Slices of Maple Coffee Table

We made this table for Open Studio this year. ( See post below) We usually try to have at least one thing kind of out of the ordinary for people to see. I bought the slices at a local tag sale about 3 or 4 years ago for not a lot of money, stuck them in the basement of my shop and waited for them to dry. They had the matching splits when I got them and, while they got a little wider, they didn't change all that much. The slices came from a branch of what was, at the time, the largest registered silver maple in Vermont. According to my neighbor's daughter, this branch had 77 growth rings. When I asked Betsy, from whom I bought the slabs, why she didn't have any slices from the trunk she said they would have been 'too big'. I bet .... Anyway, we milled them flat on the CNC, belt sanded them smooth, shuffled them around til they fit, made a quick model, gathered some pieces of firewood, cut some notches out of that, welded up a steel connector piece and finished the finish just as people were coming in the driveway... It turned out to be a good conversation starter. However, it didn't sell at the show and now it's looking for a new home. Contact me directly for a price ....Click the photos to enlarge

The two slices in the raw with the chain saw marks

Shuffling for the 'fit'

The slabs and the model

Close up of the model ... photo glued to 1/2" mdf and cut to shape

Slightly fuzzy picture of the finished table
+/- 54" x 30" x 17" high

Open Studio Weekend

This weekend, May 24th and 25th was the 16th annual Vermont Open Studio Weekend. Almost 300 artists statewide opened their doors to the general public Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 5. At our studio there was lots to see. Kit will be showing her handmade jewelry, Penny Viscusi will again be hanging her local landscape and animal themed pastels, as always there will be some paintings by Horst Rodies, and this year for the first time, our son Sam will be on hand to talk about his metal work and our other son Will will be on hand working on an acoustic resonator guitar that he is building. I have several interesting projects in various stages of completion including some really nice Art Deco stlye pieces, (in the March posts below), a "Lotus" bed, (see post below), a bathroom vanity piece with some interesting turned legs, some funky slab wood tables, sculptures and, for the first time, framed prints of my pen and pencil drawings. Come on by if you're in the area. Within a mile or two, there are two other high end woodworkers, Steve Holman and Bill LaBerge, other blacksmiths, Jay Hathaway and Pat Quinn and potter Georgeanna Gay at Flower Brook Pottery.

Will's resonator guitar

Paintings by Penny, Jewelry by Kit

Paintings by Horst

Inside the woodshop

Outside .... new painted wall sculpture

Funky Repair Project

OK .... Daryll and Daryll do 'anything for a buck'. I think that was a line from The Bob Newhart Show, back in he 80's .... 'This is my brother Daryll and this is my other brother Daryll' or something like that and they did anything for a buck. Anyway, I felt kind of like that about halfway through this repair today while all the other stuff was going on in the shop. This project came to me through a designer that I sometimes work with, and, in the end, it came out fine and we had a good time with it. I think it was the grandmother's game table, then the mother cut it off to make it a coffee table and now the daughter wants it to be a game table again. She did a great job finding some legs that matched amazingly well at Matthew Burak's Classic Designs in St. Johnsbury, VT .... We had to cut and paste them a bit, but in the end they look like they were made for the table. The square part on Matthew's leg was exactly the same size as the top of the original leg and the turning details broke so that we could get the table amazingly close to standard height at 30". We had a great time fixing the table and we especially liked the edge and apron design.....Click photos to enlarge ...

Stick these new legs on the bottom of the old ones

Step one .... make a jig to drill straight holes in the cut off legs

Step 2 ...completely disassemble the original legs and aprons and reglue them cause all the joints are loose

Step 3 .... cut the new legs in the right place and put some round tenons on them, mix up

some plastic resin glue and stick them on. Make sure they are STRAIGHT !!

We clamped a jig to the bottoms of them to keep them square and parallel. Tomorrow we'll put a little color on the new parts .... Good to go ...

Arts and Crafts Style Mantle

Out the door 5/20

This is another project in the Arts and Crafts style house that we have been working on recently. Other posts related to this project include the 'Metal and Wood Potrack' and the 'Arts and Crafts Study', both in April and one from January titled 'The Foam Core Scale Mockup' which shows how the tv ended up over the fireplace. The desk and bookcase for the study are now complete and will be picked up and delivered next week along with this mantle. The actual surround has changed a couple times in the design and fabrication process, adapting to things that come up as the process unfolds. This is where we are as of today. Click to enlarge photos.


5/15


The original drawing (since modified)

Parts in process

Color samples ... we'll be going with the cherry color and darkening the splated maple and burl parts a bit more ....

Detailed Steps to Make Greene and Greene Style Drawer Pulls

I showed some brief instructions for making for making Greene and Greene Style drawer pulls in a previous post and I just had my third request for the detailed instructions I mentioned there. So here they are for everybody. Please add your comments or improvements below. Most of the time the bit is covered by the workpiece, but a good enclosed fence would be a nice improvement. Click to enlarge for easier decoding. The last set we made we roughed out on the cnc ... see the photo of the test piece at the bottom ...
PS ... Looking at that bottom photo, it looks like the fluting bit we actually used was a 1" rather than a 3/4", though probably either would work ok ...






We can easily put multiple pulls on the same blank and
the process is more efficient, the cuts are cleaner, and it's probably a little safer.

Curved Front China Cabinet with Ginkgo Leaf Inlay

sanded more flush with the surface than image below

Close up of the inlay below
I'm working through the design process for a new china cabinet with two of my best and longest time clients ...(has it really been almost 20 years?) Over that time they have developed an extensive collection of our work, all of it, without exception, top shelf. This latest piece will be a china cabinet for storage of glassware and vases ... a low cabinet in the living room with curved glass doors, behind an existing couch, the shape loosely based on this redwood cabinet we made for another client. We have made a couple drawings and a full size ply and cardboard mockup and now we're working on a design for the inlay on the bubinga top. The inlay design started with the phrase 'ginkgo leaves' and here's where we're at with it. We have a meeting this weekend and we'll see where it goes. Click on the pictures below to enlarge, and follow the links at the bottom of the post to see some of their other pieces.

This is a piece of mdf, full size with poplar 'ginkgo leaves'.
I think, before our meeting, I'll sand them more flush with
the mockup top. We thought a little height difference might
be nice, but I'm thinking this might be too much.

Current drawing we're working with

Other pieces in their collection
The Famous Stair Cabinet
The Dining Room Table and Chairs
The 'Other' Dining Table
The C. R. Ashbee Case Pieces
The Upstairs Office with the Desk and Funky Comb Back Windsor
The Curly Maple Game Table

And quite a few other items not linked here

"Arts and Crafts" Study

I put the "Arts and Crafts" in the title above in quotes as this will not be a strict reproduction or copy of any particular A&C design, but rather a design arrived at by assimilating details from historic designers ( C.R.Ashbee, Greene and Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright ) that we like, as well as input from the client as to how he will use and work in the room and what exact stuff will go where. We spent quite a bit of time discussing and designing, but returned to the maxim that 'Form follows function, space, stuff we like, and the architecture of the rest of the house'. That said, the project consists of a 12 foot long, eight and a half foot high bookcase, and a 12 foot desk opposite it, in front of the windows. The starting point details are adapted from pieces I did earlier in the Ashbee Style. The drawer hardware is adapted from a photo in the Greene and Greene book by Randall Makinson. This study is in the same house as the potrack in the 'Metal and Wood Potrack' post below and the 'Arts and Crafts Mantle' above.... click the pictures to enlarge ...
When we finished this project, the clients posted a very much appreciated testimonial as a comment on the 'Open Studio' blog entry above. here's a cut and paste of it ...

" 1 comments:
Stephen Rubino said...
Best design collaboration and execution of detail ever experienced. Thanks Dan,Will, Jeremy and rest of staff. We'll be back!

Steve & Helen Rubino
Margate, Nj
www.rossandrubino.com "
May 28, 2008 1:54 AM


All done except we left the center counter out for this assembly because we didn't want to risk scratching it and we know if fits, plus the ceiling fan was in the way. The louver for the ac return is on, the unercounter drawer is hung and it's ready to roll .... Next tuesday ...

close up of the louver

Close up of the drawer case with the finish on it and the Greene and Greene style drawer pulls

The whole 140" of it

The bookcase is now in the finishing room 5/8/08

The Greene and Greene style drawer faces are on the desk

Looking like it's going to be a pretty big one ...

Early stages of the lower bookcase construction, desk upside down behind it

Some of the vertical inlaid stiles of the bookcase and desk .. cherry and walnut

The desk almost ready for finishing

Upside down showing the understructure

Last desk drawing, to which we made some additional changes while we were building

The drawing for the bookcase