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' 

repairs, and why we like them

above from the book 'the craftsman' by richard sennet 

i've been catching up on my reading lately ...

click the photos to enlarge them

so, last week i had a small run of repairs,

bringing things back to useful life

i got the chair in the first photo above with the missing parts

in a nice cloth grocery bag .. first step was to reglue

the backsplat and get it ready to re install

here it is, all set to go ... 

this was what i refer to as a 'functional restoration'

where the object is reassembled using the guide line

'if it doesn't make sense financially to fix it correctly. fix it any way you can'.

a 'proper' restoration was not financially feasible, yet the repairs

i did here will extend the chair's life, (barring catastrophe), for the foreseeable future.

and then something comes in the door that just blows you away

yowza!

details, detail, details ... nice black mother of pearl in the peacock's tail

and i love the details on the metalwork .. that alone probably took a couple of minutes

the client inherited this chest from her aunt who collected 

chinese 'stuff' .... i can't imagine who commissioned this one ...

and let's not neglect the back ... i think they threw the 

angles and curves in just for fun ... 

another painted chest required some adjustment and repair to 

the little stubby legs, which may or may not have been original .. 

FUNKY CHAIR !! obviously a green wood construction

check the warp on that seat .. quite a twist!..

point of interest here, after cutting off the front leg a bit to relevel it,
i noticed that the leg was turned from what appears to be a branch, with
the heart included in the turning .. never saw that before .. my guess is circa 1800.

better view of the warped seat

note the fact that the left leg in the rear and the opposite leg in the front
were shortened by at least an inch each .. 

and then we get to my friend Tom's 'music chair'
which he has been sitting in to play his guitar for a good portion of his recent life.
when it arrived, it had three snapped off tenons, one on the top of a leg, two stretcher ends,
and a long spit in the center stretcher ...

the leg top i was able to drill for a 5/8th" oak dowel new tenon, but the stretchers
required turned and scarfed on new tenons with small screws reinforcing the joints
from the bottom of the stretchers.  tom's my age, the chair's quite a bit older,
and we'll see how it goes.  i am hopeful ...

and below, from a previous restoration blog post i wrote a few years ago about repairs ..
that blog post has a link to a new yorker article on
the conservation studio at the new whitney museum ...
the new yorker article is a thought provoking read on art and time passing ...

refreshing a george nakashima table

we delivered this 1959 george nakashima table to its new home yesterday .. it is a
beautiful octagonal room with floor to ceiling cherry paneling
it was a sunny day and the photography was difficult, but you get the idea.
see the finished top in the sunshine in the last photo in this post.

 the table had been kerfed when it arrived here and we added a few more
to flatten the top which had curled over a 1/2" over its six foot width .
we also moved the short stiffeners out a couple of inches to get them closer
 to the edge of the table .. it's pretty flat now if i do say so myself.

trevor and tyler attaching the base to the top on site ...
the laurel top is EXTREMELY heavy, and there is no
way it could have been delivered with the base in place.

on arrival, we discovered that the base could be completely

disassembled.  we labeled all the intersections,cleaned the joints, 

and reglued it with hot hide glue

trevor also reinforced the half lapped joints with long screws after the glue had set

you can see the curve of the top and the color that the top
was in its unfaded color

this is what the top looked like before trevor scraped it down
based on how yellow it was, we're guessing it was nitrocellulose
 lacquer applied at some time in the past

just starting to see the natural color in the scraper shavings

sanded and ready for finish

a little alcohol as a test

oiled up with 6 coats of waterlox .. 

ready for the next 60 years

great spot!

a fun and challenging repair

very presidential
 
well, we had a couple chuckles today .. we finished this repair and i was taking a quick record photo and caught jim in the 'dollar bill' pose.  lookin' good in there, don't ya think?  anyway, the orange lines in the photo denote all the places this piece was broken when we picked it up .. it is a family heirloom that was standing quietly in the owners' garage just after arrival, when the arm thing on the top of the automatic garage door just nicked the top and tipped it over on its face as it was closing.  small disaster .. all better now.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

it took a few clamps and a bit of fussy work to get everything lined back up and reglued.  it also required some imaginative clamping fixtures due to all the holes and rounded edges ... we got it though and it looks 'good as new' for an antique.  these things must have been really popular at one time cause there are about a million different pictures of em on google images.  check it out

seriously, a half million at least ..

looked great in it's home place

it even had a pair of sweet cast bronze, mirror image scallop shells for the base .. very cool ..