The Wood Shed ... (Again, Last time for a while)

Ma ... on the new porchette ....

Still working on it ... My firewood arrived Saturday, and construction will have to take a break until that's stacked in the shed. Fortunately, we were able to get the little bit of inside framing work done this past weekend and we're good to go ... We'll finish the outside over the course of the summer, with the work sprinkled in at a little more leisurely (if that's possible considering I started back in April) pace ... All work, (even if it's fun work), and no play makes Jack a dull boy .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The Current Big Thing

When I look at the list of posts for the last two or three weeks, it looks like not much is going on, new projects wise.... A couple repairs, some metalwork, a woodshed and railing for my own home, a new camera .... like I said, not much going on ... That's because, for the last three or four weeks we have been working on a large project and I, as yet, have not gotten it together to post the details. The design work started around the first of the year as construction was getting underway, and the project involves a roomful of paneling, a desk, a vanity and dressing table, two mirrors, the restoration of a pair of antique doors, a bar cabinet .... I think that's it for now. The construction on the addition is coming along and we've been working on the project since the middle of May, hoping to install everything in the next couple of weeks. The paneling post will be a long one and I'll post the other entries as I can make the time to do it.
Click the pictures to enlarge them....

The project as it appeared in early January

A close up of the desk model ... a claro walnut slab with a blackened steel base

The fireplace surround and tv cabinet section of the 'roomful of walnut paneling'.

The recycled chestnut vanity

Linseed Oil .... A Cautionary Tale

Linseed oil can create a beautiful finish on fine furniture and metal work. It's an easily renewable finish, a natural product in some of it's forms. I use it to refresh my wood counters and the finish on some of my earlier oil finished pieces in my home. The counter you see above is now in the 'once a year for the rest of your life ' phase of the finish process, is used hard daily and looks terrific with little care. That little pile of rags in the foreground though could completely wipe out my house or yours if you weren't paying attention. Tragically, it happened to a friend/client a few weeks ago. They came by yesterday and now that they have seen that some of their furniture will be coming back, I think it's ok to publish this cautionary tale. Wikipedia says: Linseed oil is extracted from ripe flax seeds by cold pressing. It has natural characteristics that make it an excellent product to produce a beautiful and durable finish on wood products. It does, however, have a potential downside as Wikipedia points out in the second sentence of the description .... 'Linseed oil can polymerize and the reaction is exothermic, and rags soaked in it can ignite spontaneously.' True enough. Only the prompt and professional response of the Dorset Fire Department and other mutual aid companies prevented the building from being a total loss. So, I now have, in the upstairs of my garage, a large selection of smoke damaged furniture and we are currently working through the cleaning and polishing of some of the pieces. It's a sobering but rewarding process. DISPOSE OF YOUR RAGS PROPERLY !!!

The library before. We built the table back in 2004 ...

The table after the fire ... It was covered with papers and since the room didn't actually burn, the papers protected the finish somewhat. There are still 'ghosts' of the objects that were on the table left and we are probably going to strip the top and refinish it. The base is fine and looks great now.

One of the chairs below had been in for a tune up in March ... They are truly amazing pieces ..

One of these we 'fixed up' back in March ...

This is a 'before' picture from my previous blog post ...They are pretty toasted now but I think they'll be OK if we're careful and lucky.

This piece was one of the furthest in the house from the start of the fire in the garage, but it was still pretty heavily smoke damaged .... The smoke gets into every crack and crevice ...

But we got it. Shellac and Butchers Wax are your friends after it's clean .. The chair in the foreground is from the library and it got slightly overcleaned as the original finish had black at the intersections of the spindles, legs and seats and until we looked closely at the photos of the library before the fire we couldn't understand why we couldn't get that 'smoke' off. We'll continue to work on the pieces ... There are several important ones yet to go .... When we have a definitive cleaning process, I'll post it here ... We've got , obviously, a couple things that work, but we're still refining our techniques.
'Dispose of oily rags properly' is an understatement. 'Do not operate heavy equipment under the influence of drugs or alcohol' .... same deal ... Be careful ....

Finished the Cockatoo Chair ...

We finished the chair prototype today and after work I fired up my new camera. I've been impressed by technology before, but this was/is a surprise ... As a first test after charging the battery for half an hour, I went to the shop, walked our chair prototype out to the abandoned flower garden, and took a couple of snapshots. I came home and put them on the computer and was blown away ... The chair came out great and we're very proud of it, but whoooooa ... the photos are amazing. These have been compressed for the web .... the full size versions knocked my socks off right out of the camera ....and I haven't even read the manual yet ... Click to enlarge ...



On the way home I stopped in the driveway to photograph Kit's tree peony that's blooming... I've taken photos of it before, like every year probably, but nothing like this ... Top one is the whole image compressed ... Bottom is a part of the top image ....

Click these to check them out ...

New Handrail

Well, we've got a new handrail out front ... Sam had a request from a client for railings like this and we weren't sure on the technique of sweeping horizontal bends so I decided a prototype would be a good addition to our entryway. We also had a friend come by with her 92 year old mother and her exit from the front porch with no handrail was sort of terrifying ... Anyway, it's up there ... looks good ... interesting process ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

It's got a certain 'welcoming' feeling ...

First cut every couple of inches until what you're bending is essentially a piece of square stock ... Fill in the resulting spaces with weld, grind and smooth. Repeat for the second layer...

make the upsweep, figure out the length of the support

Make a jig to weld it to the horizontals and whip up some brackets ... prime, paint, drill a hole and install it using some epoxy stuff from the lumber yard ... I'll post the name of it here later but it was pretty slick stuff. Hardened up just like the stone and is the same color too ...

Update on the Cockatoo Chairs

All welded up now ... We kind of like the weld 'buttons' on the top of the bow ...

Believe it or not, we are still working on the prototype parrot/now cockatoo chairs. (Original Post) Our client has been extremely patient but now we're on the home stretch ... Primer tomorrow. Click the photos to enlarge them ... And I thought designing a wood chair from scratch was hard .... The cockatoo is still not perfect but after talking with our client, we modified the one we had by cutting his neck, 'cocking' his head and rewelding it. We'll make it right for the real ones. The rest of the chair is all welded now and it looks good and seems comfortable for most folks. The size and proportions of the new chair are much better and we changed the scale of a couple of the elements, especially the 'cage' bars. It'll look a lot different once it's all painted ..... almost done !

The full size drawings

side view

Clamped up and ready for 'the cage'

reworked and rewelded cockatoo

Took it out in the garden yesterday to have a beer with it's friends....It was happy to be out ...
Paint tomorrow ...

The Woodshed ... Update

update 6/3/09

Ready for the roof boards ....planed and cut to length today

I did lower the pitch a bit so I could use 10' rafters
Update post 5/25

5/25/09 Well It started out innocently enough. It was just going to be a simple shed like the woodshed above I built back in 1975.... (Note the fine mustache and actual hand hewn by Dan and his Brother-in-law, Paul, beams ) ... Then it morphed, as buildings can do, and it will henceforth now be known as 'The Temple of Wood' .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

New sketch

Inspiration photo ... I'm gonna skip the reflecting pool ...

Picked up the beams at Coleman Hills ... barely made it back over the mountain

Planed 'em, half lapped 'em, and put them up

Mocked up the pitch ... hmmm ..might lower it a little

The deck

I'm building a new woodshed this spring ... Got a stove last fall and I want to have wood with no snow on it this winter. Started a couple of weeks ago when the weather was just getting warm. It's really nice to have an outside building project in the spring time. Particularly one that doesn't involve the close tolerance work that goes on in the shop everyday. Out of square by 1/4" in in 224" ???? Noooo problem. Nail it. I won't bore you with the running commentary. Click the ones you want to see up close. I'm just diarying the process. Kit doesn't do scrapbooks anymore ....

layout

holes (by hand .. ugh)

Pete of Pete's Pizza Ovens and Barnegat Bay Sneakbox fame helped with the concrete

The concrete crew ... Pete, Sam, Dan ... Jim taking the picture

the mulch under the deck

the deck

The framing, completed .note leaves coming out

Lay dry boards tight ... add rain ... get puddle ...

and nice sunset after ... and more leaves