A Curly Maple Queen Size Bed

Yesterday, Sam and I delivered a queen size bed to a client in Saratoga Springs. She liked a cherry Sheraton style single bed from our website ... We expanded it to a queen and it all worked out fine ..... The curly maple was particularly nice. Lookin' good now that it's all finished ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Will roughed out the legs using our Vega duplicator which he tuned up to produce absolutely INCREDIBLE results right off the cutter. This minimized the time he had to spend cleaning them up after the duplicating process .

That's a four foot one piece shaving from the curly maple posts he turned

Action !! What he did exactly was grind the cutter to a sharp angled point rather than the small radius that comes standard on the diamond cutters. The difference in the results were incredibly dramatic ... the chips flew ...

Trevor made a sample headboard in mdf to confirm the stretched design ..

Drilling the bed post bottoms for the tenons on the turning tops

The bed assembled with the mocked up headboard

Considering the foot post proportions ... good to go
Better photos of the completed bed later ...

Gotta Get Me Some ....

From this week's New Yorker ... Sept. 14, 2009

Fooling Around

Labor Day .... Start of the Fall ... The seasons chase themselves along. We already have a bit of foliage showing in the red maples down by the pond and the nights are starting to get crispy. It was about 50 this morning. We took a four day weekend to refresh ourselves before we head into a large project Tuesday. Last week while working on the table for the cockatoo chairs, we accidentally ended up with some extra rolled steel pieces that needed a home. Sam and I kicked a few things around and came up with the idea of a concept for a bench. Saturday, Kit happened on a thick pine plank at a tag sale and yesterday I planed it up and put the 'bench' together. It may be a prototype, or it may be the real thing. I'm not sure. We've talked about gold leafing the steel and doing a bubinga plank seat and base, but I'm kinda liking the informality that is happening here now. I may just paint the whole thing and stick it outside for a while and see how I feel about it as time goes on ... I am doing a show in Woodstock Vermont in a couple of weeks and it would be good to have something new for that ... Hmmmm ... Let me know what you think ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

The table we were working on with the rolled steel parts

The rough idea of a concept mockup

The primed steel parts ... rust never sleeps

The tag sale plank and concept seat pattern

Making it make sense ... getting rid of the flare

Putting it together ... the underside .. 1/2" lags,1/2" bolts

In the garden

The gold leaf and bubinga concept (4/08)

Moving it around a bit

Later ....

Full Size Mockups

I've been working with a client on designs for a bar cabinet for The Walnut Paneled Room for a couple of months now. Nothing serious, no great urgency, typical back and forth ... sketch here, cad drawing there ... arm waving here and there, but now we think we're homing in on it. So, knowing the client was going to be here this weekend and having just had a really good experience with a full size mockup with another client I decided to make a cardboard model of the bar. I had to deliver some other stuff to the house last week anyway. It turned out ot be very helpful for all of us. I think it took about an hour and a half total effort, and, in the end, you could probably mix drink on it to try it out. Drawings are great, but the 'real' thing, real size, is usually better ... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

The cardboard model in the shop. If you double cardboard up with glue between the layers it gets pretty stiff when the glue dries ... I also glued and stapled thin strips of wood the the corners in the front to strengthen the legs ...

Most recent CAD drawing .. I'm still working on the riser backboard stepping design

The table leg and paint/wood combination we're considering. We're thinking about maybe a red for the carved legs and a lighter, more natural color chestnut or recycled oak for the top.

Side view of the model in place

Head on

The last on site sketch

Previous CAD drawing

A Recycled Chestnut Bathroom

Here's an example of what happens when you combine rustic wood with elegant architecture. You get a comfortable, clean, modern, antique, refined, and homey feeling all at the same time. The fixtures and architecture of the room are of the highest quality and completely up to the minute elegant, while the recycled chestnut, in my opinion, somehow keeps it all from going over the top. I could live in this bathroom ... The oriental carpet is the coup de grace .... We've been working on the various pieces, the vanity, the dressing table, and the mirrors, off and on for a couple of months now and when the room was complete, the client was not comfortable with a funny space that 'happened' between the window and the tub. So, he had us make a 14" wide custom table that went around the pipes and made a place for a champagne glass. That piece tied the whole room together. It was a fun project and a good use of recycled lumber to set a tone for a room. Click the pictures to enlarge them ....

The finished vanity

In process

The finished dressing table and tilting mirror

In process

The tub table

Fitted around the pipes with a removable insert held in place by magnets

Tub table in process

WORKSHARP

I'm not much one for plugging tools here, but every once in a while, one comes in the door that I really like. When that happens I like to share my good fortune ... This Worksharp grinder arrived last week and immediately went to work. Everyone likes the control and ease of use and the air cooled grinding feature. All in all, it's a winner and we're feeling sharper everyday. When your grinder craps out, give this one some consideration.
Here are some of my other favorites ... Stanley 81 two handled scraper ... much better than a card scraper once you get the hang of it ... Forrest Saw Blades ... Adobe Photoshop

The Banjo Is Done !!

Well .... It's done and it sounds GREAT ! For a first shot at building a banjo from scratch, I'm completely happy with the way it came out ... It took considerable patience on WIll's part to get the neck on right, and we learned a lot, about building a banjo and about working together on a project where we both had a little knowledge, but neither of us had the whole picture. We both stuck up for what we thought was right, which made the process decidedly more interesting. It's a good thing one of us (and it wasn't me) knew a lot about how a banjo should play, how it should be set up and what little things you can do to fine tune the finished product. Will has a couple more tweaks that he wants to do to it, but I think he's pretty happy with it too .... Hopefully, we'll add some sound to this entry soon .... Click the pictures to enlarge them .....

First notes, yesterday afternoon ...

The pot

The fretboard

Side view

Head on ...
Other Posts about making this banjo
First post/start up Making the rings and turning the pot
Second Post Progress Fitting the neck to the pot
Third Post Shaping the neck and adding the fretboard