Welcome New Readers !

sometime around the end or beginning of the month

i often look at my 'stats', a feature of blogger that tracks your

traffic and shows some of the sources of it ... 

recently i have noticed some surprising trends ...

currently over 2,500,000 page views !

and already on the 13th of this month we have had

more traffic than all of last month, which was likely

my biggest month ever ...

so, thanks for reading, and since there are almost a thousand

posts, below i give you links to some of my favorites  ...

leave a comment or drop me an email if you like .
 

below is a post from January, 2023 

titled a 'few of my favorites'.

 

 conveniently listed on the home page of my blog

are, according to blogger, my 'popular posts' ...

 the one at the top of that list has been viewed 

more than 35,000 times, which does make it 'popular',

at least in my book.

below i list not my 'popular posts', but some of my 'favorite posts'.

ones that feature projects that i enjoyed writing about,

and/or feature projects that i am proud of.

here we go .... lots to read here ...

'all the pretty pool tables'

at the time i was writing this post i was also reading

a cormac mccarthy book titled 'all the pretty horses'.

hence the post title, which explains what that post is about ..

the duck bed

i could go on and on about this one, 

and in the duck bed link above, i do ...

 

'chance to be a hero'

this was a rather miraculous repair if i do say so myself ...

we were able to get all the veneer pieces back to flat 

without disturbing the original finish ..

 

some libraries we have built

at least 6 of them there ... one of them took

nearly a year from cutting the trees to installing it

on the upper east side in new york city ...

some big projects there ...

 

all claro, all the time

about a dozen live edge tables in the blog post at that link

and about 45 more at this link

 

algebra and geometry in the workplace

 
a real, deep, head scratcher here ..

create the supports for a conical ceiling ... 

here are the 'plans' from the architect

Ensure Slope Matches Side Wall Angle for Conical Ceiling'

at 2 and 1/16th x 12

and there is always the onsite variable where

the concrete wall on the right is maybe on 2 and 3/16ths x 12

instead of the required 2 and 1/16th x 12, which in

7' adds up!  crazy stuff !

 
a 1/8th" to the foot scale model ...

and your basic algebra here ...

and in 2010 we collaborated with a 

friend to build two rather large conference tables

at 20' x 8', this is the 'small one'

'small' because this one is 26' x 9'

about 2' of granite hangs out over the base pieces
we cnc'd and joined the knockdown parts, 

we did the steel that supports the granite

 and did the wood borders around the granite pieces ...

our friend steve did the finishing and onsite assembly.

                                                                             the crow bar  ... below

i think this will do it for today ... 

more 'favorites' to come sometime ...

and a few more favorites at this link

 

and there are literally thousands of photos in the 'slide shows' 

semi retirement

 it appears that one of the things i have 'semi retired' from is writing on this blog.  

my last post was in july, but aside from time out for a new hip october 12th, 

i have been more or less been working along, building stuff for 

both long time and new clients .. 

below are a couple projects from the summer and early fall ... 

i took this image from sam's instagram page as i only seem to have 

in process photos it was an interesting and challenging project.  

the slabs were 'a bit rough', with varied thickness and twists and splits, 

but we wrestled it to the ground in the end,

 and the clients were very pleased ... 

the rails are bolted in place on assembly

 

and we made some chairs and sent them off to seattle

lotsa parts

some shapes, mortises and tenons on the cnc

ready to roll!  seats woven by my friend sandy sherman at sandy sherman chair caning

 

lots more to follow soon ....

a 'white' oak bed

we finished this one up last week and it will be heading for cape cod as soon 

as the house is finished ...

click the photos to enlarge them ...

 

 
we had an inspiration image from the designer, and we played with several different
layouts including ones that aren't shown in the drawing above

sam welded up a nice steel base,

and chris layed out the headboard from the drawing

lots of white oak pieces, lots of grooves and lots of spline

almost ready for the frame

mitered and glued and screwed on from the wall side .. 

some minwax pickling stain and some water based poly to keep the oak white

and we're good to go ... 

looking forward to seeing it with the mattress and duvet.  it should be sharp.

good design lasts and lasts

i made that door in 1978 ... sort of the same ...

a few of our favorite things

for many reasons, things come and go from the 'popular posts' list over there to the right.  there are some posts though that i call on over and over when talking with potential clients.  and some of these posts, for whatever reason, are popular with me, but have never made the list.  'the duck bed' shown above and below was a collaboration between one of our favorite clients, our younger son will on the turning, carving and finishing and the older son sam on the metal 'carving' and patinas. 

i got to do the cad drawing and lead the design parade.  there are four posts total in the construction description, but you can access all of them from the link above.  carving spirals, cnc work on the inlays, waterjetting the actual metal parts and patinas are all covered there.

this one's got it all .. three posts total, from adapting an existing design below to a new space, cross country contractor and architect communication, custom steel railings, secret compartments, shipping details to palo alto, on and on .. lots of headscratching ... much fun.

and this 1989 project is the original staircase we built for local clients that the palo alto folks found on my website.  we recently added the railing so there is a blog post about it at this link.  a version of this project was posted on facabook by a radio station in mississippi and it has been shared i see 567,855 times .. go figure

a greene and greene style sideboard .. drawings, construction details, fabricating the hinges and the pulls, the works ... many more photos here.

ahhh, the trout desk, dovetailing 28" wide walnut planks, 'houndstooth' dovetails, and more, and below,

the 'bridges bench'  both are part of our bethlehem steel series combining the efforts of sam, will and i to create collaborative pieces in wood and steel ... 

more pieces in this series at this link

and another example of the bench above for a local museum garden

another member of the bethlehem steel series by dan, sam and will

lots more stuff here along with thoughts on interior design and custom furniture

and then we've got our on line slide shows at this link  six years of work with albums on claro walnut tables, furniture from reclaimed lumber, stuff you can do with a cnc router, some of my digitized sketchbooks with sketch and finished piece ... thousands of photos there ..

the 11 foot copper top table

loads of fun .. new processes

pool tables ... always a pleasure .. i think we are working on number 17 right now

five easy pieces  .. in addition to this fun zebra wood dining table, there are four others in wenge, hickory and steel.  one of my first ever substantial blog posts.

more photos here

as always, you can consult the 'categories' section for specific interests and the 'popular posts' section for other things that m ight catch your eye ... happy reading.  comment with your questions and i'll try to get back to you shortly ..
 also, there are slide shows available at this link that contain literally thousands of photos of our work ..
enjoy!!

a claro walnut slab headboard

our faithful delivery man ken, delivered and hung this claro walnut headboard in new york city last week.  the project has been ongoing for a month or two and it was nice to see it finally in place.

i posted this photo of one of three new slabs i received back in march.  this client picked up on it and asked us to make her a headboard from this one. 

 we did some rough planing, and wet it with some alcohol, and we were on track.

it had some unusual burl like details along the top edge. 

we made a quick cad drawing that included some drawer boxes cantilevered off the ends of the slab.  they seemed a little much, so they were dropped in the end in favor of the minimalist look in our photoshop mockup below.

all's well that ends well and this one ended very well for our client ...

 one of the three slabs from march is still not spoken for ... it's ready to be something anytime ...