some brass feet ... contractor services

being that we have accumulated many skills over the years, and like to keep busy, 

we often find ourselves doing work for other makers ..

builders, upholsterers, antique dealers, contractors ... we're open to your ideas

this client is a millwork, cabinet, and furniture shop in massachusetts,

and both our shop and theirs do work for the same boston and cape cod designers.

this project involved fabricating four 1" thick solid brass feet to cap 

the ends of the x shaped legs on a desk they were building

the legs were (conveniently) on a 45 degree angle so we
made some fir mockups, cut the brass, drilled and flushed it up,
polished it a bit and box em up

we got these photos of the finished piece last week ..

all in, all good ...

wood and metal furniture and summer in vermont

 not much blogging this month  .. it is summertime in vermont and there are lots and lots of 

distractions.  you've got your birthdays early in the month ... dan, sam, and will .. wow! 68 for me this year.  at my birthday dinner, i had a distinct and extremely lucky 'pop the champagne cork event'.  we were outside, and when i popped it. the cork went straight up about 8 feet and came, seriously, right back down into my outstretched hand .. didn't even have to move to catch it ... for other distractions you've got your golf, your tennis, your horseshoes and general beer drinking, your convertible rides, your live music here and there .... summer's short in vermont, so we try to make the most of it .. we have been working though .. below are some highlights ... 

click the photos to see them better ...

 here's the rundown

 

a reclaimed oak bethlehem steel coffee table .. left tuesday ..

ditto on the cherry and steel huntboard

leaving next week

and a couple of crotch walnut bedside tables coming along ...

a small claro walnut and steel coffee table out the door ..

some new belt buckles by sam

chalkin' up the states .. sam's just finished new jersey, michigan, virginia,and new york above,

and now the south carolina palmetto thing ...

and will has updated his website with his five latest banjo projects ... lots and lots happening in his shop.

check it out on his website or instagram feed

a steel base for a 3m acrylic table top .. can't wait to see that when it's finished

with the polish and clear coat

and a couple of steel and white oak nesting tables .. after

before

and a 'sap spout maple' bethlehem steel console

cool wood ...

parts and pieces

a couple of add on railings to get folks down the steps in north bennington ... 

 

and we have a nibbler for a conference table using the crotch mahogany 

slab we are trying to find a home for .. so we made a model ..

it'll be sharp .. hope it goes through ...

steel base in 3 x 3 square tubing and angle iron

finished the bar ... see the previous post ..

 and there's a cool project coming up involving a python snake skin ... a new one for us ..

and we've got a 10' walnut table going with self storing leaves..

should be ready for the finish process early next week

and we cut about 70 mdf stair balusters on the cnc for an architect friend who's building a house in florida

  and then you have your yard and garden ... crazy apples above ..

 the garlic is in .. bumper crop ...

and we're about to be buried by everything else that kit grows ...

the employees will be lockin their car doors once it all starts coming in ..

                                                   all for now .. i'm sure that's enough 

stuff you can do with a cnc router

in conjunction with my exploration of the possibilities/virtues of machine work vs handwork that i wrote about in a blog post last month, i have put together a slide show entitled 'stuff you can do with a cnc router'  ... here's a link to that slideshow...  within those photos there are links to my website or blog where further information is available .. there are also many post in the category trevor's cnc projects.  that link would be for the diehard curious, as there are over 40 blog posts there.  we've had access to this technology since 1997, and have had our own full size, 50" x 100" multicam since 2005.  prospective clients almost always stop to ask when they see it on the way to my office, 'what do you do with that?'  i've decided that it is easier to show than to tell them .. 230 example photos .. most with blog links in the caption .. 

it might take 15 minutes or less to scroll through them all ..

our standard technology quote is:
"technology ... it almost works" . 

we often use that quote when things don't go perfectly, but, in general, with the right operators and proper attention to drawing details and machine maintenance, this technology is incredibly efficient and reliable.

the dome ... part 2

phew ! .. the dome left today at around 5:00 ... a challenging project if ever there was one, and we plan to help set it up for the new oven on site tomorrow or friday.  watta project !!  here's a link to the previous post on the early stages of construction ... ignorance breeds confidence ...we had no idea what we were getting into.

in this photo, you can see pete, the mason brother in law, of vermont brick ovens, on the left, and trevor, admiring the collapsing mechanism.  if you enlarge the photo, (click it),  there's a handwheel on the vertical stem, and when you turn it, the 'hub' drops and the ribs can be removed one at a time through the oven door, or more likely from the collapsed pile of parts.

when he's ready, we'll be helping pete set it up for his current project.  he's currently working on the soldier course that stands vertically around the 72" diameter .. here's a photo of that in the works.

in case you missed the first post, it'll look like this when it's done.

well, it was quite a trip getting this project together .. lots of head scratching, lots of glue, (over a gallon) and some sanding and bondoing ... here are some more photos of the process ...

 early on, with the 'glue up form' still in use .. see this link for other early photos

 here we're getting the shim blocks (later knocked out to collapse the form) figured out ... 

in the end, we made two different versions ..

 sanding and fitting the rough glued pieces .. it ain't perfect, but there aren't any 

cracks that a half a brick can fall through ...

tah dah .. on to bondo and paint

the holes were from the ten thousand screws we used to make the five layers of bending plywood do what they had absolutely no interest in doing, which is form part of a sphere.

 a previous vermont brick oven project  in manchester, for which we made a different form 

that was a lot more complex and time consuming to set up than this one ..

we realized as we were packing it up .. damn! we missed our chance.  we shoulda painted 

the north pole, hudson bay, and sweden to alaska on it ...

 i will NOT be going into the wood globe business ..... all for now.