repairs, and why we like them

above from the book 'the craftsman' by richard sennet 

i've been catching up on my reading lately ...

click the photos to enlarge them

so, last week i had a small run of repairs,

bringing things back to useful life

i got the chair in the first photo above with the missing parts

in a nice cloth grocery bag .. first step was to reglue

the backsplat and get it ready to re install

here it is, all set to go ... 

this was what i refer to as a 'functional restoration'

where the object is reassembled using the guide line

'if it doesn't make sense financially to fix it correctly. fix it any way you can'.

a 'proper' restoration was not financially feasible, yet the repairs

i did here will extend the chair's life, (barring catastrophe), for the foreseeable future.

and then something comes in the door that just blows you away

yowza!

details, detail, details ... nice black mother of pearl in the peacock's tail

and i love the details on the metalwork .. that alone probably took a couple of minutes

the client inherited this chest from her aunt who collected 

chinese 'stuff' .... i can't imagine who commissioned this one ...

and let's not neglect the back ... i think they threw the 

angles and curves in just for fun ... 

another painted chest required some adjustment and repair to 

the little stubby legs, which may or may not have been original .. 

FUNKY CHAIR !! obviously a green wood construction

check the warp on that seat .. quite a twist!..

point of interest here, after cutting off the front leg a bit to relevel it,
i noticed that the leg was turned from what appears to be a branch, with
the heart included in the turning .. never saw that before .. my guess is circa 1800.

better view of the warped seat

note the fact that the left leg in the rear and the opposite leg in the front
were shortened by at least an inch each .. 

and then we get to my friend Tom's 'music chair'
which he has been sitting in to play his guitar for a good portion of his recent life.
when it arrived, it had three snapped off tenons, one on the top of a leg, two stretcher ends,
and a long spit in the center stretcher ...

the leg top i was able to drill for a 5/8th" oak dowel new tenon, but the stretchers
required turned and scarfed on new tenons with small screws reinforcing the joints
from the bottom of the stretchers.  tom's my age, the chair's quite a bit older,
and we'll see how it goes.  i am hopeful ...

and below, from a previous restoration blog post i wrote a few years ago about repairs ..
that blog post has a link to a new yorker article on
the conservation studio at the new whitney museum ...
the new yorker article is a thought provoking read on art and time passing ...

a studio style desk

people ask me all the time now 'so, what are you up to now that you are retired?'

actually, i am not 'retired' per se,
but TOTALLY enjoying working in the shop by myself, organizing my

tools and supplies, jigs and fixtures and making new pieces.

this recent one is a  perfect example of the kind of project i enjoy.  

it's a desk, 22 x 48 x 29 in what i refer to as my 'studio style'.

if you click that link, you will get many blog posts and more of a history 

of the style i am referring to ... there have been a LOT of those pieces ...

tip of the iceberg above ...

close up here, with the quartered cherry figure showing up 

in the hand planed bevel on the edge of the top ... 

coincidence yes, but a beautiful detail ..

this piece has a lot of the nice woodworking challenges:

mortises and tenons

dovetailed drawers

inlays

proportion questions

just a bunch of nice processes to work your way through,

i see it as kind of an exercise in craftsmanship

start with a drawing

most of my guys in the shop in the past would have used

our JDS multirouter to create the mortises in the legs above.

but since i am learning a new tool pathing program for the CNC,

i decided i would do the exercise ... after a bit of a struggle,

 i reeled them in ... very fast, and no measuring or laying out, now that i've got 

the process down.

next up, taper the legs ... new style taper jig

create the angled rails and tenons

dovetail the drawers

link to a blog post on our dovetail method at this link

make the inlay block and the individual inlay pieces.

i actually had to figure that out too as i personally hadn't 

done any for a long, long while ... i wrote down and illustrated the inlay block 

process for myself and anyone else who is interested at this link ...

add some aniline dye and some black milk paint to the legs

and apron borders, glue it up, fit the drawers, and send it to connecticutt.

the woman who ordered this one, bought one just like it from me in,

i think, 1997.  this one is for her grandson ... 

warm and fuzzy feelings here ... 

make yourself some edge inlay

click the photos to enlarge them ...

back in  the mid 80s i started adding inlays to my designs in an attempt to stand out from the

crowd of shaker style furniture that a lot of the makers were putting out there then ...  

get yourself a problem ... figure out how to solve it .. fun!

you'll have to scroll through a couple posts at that link to see the edge inlays described here ..

this photo shows the last stage of the process.  the blank has

been made and cut into strips. the edge of the top has been routed

and i just have to neatly glue them all in and flush them up.

add a little finish and send it on its way.

update ... see the end of this post ... 

well, it has been a while since i personally made one of these blocks

and i was fortunate when i recently edited the shop to bundle up

these gluing jigs and put them in the cellar, and lucky to find them 

yesterday when i needed them .. it still took a little head scratching

to get the job done.  once you decide the design, and the options are 

infinite, the first step is to make the center block from alternating 

strips of different color woods. in this case, ebony and hard maple ..

the first jig requires a bunch of clamps and some elmers white glue 

for a long open time

the blue clamps squeeze the strips together, but you have to do a little dance

where you clamp them flat lightly, then squeeze em, then clamp them flat

a little tighter, then a little flatter .. back and forth .. you get the idea ...

next you have to smooth the glued up center section.  the 'meat' of the sandwich ..

you can do this with out a wide belt sander, and i did a lot of it 

before we finally bought some real tools in 2001 ... in the photo above 

you can see the bit i use to rout the edge of the table. it's best to

do that before adding the thin top and bottom strips so you know 

how thick you want the block to be once it is glued up ..

next make the top and bottom pieces, the 'bread' ..

i generally shoot for a thin 3/8ths for the center section,

and a big sixteenth for the top and bottom layers

then you want to squeeze the whole thing together between some

blocks coated with non stick tape and as many clamps as you can fit ..

once that sets, you've got your block and you just need to set your

fence to the right thickness. the maple board fits over the inlay block and

pushes the cut strips through to clear the blade.  repeat ... insert video here ,,,

2/7 ... all glued up now .. first coat of finish is on the bottom of the top ... 

a few steps to get there ... 

sand the ends of the strips so they mate and the corners are mitered ..

add glue and masking tape

scrape and sand it smooth and flush with the cherry

drag out your box of odds and ends pieces and reflect ... 

the cherry and black paint and inlays is actually what i have

referred to in the past as my 'studio style' ..

blast from the past! ... lots of old portfolio photos at that link ..

all for now ..

.

a quartered oak hanging cabinet

i finished this cabinet up on Christmas eve, around 10 in the morning ...

just in time, as the clients arrived Christmas day from connecticutt.

i took this project on in august, thinking i would still have at least one employee

into october.  turns out, my last one left just after labor day, leaving me with

a 10'6" wall hung cabinet to navigate and install on my own ... 

lots of dominos and pocket screws to join the 2 halves of the long cabinet

i next had to figure out how it was going to hang ...

fortunately, there was a 7" high baseboard that the back of the the

bottom of the cabinet could rest on ... if i got my hanger system right.

1/4 x 2 steel on the cabinet, rabbeted wood on the wall ...

with long screws ...

 once i had that all figured out, i had to figure how the cabinet doors would slide ...

 i had my mini mockup to test my runner concept

 1/8 th

1/8 th inch x 1/2" brass strips 'pointed' on the table saw to 

accept some little wheels typically used on sliding glass display cabinet doors 

 tricky setup and fancy waste

all hanging good and ready for doors

i had to have sam make up some hardware for the veneered sliding doors

kind of a fussy inlay job with the points, but a 1/8th " router bit and a good 

template on the cnc did most of the work

doors are in

a little finish to match the window trim and we were good to go ... 

great clients .. sam did these steel railings and
i made the wood parts for the clients last year ...
it's a really nice house .. shout out to ramsay gourd architects
and ian jensen, vermont country builders
more photos of this house on ian's website at the link above