Two Half Round Tables

Will has started construction a pair of our 'classic' half round tables. We've made maybe 20 versions of this design over the years, 3 legs, 4 legs, paint and natural, paint and stain, etc., but for some reason, none in the last couple of years ... styles change I guess. These clients bought one of our cherry and burl dining tables about 10 years ago and it was nice to have a visit with them at their table while we were working on the final designs. Half round tables involve lots of nice jigs and processes and I will try to keep up with the whole deal here as we go along ... Click the photos to enlarge them.
Close up showing edge inlay
The cad drawings with a little extra perspective added manually.
First step was to layout the taper of the legs and make this two step jig for cutting the four tapers on the table saw. The 3/4" plywood base is 6" wide and the angled guide blocks are set using the pencil lines laid out on the first leg blank. Two adjacent sides are cut with the clamps in the #1 position and then the clamps are moved to where they are in the photo and the final two tapering cuts are made. We find it's best to layout and cut the dadoes for the break moldings and cut the mortises before we do the tapers. that way you are working with rectangular stock.
Here Will is assembling the forms he needs to glue up the curved aprons. These tables are not half rounds but are custom size (45.75" x 19.5") ovals so none of our existing forms would work. The CNC though can make extremely short work of cutting the ply pieces for the forms quickly and accurately.
The forms are lined with a layer of cardboard and the laminates are glued with Elmer's white or yellow, or Titibond, as you wish.
Here are some glued up pieces and two sets in the clamps ... After the outside final 1/8" veneers are all glued to the core stock, the laminates will be jointed and ripped to width on the table saw. Then we'll add the borders and do the joinery.
The cherry tops will have our standard 'trapezoid' edge inlay ... details of that coming soon ...

Another Week Goes By

Well, after Labor Day, it was only a four day week, but still it seemed to go by unusually quickly ... What happened? It's Sunday night already ... Back to work tomorrow ... Oh well ... good things are happening, and it seems there's always a little time for a little golf ... Click the photos to enlarge them .... There's a flag out there 87 yards away .... There are tree hazards, but the pond is dry, for now anyway .... click the photos to enlarge them ...
Will will finish construction this coming week on a mahogany vanity he's been working on off an on for a while now. It has real, solid wood raised panels, for heaven's sake....We haven't done any of them in years and I had to scratch my head for a minute to refresh my feeble memory. It will be a nice dark finish with a Danby marble top from Johnson's Marble ... It''l be real nice in its new home.
The front face frame is glued on and we'll glue the mitered sides to it first thing in the morning .. Hang the doors and bang out a couple of drawers and it will be ready to finish ...
We made another thirty display racks for Vew-Do Balance Boards last week and the week before ... I thought I had a picture of them, but since we have made many of them in the past, I might have missed them this time. They are totally CNC produced with only a little bevel edge hand routing. As a result of the Vew-Do project, we were introduced to the owners of Wagatha's Vermont Made Organic Dog Biscuits, made right her in Manchester, Vermont. They are sold all over America and Canada, and when I was touring the factory last week, they told me they make about 100,000 human food grade dog biscuits A DAY !!!! Right here; in a space about the size of my shop ... Verrry impressive. Anyway, we spent a couple hours brainstorming and whipped out our first prototype of a display rack for them ... It will ship flat and 'key' together on site ... They liked it and now we're working on the graphics and another prototype with open, lidded compartments for bulk, unbagged sales. A fun project, particularly for the dogs around the shop.
The mirrors are done ... we're thinking of shipping them to their home in Aspen unmirrored ... safer that way ... Beautiful cherry, beautiful abalone ... Wait til the curly cherry gets a couple years of age on it and they will be really sharp looking...
Ah ... Vermont Wood Manufacturers Design Contest coming up at the Woodstock Vermont Fine Furniture Show in two weeks ... (Why wait til the last minute?) ... We were kind of joking around with some cutoffs from the center of the elm oval table ... But now, maybe it's not so funny ... I think it will actually be a cool piece with potential spots in many a home ...
I think we'll add a little more flare to the legs at the bottom. With a metal base though, we're thinking it could be quite stable.
On another note, in this month's Woodshop News, I wrote a "Pro Shop" column (wow, I see they even put my smiling face in there) on the pros and cons of CNC in the really small shop, and out of the blue we received a gift from the Center/Edge Finder folks ... Thank you, Thank you ... We'll try it out next time we have some inlay work to do ... Looks like it will be cool for that, and maybe some other stuff too. We'll write a little review once we have tried it out a couple of times ... 'Used on the space shuttle and other US Government Projects' ... should be good ...
And, after a what seems like a forever and a half of dinking around with wires, swivels and various connectors, I finally got my sculpture prototype to hang up, swivel, and make it through a couple of wind/rain storms. I thought for a minute I was going to have to burn it before I got to the steel version. You would think a 350 lb test stainless steel deep sea swivel from Cabela's would hold 15 pounds of painted luan, but I'll tell you, it won't ... I'm not sure where I'm gonna shop before my next blue fin tuna trip ...
Anyway ... it's kind of nice I think ... Painted one side .. Inspired by Sam Ogden ...the original
Plain the other ...
And, we're still working on the big table. We're picking up the steel base pieces tomorrow at Melanson's and Trevor is ready to do the inlays to stabilize the drying cracks. .
He is also in the process of gluing up the chairs tomorrow and they will go off to Sandy Sherman Chair Caning to have the Danish cord seats woven on to them ... 140 nail holes per chair ... now that is where a cnc is REALLY handy ...
And .... Hot off the press on Friday, we got a little concert from Banjo #2 by Will ... Due to a switch in the tone ring wood from walnut to bubinga, even I can hear the difference .. It's brighter, louder, and warmer all at the same time. Want to build your own banjo ?? ... click this link for the one we made last year ...
Same apple and walnut pot. Rosewood fretboard and peg end with gold abalone inlays
Very fine detailing on the inlays (click this one)
A nice original peg head design ... Take a bow Will .. Love the 'W' at the top ... Short video clip coming soon... it's a different banjo, but here's a link to a 45 sec video clip
All for now ... I'm outta here ...

A Custom Walnut Vanity

I put a few pictures of this project up in a 'what we are working on post' last week. It's finished now and while it was pretty straight forward, there were a couple of interesting wrinkles ... Our client liked the onyx top and the way that the sink was carved out of the solid block .. The metal base that came with it though didn't go with her decor though so we got to make a new one, and a matching mirror. The vanity had to have an interrupted back rail to accommodate the holes that were already drilled for the faucets. Sam rolled us a couple of pieces of steel and he also made a couple of curved brass pieces to line the opening of the mirror frame ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
The finished vanity base with an mdf mockup top/full size drawing in place.
With the top removed to show the two custom steel pieces.
better view ...
The onyx top and the base that came with it ... I haven't seen it in person, but the onyx started out as a block 6" + thick and they milled the sink from the solid ... Very cool, but hmmm ... seems like there would be a lot of waste ...
Ahhh, the mirror ... Everyone likes the mirror. The light sconces are antique brass and Joan asked if we could 'add some brass details' to the mirror frame .. We tapered the frame like the legs and added some curves and small round headed brass pins to hold the brass in place.
Close up of the brass detail ...
Will, fitting the brass prior to antiquing it ...
Ready to apply. The steel parts were painted black ...

The Maple Leaf Table

6/12/10 Home stretch now ... A couple of polish coats and it's out the door next week ... Tough one to photograph ... 42 x 90 is too big for my background paper ....

The maple leaf table ....

Every design comes from somewhere ... In this case, take an interesting leg with carvings. Simplify the design of the turnings, add a Vermont maple leaf and get rid of the edge inlay .... Change the wood to curly maple and get rid of the black .... presto ... new design ... We really liking this one, and Will did a great job handling the turnings, carvings, and, really, the whole thing ... Love it ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
We started with this concept of a table leg with some kind of detail on the corners ... We discussed a leaf as a metal applique since, at the time, we were working on the duck bed ... In the end, we decided on a carved maple leaf ....
The clients chose this leg design, one of our standards, and we added some detail to the apron, but eliminated the black paint and changed the wood to all curly maple ...
Went out the door and grabbed some maple leaves to get the feeling of the carvings right ...
We glued up the top next and made up the apron parts. Here Will is doing some after work banjo finishing ... more on that project later ... banjo #2 ...
Fitted it all up and laid out the corner cuts on the top ...
The first coat of stain was applied to the legs and aprons and sanded before the base was glued up ...
The curved corner legs complicate the base glue up somewhat, but it all went smoothly ...I hope to deliver the table before the weekend and have dinner on it with my friends/clients Saturday night .... The first coat of finish went on everything today, but we've got a couple coats to go ..... We'll see ... it'll be close.

'State of Craft' Show ... The Bennington Museum

'State of Craft' ... Exploring the Studio Craft Movement in Vermont: 1960-2010. Runs from May 22nd to October 31st at The Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont . Curated by Jamie Franklin and Anne Majusiak, it displays the work of 85 craftspersons, (is that how we call us?) 125 objects, oral histories, studio interviews .... I don't generally look for shows to be in, but this one found me and I'm glad it did .... Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
"Bridges", our piece, is a collaboration between Dan (b. 1947) , Sam (b. 1982) and Will (b. 1984) Inspired partly by my grandfather, Irvin Seeders, a bridge riveter for Bethlehem Steel for 52 years (b. 1902), BS from 1916 to 1968. For the show, I thought it would be good if his generation, my generation and the next generation were represented. You know, a 100 years of craft or something .... just a thought ...Our piece started as a couple of different ideas, based on other designs we had created, but took on a life of its own. For a while it was going to be gold leaf and bubinga, then high finish walnut and blued steel, but in the end, it came to be made of recycled oak (heritage and tradition) and painted steel, with the rivet connection to my grandfather the coup de grace. Sam did the steel work and the green paint; Will did the burning and finishing, and I did a little roughing out of the wood and assembly and helped with the conceptual stuff. On the whole, a lot of fun. The show opens next Saturday and I am really looking forward to it ... Should be a good party ...
Early on .. after we decided on the recycled oak, but before the rivets ... The burnings seemed unrelated ...
The initial paint job, which was later toned down by sanding through to the red primer and glazing ...
The rivets ... I forget exactly whose brainstorm that was, but it was a good one ...
Will, burning the oak prior to staining and glazing ....
After the burning and stain, before the sanding and glazing ...
It's a bridge ...
A rusty one in Shelburne, MA
A soaring and inspirational one in New York, the GW, which I'm pretty sure my grandfather worked on ...
Some of the other pieces in the show .... this is the underside of the 'quarter bench' below
There was no label and I don't know the artist, but he's from Brattleboro.
Other objects ready to go ..