Alright, let me walk you through this little experiment I did recently. Got this idea stuck in my head involving some really nice hard maple timber I had lying around and, well, rubber. The aim? To kinda make the maple… dance. Sounds weird, I know, but stick with me.

Getting Started with the Maple

First off, I grabbed that piece of hard maple. Beautiful stuff, but man, it lives up to its name – hard. Dragged it over to the saw bench. Spent a good while measuring and marking exactly where I wanted my cuts. You gotta be precise with maple, it doesn’t forgive mistakes easily.

Got the main shape cut out. Then came the sanding. Started with a rougher grit, working my way down. Took ages. Maple dust everywhere, you know how it is. But slowly, got those surfaces smooth as butter. Felt good running my hand over it. This was the solid, dependable part of the project. The base, you could say.

Bringing in the Rubber

Now for the tricky bit – the rubber. I wasn’t using it as a finish or anything. I wanted to use it to introduce some movement, some flexibility, right into the hard wood structure. I’d sourced some dense rubber blocks, the kind with a bit of give but still firm.

I had to figure out how to join these things. Decided to carve out specific notches or recesses in the maple. This took some careful work with the router and chisels. Didn’t want to weaken the wood too much, just create snug pockets for the rubber pieces. It was fiddly work, getting the depth just right.

Then I fit the rubber pieces into these pockets. Used a strong adhesive designed for both wood and rubber. Clamped it all up and let it sit overnight. Have to admit, I was kinda skeptical if it would hold properly or give the effect I wanted. You just gotta try things out sometimes.

Making it “Dance”

The next day, clamps came off. Everything seemed solid. The rubber was firmly embedded in the maple. Now, the “dancing” part. The whole point of adding the rubber was to create pivot points or flexible joints. So, depending on how the final piece was assembled – I connected a couple of these prepared maple sections – the rubber allowed for a slight, controlled flex or wobble when pressure was applied.

It wasn’t like a wild, floppy dance. More like a subtle give, a springiness that you wouldn’t expect from solid hard maple. I pushed on one end, and the other end moved slightly, cushioned by the rubber joints. It absorbed shock, had a bit of life to it.

Pretty neat effect, actually. Took a stiff, rigid material and introduced a completely different property using the rubber inserts. It’s not gonna win any awards, but it was a fun challenge figuring out how to make these two very different materials work together.

So yeah, that was my little adventure with the ‘rubber dancing hard maple timber’. Just messing around in the workshop, seeing what happens when you combine stuff. That’s half the fun, right? Trying things out.