a round cherry table with a leaf

all finished now ... above, without the leaf

 with the 12" leaf .. the whole story below ...

ok, this is starting to be one of our more popular round or oval table designs.  i think we have done four or five versions of it now.  below is the most recent, back in june, in curly maple.  trevor is making one in cherry now and you can see it step by step below.  

click the pictures to enlarge them ...

curly maple, no leaves, june 2014

laying out the parts with patterns made from the cad drawing above.

the parts and pieces.  trevor glues the aprons up in two halves and bevels them before attaching them to halves of the table top with screws and table clips ..

cutting the 12/4 cherry on the bandsaw .. he then miters the four pieces with a jig on the table saw and assembles them with clamps and dominoes.  i need to photograph that tomorrow if he still has it ..

here are parts from one of the previous tables.  there are cross grain dowels involved to give the lags that come up through the propeller base some purchase when the lags are tightened.  in the end, there are two dominoes on each flat face of the mitered parts.

there are also 3/4" splines added to the short grain in the top of the curved pieces to reinforce them.
we also screw the sub top of the base into those splines to reduce the risk of splitting the short grain.

here's the jig trevor uses to miter the four base pieces ...

'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' .. shop art ..

the equalized runners, (from moin hardware), for the leaf are attached to a subtop and the table halves

the parts are in the finish room now and i will post more pictures when the table is finished.

a custom walnut king size bed ..

ok .. this was a challenging one .. a client we had done some tables for earlier this year sent us a picture asking if we could do a bed similar for them in walnut, in a king size ...  we adjusted the dimensions and details to suit her specs.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

to get started, trevor made a full size elevation below of the headboard with the xs and the footboard

next, he laid out the post mortises and the bolt holes and mortises for the headboard and footboard.

he drilled out the larger mortises first on the drill press and squared them up with the hollow chisel mortiser.  tenons on the table saw with dado blades and the fence.

he captured the nuts for the bed bolts using the moritser and a shop made jig for drilling the bolt holes

coming together here .. next, he tapered the posts on the cnc, which was a 

super safe way to do it compared to a table saw and jig, which i have always hated.

there were LOTS of pieces and LOTS of places they all had to fit.

count em' ! on the headboard alone there are four center intersections on not a 45 degree angle, 32 corners where things have to fit 5 vertical rails, mortises for the top and bottoms of the frames, two with curves.  after that, the footboard was a walk in the park.

all done in the upstairs of the metal shop .. waiting for an 'on site' picture soon.

fun, and very challenging, project

the pawlet potter

        

 ahhh, the pawlet potter.  marion mcchesney ... kit and i have known her and her family for years.  she and lee moved out into the country from downtown pawlet a few years back, so i don't get to stop in and see her stuff quite so often as i used to ... click the photos to enlarge them ..

 

earlier this week though, jim and i were 'in the neighborhood' as they say.  it was a beautiful sunny day, and marion was in her sweet little studio, so we stopped by to pay her a visit.

you may have seen her on david letterman, (correct me if i'm wrong marion, but it was one of those famous 'tonight type' shows), with her 'roadkill pottery'.  dead stuff stamped into wet clay.  very clever.  kit and i have rescued a few flattened things for her in the past, and as a result we have acquired a little collection of 'roadkill' ourselves over the years .. bowls, plates, tiles ... very cool stuff.

roadkill tiles ..

a big roadkill bowl in a place of honor .. on a table from 1980, and a curved front, curved glass cabinet from 1981 .. with a pete millett horse from the early 70s ... the wire sculptor is unknown.  got it as a gift from a client ... interesting reflections in the windows ...

it's a pretty big one .. those are flys in the middle there ..

but 'bob's bowl' is the biggest marion piece we have.  in fact, i think she said it was one of her biggest ever.  bob's a big cat.  i'm guessing the bowl's about 22-24" in diameter and about 5" deep.  he just fits ..

marion does serious handbuilt and thrown stuff too.  there's an artist's eye there that, being a bit of a potter myself, i find humbling and inspirational ...

great space .. really great south light!

 

artistically arranged

stop in yourself if you are in rural pawlet ... a bit off the beaten path, but definitely worth the trip.
see it all here ...

so here's a staggering statistic .....

one MILLION, 37 thousand 626 page views .. who'd a thunk it.

 thanks for reading this stuff ... 6 years of blogging as of the 22nd.

an interesting overview

for a while earlier this year i had katie rubick from route 7 social helping me with my dorset custom furniture facebook page .. while i sort of paid attention to what she was doing, she really dug back into my blog and found some interesting stuff.  here's a link to my 'photostream' ... lots of links there.  lots of pictures, in no discernible order .. an interesting ramble ...

 good job kate ..

wha's up?

well, it's fall ... and after almost seven years of blogging and about 700 posts, i think i may be running out of steam a bit ... my last post was about 3 weeks ago. it is fall though and the outdoor activities/distractions are daunting .. i was talking with sam yesterday, and i realized one could theoretically do some fly fishing in the morning, have lunch, play nine holes of golf.  then hit a couple apple orchard covers for some grouse or woodcock in the late afternoon, play some paddle tennis around 5:00, then have a shower and dinner, and still have time for some pottery before bedtime.  so many options; so little time. 
this post will be just a bunch of pictures and short descriptions to summarize our recent activities .. not much detail needed .. click the photos to enlarge them.

the two photos above are a revisit to the hill farm project with some more work .. we reworked the funky pedestal thing above into a bar table ..

fixed bob marley's lion chair and took it to be upholstered .. very cool chair with a 'made in italy' sticker .. appeared to be from the 50's

and we inlaid some mother of pearl poker chips into a table top.  will had to engrave a couple of them below

and we've got a new slab headboard bed going ..

another one, just like the other one ..

big and heavy, but very interesting ..

       

and i took a little trip to see emmy lou and bela fleck and abigail washburn at 'fresh grass'

it took place at mass moca ( mass. museum of contemporary arts), down the road in adams mass. an awesome musuem and worth the trip just to see the buildings. 

       

courtyard d

and a great concert venue.  for emmy lou in joe's field, i was able to stroll my way up to pretty close ..

and trevor just finished a custom walnut king bed

lots of xs  .. luckily we have done a million of em

 

 

all in.  all done

more on the fall light later  .. it particularly lights up the figured cherry on our bedroom bureau at this time of the year

pretty tough to photograph though ..

and kit has gotten the harvest in

and back in the shop, we've got another lutyens style desk going ..

this one's bigger though .. 28 x 72 .. gonna be a beauty .. lots of burl

and chris is off to australia and new zealand for three weeks on saturday ..

sam made the gates below for the side door of a local restaurant and we had to make a sign to keep the customers from using them

and sam made some funky parts for a friend's gasifier furnace

some old will mosheim wood burnings surfaced in the office .. probably from about 1990 .. love the tiger ..

the pop up tv cabinet is waiting for a decision on the finish ..

and we made a new mahogany top for an antique table pedestal

amd more news from the metal shop with this custom wood rack and adjustable grill for a peter moore fireplace up on the mountain

and i think we might have had our last outdoor shower for the season.  with temps in the 40's in the morning and 30's soon, i'm going to have to shut it off and drain the lines soon. along with taking down the screen doors, just another fall chore.

i'm going to miss the view

and speaking of views, about this time of year, for a couple days we get the reflection of the rising sun off the metal roof of the gondola shed at the top of stratton mountain about 25 miles to the southeast.  it's another one of those seasonal markers .. all for now ..