lots going on ...

 lots going on so far this year .. 

we've got four projects wrapping up now.

one of them left for California yesterday and the 

live edge table left yesterday morning.

one of our classic mid century modern tables ... more of them here

 

the cad drawing

 

before the finish ... finished photo coming soon ...

 

 

next up, a claro slab table with one of our classic steel bases

the bases are 1.5" thick steel, cut on a waterjet ...

  

the bottom needed some work and some steel reinforcement.

and the base pieces were ground, polished and patinated 

with a birchwood casey gun blue/black

 

the top had some cracks and we added some butterflies and epoxy fill ..

the slab on the goodhope website

and today we delivered three more chairs to our long time friends

we made four for them in our two different styles

back in november  ...

 

hats off to kristian here !

 

they are 'thinking about' a new table in the future  

 

and below we are working on a reclaimed chestnut desk

for a long time local client ..

 

there is nothing easy about this one ..

 

 

we are using a 'stain, red paint, black paint finish that we 

often use on our painted windsor chairs

the two board sapele top will be a sanded version of that formula

next up ... a  bed with a live edge headboard ... 

off to visit with the clients tomorrow ... more after that ..  

a photoshopped mockup here

site visit today, drawings tomorrow ...

a rclaimed chestnut table with self storing leaves

this is another edition of our tables with self storing leaves 

we have made a few different styles using this concept.

above it is upside down with the runner guides shown 

and with the leaves stored under the top    

  

all in, ready to go ...right side up with the leaves in

it is now in stowe, vt with the walnut desk in the previous post

the cad drawing

in the shop with the leaves opened

there is another way to store the leaves that you can see

in a fine woodworking article by tage frid 

it is a simpler mechanism, but it depends on the top 'floating'

which is best accomplished on smaller tables

we have used both methods, but the one above,

while more complicated is better suited to larger tables ...

a reclaimed chestnut and steel dining table

we finished this one a while back, but we are going to use the base design
in a couple of new projects coming up soon ... 

the table base is essentially 2.5" square tubing, with welded caps on the bottom to
accept small adjustable levelers .. the original design was wood, but
the clients for the matched tables above wanted to incorporate some of sam's steel work.

cad drawing for the chestnut table .. very straightforward ...

base alone .. tubing plus angle iron

we'll be making a curly maple table about 34 x 78, and probably at the same time,
 a base for this new mahogany plank that arrived recently from
our friends at irion lumber 
  ... +/- 42 x 120 .. and available .. will cut to suit

nice one!

beginning of the smoothing process .. looks kind of cool like this, actually

a revclaimed chestnut wine tasting table

we finished and shipped this reclaimed chestnut table the week before open studio ...

the red in the photo above is a reflection from the wall above the black background.

click the photos to enlarge them ..

we started, as usual, with a cad drawing

next, we glued up the top

and we had the steel legs cut by our regular waterjet folks in rutland ..

added some dark brown aniline dye under stain

added a thinned black oil stain on top, and a couple coats of satin poly later,

it was good to go to it's new home down south ...

for more photos of furnioture made from reclaimed lumber,

visit this link for a 60+ photo slide show

furniture from reclaimed lumber

we've been making furniture from reclaimed lumber for many years now.  i am in the process of collecting the photos of this furniture in one place and have created this slideshow where you can see some of them.

here are just a few of my favorites ...

the 'bridges' bench   .. made for the 2010 bennington museum show 'state of craft: fifty years of crafts in vermont'.  the theme of the show was 'continuity' and this piece involved 4 members of our family.

one of our early chestnut projects ... it was a project for a friend, and it involved this table, 

a gateleg pull up extension table, and 8 chairs

i put my feet up on this one every day.  it was an early collaboration involving me and kit, and our metal working son sam

part of our series 'empire deluxe' ... reclaimed chestnut and vermont marble

and who doesn't love a nice post and beam custom pool table

and about 50 more photos and blog links here

the 'basque style' chestnut table

 1/30/2014 .. we delivered the basque style table to its new home yesterday.  it's got a wonderful, up close view of magic mountain, a local ski resort, out the windows to the left.  the home has dramatic soaring ceilings, lots of light and an open barn like, yet cozy and comfortable feel.  it's a lucky table.

see the full story below

well, this one started back in august.  the clients sent me photos of 'an early 18th century "basque style" farmhouse table and a link to hastings antiques where there were pictures and descriptions, and the 'sold' price, $18,000.  not worrying to much about design copyrights, we set out and made the chestnut model above, based on the clients' desired dimensions and photos from the hastings antiques website.

click the photos to enlarge them ...

 

the photos showed a framed top with angled trestle supports and some diagonal bracing, not too 

unlike a reclaimed chestnut table we made back in the spring of 2011. 

our next step was the cad drawing below

then with some fine reclaimed chestnut from our friend jef harris in west virginia

 

we set to work

we mocked up the base, and, since the clients were local, we had them come by and check it out.  we added some spokeshaved softening and detailing to the top and base elements to add to the antique effect.

after some back and forth discussion, we agreed to fabricate the top with the solid wood frame around the solid wood center section, which was a concern to me because of the typical expansion and contraction of wood that happens during seasonal humidity swings in a vermont home.

we made the top up with the boards tight together and pocket screwed the parts temporarily.  and then before gluing the outside frame, we created a total of about 1/8th" of overall clearance between the boards in the center section for the projected summer expansion, based on 'the coefficient of expansion' (a technical term) of chestnut.  it's really an attractive design, and after our research, we're pretty confidant it's structurally sound, and will remain so over time .. after all, the original is 300 or so years old, and looks fine in the photos.

 we're in the finish process now

home stretch .. some sanding on the bench tops, and they are off to the finish room too.

 delivery later this week i hope ..