what we're working on now

I did a talk last evening with Marc Spagnolo, aka "The Wood Whisperer". Mark has created an amazing social networking site for woodworkers, designers and craftsmen of all skill levels ... Check it out here if you aren't familiar with his site .... Anyway, I thought I might talk about what was happening in the shop this week, but mainly, we covered more of the history and general background of the business. Tools, design processes, shop size, relationships with clients ... Most challenging project ... It was fun and when I get a link, I'll post it here.
Sam has completed four 'tuteurs'. Tomato cages for those of you unfamiliar with the French .,.. We're doing some design work with a potential client who is interested in an 'Arts and Crafts" style screen, 'sort of like the one below' that he saw on my website. We made that for a client who was a world traveler and had a large collection of Oceanic objects ....
We also got underway on an 18' wall of bookshelves and fireplace mantle ... It's a paint project, but it will have a great refined look when it gets to its home ... We're really just getting started ... more on that project later
We're also getting underway on an English elm oval shaped table which will also deserve a post of its own before long.And Will is finishing up a vanity and mirror for a longtime client
The sink is actually routed from a 6" thick slab of onyx and the top edge that's left is 2" ... more on that later too ...
The mirror has some brass details

A Tall Case Clock Restoration

We had a nice tall case clock repair come through the shop recently ... Looks to be (except for the missing brass moldings) pretty much original ... There was some loose stuff that we glued and tacked back on and there are a couple of painted wood/brass molding replacements that we left in place ... We weren't after an all out restoration but when we finished, it looked ran and looked just fine ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
all together in the shop ...
one of the missing brass moldings, which Trevor duplicated in short order using the cnc ..
After
Will did most of the work on the case and he also replaced a couple simpler missing brass pieces ...
There was no key and the case was locked ... With a little flashlight work and some trial and error, Sam not only got the lock to open, but made us a new key which worked better after we added the wood shim inside the lock ...
Trevor had to unstring and rewind both cables before we hung the weights to get the cable to track right, but as soon as he did, things started to tick tock and gong way .... We hung the pendulum onsite, set the date, time and phase of the moon and tomorrow we'll go back and check and adjust before installing the bonnet ... An interesting project ....
All in, all done ... ticking away and keeping great time .... It seems that it's older than I first thought. My client sent me a link and some information below, on the maker, whose name is inscribed on the dial ...

A late 17th or early 18th century bracket or table clock signed "Markwick, London". The Markwick family is known as one of the earliest of London’s clockmakers, with James Markwick being succeeded by James, presumably his son. The second James Markwick ascended into the Clockmakers Company of London in 1692, becoming a master in 1720, and it was he who sometimes signed his work as simply ”Markwick” http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7421270.

Friday Afternoon ... A Tradition Continunes

We shipped out the two big tables Friday afternoon, which called for a round of rum for my men and a little banjo music by Will. He was showing off his new (to him, but older than him, 1981) Stelling banjo ... It sounded really sweet ....
summer afternoons ... is there anything better?
Kit stopped by on her way home from work ...


We'll post a little audio clip one of these days ...

The 26' Table is Gone

Well, OK, we finished up the 26' x 9' table on Friday. It took a lot of people and a lot of steps and processes and, when it was done, I was disappointed to find that it almost looked easy ... except when you stop to think about it ... The pieces were made in my shop and then assembled in my garage on temporary bases while the real bases were being fabricated in Steve Holman's shop down the road. I had no place to easily set up either table in my shop while it was pretty easy to clean out my garage ... We did set the 20 foot table up (below) in Steve's shop (after moving two tools and disassembling part of his dust collection system) on its real base to check it and then reassembled it one more time here to check the final fit when we received all the cut granite pieces and fitted the center pieces. Whew .. just writing about his one is a lot of work .... Step by step we go .... click the pictures to enlarge them ..
This is the 20' table ... This previous post is all about that one ... There's a video of Trevor doing a stroll around the table here ...
The base pieces for the 20 foot table in the finishing process ...
Ok ... back at the garage where we disassembled the top of the 26' table from its temporary base,
Swept the floor ...
Brought in the real base parts
Assembled those and leveled them up ..
Added the steel ...
Next, we reinstalled the mdf top pieces and faired the curves and tops of the curved cherry moldings. This assured us that the notches for the steel in the otriggers, and the 56 holes tapped in the 14 piece of steel ( 7 different lengths) lined up with the 56 countersunk holes in the mdf top pieces and that everything would fit and tighten up, and once it gets to its final home, things will go together smoothly. We decided early on that neither table would be assembled after the parts were finished until it reaches its final destination ... As you can see above, there are a LOT of pieces and it's always risky to move things like that around ....
Ready for the granite and panels.. You can see the bolts in this photo. Those bolts were integral to the engineering and support of the cantilevered granite pieces ...
14 of the 18, 2' x 44.6" pieces of granite in place here
All in .. all fitted ... There are 32 places where at least four points come together and line up with other points on the table ... 1 of the 32 places below .. two cherry, two granite and a center panel

By the end of the day Friday ... all the parts that needed veneering and finishing were at Steve's and I was left with a half empty garage and 5 carts with 28 pieces of granite .... party time !!!

There are several other earlier posts so that you can get the whole feel for the process HERE and HERE.

Pete's Pizza Ovens

There's a new pizza place in Manchester ... Uncle Pete (Peter Moore, Vermont Brick Ovens) built the oven, and Sam added some metal door details (digital thermometer covers), and a custom damper .... I stopped by a couple of times as he was working on it and it was way cool to watch it happen ... great process but I'm sorry I missed the actual dome building on Pete's round forms ... Click the photos to enlarge them .
Main Street, Route 7, in front of Shaw's
The trout door ... they just fired it up Saturday and I'm not sure what the rusty stuff is
The dome before it was grouted
from the outside
Sam's custom damper
Finishing up
The completed oven ... I heard the pizza is GREAT !