committing myself to a material and not be swayed by cost and ease of acquiring it. If I do chose to use pine in the future I have more knowledge of the pitfall and advantages and will work with it more appropriately. I should have used my knowledge acquired from the wood presentation better as i could have avoided a lot of the mistakes by referring back to that piece of work.