Finished the Walnut Paneled Room (for now)

OK ... We're done here for a while ... The carpenters now have to install the columns, ceiling and ceiling beams and the door and window trim before we can finish the baseboard, the moldings, and the other miscellaneous parts that return into the trim ... Lookin' good ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ... Don't be alarmed by the pink/purple paint .... it's just a primer for a dark rich red trim color ... We still have a desk to finish and a bar cabinet to build, so, ... more later ...

showing the wall opposite the fireplace and the niche where the desk will go

The sliding doors go in the opening to the right which is the entry back to the main house

showing the doors open and ready for the tv

Here I photoshopped tv in place

Banjo Progress

6/27 .. I turned the outside of my banjo pot this afternoon. It only took a little time to get it to this stage ... The apple turns beautifully ... First I turned the ply ring true amd round and then rabbetted the face to make sure that when I glued on the ring, it would run true with the faceplate, and it did ... I want to discuss the interior diameter and the sound ring (the part the head fits against) with Will before I go further but it's starting to feel pretty good .... On to the the neck and fretboard ....

Gotta love that apple ... it's sanded to 32o and it already shines, even with no finish ...

the trued up faceplate and rabbet

gluing the rough pot to the faceplate

6/26/09 ... These 'spare time' projects certainly take a while to get going, but we're creeping along now .... Will's done a lot of research on turning the pots, and I may try mine over the weekend sometime. His is in the foreground, cherry, walnut and bubinga, and mine's in the clamps, apple and walnut ....

6/15/09 Well, Will wants to build a banjo and now I do too ... We got underway today by doing a test glue up of what's known in the business as 'the pot'. It's three bricklaid rings that will be put on the lathe and turned to about 11" in diameter and a half inch thick. Then you put the skin (head) over that with the hardware and attach the neck when you get it finished. I'm absolutely sure there's more to it than that, and it'll take a while, but not likely as long as The Resonator Guitar did last year. We'll shoot for the middle of July for this one ....

Overall shot of the glue up and form for clamping .... still working out the details

Close up ... Click to enlarge ... These rings are mdf .. real wood maybe tomorrow ...
Sample banjo music here ... Goldtown ... at The Barn in Pawlet 2nd and last Fridays of the month ... Will on banjo, AJ Stearns on guitar and vocals, Josh Loun on bass

6/10/09 ... Action on the real thing .... The rings are glued up individually now and we'll glue up the stack tomorrow and attach them to the metal/plywood disc for turning on the lathe tomorrow ,,

all circle parts cut on the cnc...quick and clean ... the pocket jig in the foreground above is for running the parts through the sander to remove the 'skin' that is left after cutting on the cnc ..

Get Your Money's Worth

I've been using Forrest sawblades for a long time ... I always thought they were a good value and now I KNOW for sure they are a good value ... I ordered a new one recently just because I couldn't remember the last time I did. Will unpacked it and said something like "Wow! Look at those teeth." So I pulled a random blade out of the drawer, we probably have 7 or 8 of them, and we compared the old with the new ... The particular one we picked went back to 2001 and has been sharpened 13 times. And, when you buy a new one, they give you money off for the first 3 or 4 sharpenings ... The old one still cuts fine ... Great blade. great company ... Try em, you'll like em ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Coupons .got a bunch of them with my new blade

Detail shot by my new camera

A Walnut Paneled Room (Update)

Update for 6 /23 ... back tomorrow for more

We put the fireplace/tv surround in place today

Baseboards and moldings tomorrow ...

This is an update from the post of June 14th, entitled the 'Current Big Thing'
6/22/09
Today we delivered and began the installation of a roomful of walnut paneling that we have been working on, off and on, for the last month. We had to wait for the floor to be finished, and it was, last Friday. Picked up a U-Haul today, loaded up and delivered the panels. They fit fine and we were actually able to install all but one of them, for which we needed a router we had left behind in the shop. Back tomorrow, (and probably Wednesday) to finish the fireplace and tv surround, the shelves on the tops of the panels, and the baseboards and moldings. When you're working on a project like this, you always wonder if everything's going to fit the way you planned and today it was nice to find out that it does. It has been an interesting project, both from a design and construction viewpoint. There was an effort to do a really nice job without totally breaking the bank, so we chose walnut veneered mdf for the panel elements and added solid wood edges and moldings to create a look very similar to all solid wood. One benefit of the veneered panels is the match that we were able to create by selecting groups of panels with attractive patterns. We purposely did not order the whole job to be 'sequenced matched' which would have resulted in a similar veneer pattern running completely around the room. We actually used panels from two suppliers to get a variety of veneers though we were able to match the panels on the two long walls, on either side of the fireplace, and on either side of the pocket doors. Click the photos to enlarge them,,,,

Taking the measurements for the shop drawings back in May

Working on the layout and planning the cuts for the panels themselves. The narrow tan strips represent the 4" pieces that create the stiles and rail of the panels when they're assembled. It's sort of a 'preview' feature ....

Gluing up ... It's all preveneered mdf excepot the solid wood moldings. All nicely finished by my neighbor, Steve Holman of Holman Studios ...

On arrival today, we distributed the panels around the room

Cut in for the various boxes and wires

and fastened them in position

Tommorow we'll add the rest of the fireplace surround and mantle shown above, earlier, in my shop ...

The Wood Shed ... (Again, Last time for a while)

Ma ... on the new porchette ....

Still working on it ... My firewood arrived Saturday, and construction will have to take a break until that's stacked in the shed. Fortunately, we were able to get the little bit of inside framing work done this past weekend and we're good to go ... We'll finish the outside over the course of the summer, with the work sprinkled in at a little more leisurely (if that's possible considering I started back in April) pace ... All work, (even if it's fun work), and no play makes Jack a dull boy .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The Current Big Thing

When I look at the list of posts for the last two or three weeks, it looks like not much is going on, new projects wise.... A couple repairs, some metalwork, a woodshed and railing for my own home, a new camera .... like I said, not much going on ... That's because, for the last three or four weeks we have been working on a large project and I, as yet, have not gotten it together to post the details. The design work started around the first of the year as construction was getting underway, and the project involves a roomful of paneling, a desk, a vanity and dressing table, two mirrors, the restoration of a pair of antique doors, a bar cabinet .... I think that's it for now. The construction on the addition is coming along and we've been working on the project since the middle of May, hoping to install everything in the next couple of weeks. The paneling post will be a long one and I'll post the other entries as I can make the time to do it.
Click the pictures to enlarge them....

The project as it appeared in early January

A close up of the desk model ... a claro walnut slab with a blackened steel base

The fireplace surround and tv cabinet section of the 'roomful of walnut paneling'.

The recycled chestnut vanity

Linseed Oil .... A Cautionary Tale

Linseed oil can create a beautiful finish on fine furniture and metal work. It's an easily renewable finish, a natural product in some of it's forms. I use it to refresh my wood counters and the finish on some of my earlier oil finished pieces in my home. The counter you see above is now in the 'once a year for the rest of your life ' phase of the finish process, is used hard daily and looks terrific with little care. That little pile of rags in the foreground though could completely wipe out my house or yours if you weren't paying attention. Tragically, it happened to a friend/client a few weeks ago. They came by yesterday and now that they have seen that some of their furniture will be coming back, I think it's ok to publish this cautionary tale. Wikipedia says: Linseed oil is extracted from ripe flax seeds by cold pressing. It has natural characteristics that make it an excellent product to produce a beautiful and durable finish on wood products. It does, however, have a potential downside as Wikipedia points out in the second sentence of the description .... 'Linseed oil can polymerize and the reaction is exothermic, and rags soaked in it can ignite spontaneously.' True enough. Only the prompt and professional response of the Dorset Fire Department and other mutual aid companies prevented the building from being a total loss. So, I now have, in the upstairs of my garage, a large selection of smoke damaged furniture and we are currently working through the cleaning and polishing of some of the pieces. It's a sobering but rewarding process. DISPOSE OF YOUR RAGS PROPERLY !!!

The library before. We built the table back in 2004 ...

The table after the fire ... It was covered with papers and since the room didn't actually burn, the papers protected the finish somewhat. There are still 'ghosts' of the objects that were on the table left and we are probably going to strip the top and refinish it. The base is fine and looks great now.

One of the chairs below had been in for a tune up in March ... They are truly amazing pieces ..

One of these we 'fixed up' back in March ...

This is a 'before' picture from my previous blog post ...They are pretty toasted now but I think they'll be OK if we're careful and lucky.

This piece was one of the furthest in the house from the start of the fire in the garage, but it was still pretty heavily smoke damaged .... The smoke gets into every crack and crevice ...

But we got it. Shellac and Butchers Wax are your friends after it's clean .. The chair in the foreground is from the library and it got slightly overcleaned as the original finish had black at the intersections of the spindles, legs and seats and until we looked closely at the photos of the library before the fire we couldn't understand why we couldn't get that 'smoke' off. We'll continue to work on the pieces ... There are several important ones yet to go .... When we have a definitive cleaning process, I'll post it here ... We've got , obviously, a couple things that work, but we're still refining our techniques.
'Dispose of oily rags properly' is an understatement. 'Do not operate heavy equipment under the influence of drugs or alcohol' .... same deal ... Be careful ....

Finished the Cockatoo Chair ...

We finished the chair prototype today and after work I fired up my new camera. I've been impressed by technology before, but this was/is a surprise ... As a first test after charging the battery for half an hour, I went to the shop, walked our chair prototype out to the abandoned flower garden, and took a couple of snapshots. I came home and put them on the computer and was blown away ... The chair came out great and we're very proud of it, but whoooooa ... the photos are amazing. These have been compressed for the web .... the full size versions knocked my socks off right out of the camera ....and I haven't even read the manual yet ... Click to enlarge ...



On the way home I stopped in the driveway to photograph Kit's tree peony that's blooming... I've taken photos of it before, like every year probably, but nothing like this ... Top one is the whole image compressed ... Bottom is a part of the top image ....

Click these to check them out ...

New Handrail

Well, we've got a new handrail out front ... Sam had a request from a client for railings like this and we weren't sure on the technique of sweeping horizontal bends so I decided a prototype would be a good addition to our entryway. We also had a friend come by with her 92 year old mother and her exit from the front porch with no handrail was sort of terrifying ... Anyway, it's up there ... looks good ... interesting process ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

It's got a certain 'welcoming' feeling ...

First cut every couple of inches until what you're bending is essentially a piece of square stock ... Fill in the resulting spaces with weld, grind and smooth. Repeat for the second layer...

make the upsweep, figure out the length of the support

Make a jig to weld it to the horizontals and whip up some brackets ... prime, paint, drill a hole and install it using some epoxy stuff from the lumber yard ... I'll post the name of it here later but it was pretty slick stuff. Hardened up just like the stone and is the same color too ...