a walnut dining table with leaves

trevor and tyler put this one all together today .. the finish came out really nicely, 

and though there is a little red spot in the photo above, it is a reflection from 

the red walls in the finish room where we take our photos..

it is a dark finish, but not as dark as it looks in the top photo.  

the color in the photo above is closer to the real thing.  

click the photos to enlarge them ...

origin of the red ( and the black) reflection here .. satin finish ....

 below is the table before we disassembled it for finishing ...

we started with an inspiration photo from another client, 

and made the two models below to check the proportions in the drawing.  we ended up 

lightening the cross bars under the base, and minimizing the 'feet'.

the low down view

bird's eye

here we go, laying out the boards for the top ...

gluing them up ...

trevor cuts the shapes for the top on the cnc. he also cuts the apron parts 

the same way and and joins them together with small dominoes, 

glue, and pocket screws top and bottom ..

sub top and runners visible in this photos,

as well as most of the other parts ...

lastly, the 'arcs' with their flat spots to glue to the central post,

and their dominoes for strength and alignment ..

testing the runners and the fit of the leaf before diassembling for
final sanding, staining and finishing.
good to go .. off to darien where it will hang out with a bed, and a kitchen
table we made for these clients in the past ... it is
always a pleasure to make multiple pieces for the same clients.

get a circus

so, i'm not much on mixing politics and business, 

but this is a little more like mixing art and business .. 

kit and i were watching the news of the comey firing tonight, and i reached into my 

pocket to show her the new beriah wall token our mutual friend pete brought

me from red hook yesterday.  the sentiment is perfect.  

beriah has been making and handing out free these tokens for a long time,

and his art has been featured in the new york times.

recently he paired up with the well known graffiti group smart crew collective.

there is a description of that collaboration and a brief history of beriah's

token distribution, worldwide since 1977, at this link ... 

we've got a little token stash, accumulated and passed on throughout the years .. 

as well as some pottery beriah made in the early 70s that
 we have been using for almost 46 years now.

beriah's pot shop was our neighbor in our first apartment
together in manchester in  1971 ..

beriah also has a show of his paintings opening next Saturday, 

May 13, Peninsula Art Space, 352 Van Brunt Street, Brkln.

check it out if you are there ... 

couldn't be truer today ...

mahogany and maple burl chairs

finished up these 8 chairs to go with the big claro walnut table 

we sent to hawaii earlier this year ...

and they're off !!! left to be airfreighted to the big island yesterday

they shouold be at home this time next week ..

 

these are contemporary versions of our 'transitional chairs', a design

we ligthly adapted from a beidermeier chair we were hired to reproduce 

back in the early 90s ..

the house has a lot of mahogany in it and it looks good with mahogany

lots of legs and curved rails on the cnc by trevor

fit up the backs first ...

we used to use individual corner blocks, but we have found that 

a cnc mdf sub seat is faster, more accurate, and gives a larger

glue surface for reinforcement ...

before the finish

after

ready to crate

crates .. we added some 'closet dessicant' available from your
local lumber yard to (hopefully) control moisture on the short air flights

a long pine console

always nice to have someone else do the design work ...

this piece was designed to make use of some pine planks sawn from a blowdown on the client''s property.. the cabine it is going in will be sophisticated, but rustic, and when we figure out how to finish this piece, i am sure it will fit right in .. the metal work design with the

cross bars under tension is an interesting concept .. sure makes things rigid ... 

as we often do, for an unfamiliar concept like this one, we make a full size mockup

to get down the basics

sam made some sweet double threaded connectors for the ends of the rods and

the cap screw that goes through the tapered wedge to apply 

tension to the rods and stiffen up the structure ...

he got some super long brass shavings while doing the drilling on the metal lathe

so here's the full blown mockup with the holes, wedges and capscrews

 

 we did the real drilling today ..

we've got to do some finish samples now and just a bit 

of tinkering with the lengths of the threaded rod, 

screw on the top, and we'll be all set .. updates as we finish up ...

an english brown oak slab table

we're in the porcess of turning a 19' english brown oak slab into a 14' table 

with a base made from the drop.  this is the first time in a while that we are 

working on a 'design by others'.  it's an interesting, but

different feeling .. more photos and words as we progress ... 

a painting a day

i have been trying to do a small painting a day since the first of march ... 

below are a few of them ...

click the photos to enlarge them.

 

'daffodils '

'blue bird'

'the rooster and the egg'

'paul klee comes to visit'

4/4 .. 'blue diver'

 'danby four corners 1995' 4/1

 

'washington monument'

'plaid 32117'

'the reds and the blues duke it out'

'color field 31117'

'casper the ghost'

'quilt'

'thoughts of spring'

 
'stripes'

'orange'

'a small pond'

'helmet'