another torah cabinet

ok ... out the door a couple of weeks ago ...

another challenging project for sure!

we made one of these for a Holocaust Torah for

a synagogue in Bennington Vermont in 2017

being that we could not visit the site on long island, the design

required much back and forth confirming concepts and measurements ...

 this is the second cabinet for a holocaust Torah that we have made .

and, we are now in the process of adding a bookcase to be installed

under the cabinet above ...

click the photos to enlarge them ...
 

Torah dimension check

here's Kristian with the mdf mockup we made showing the theoretical finished cabinet

we got an eps file with the lettering from a designer there,

and kristian cut it on the cnc and painted it

the cabinet, ready to go, with the hanging instructions ..

the eagle has landed!

hung and ready for the Torah !

the great neck cabinet and the 

Bennington cabinet below 

the bennington cabinet

we are honored to help with the preservation and display of these historic pieces ...

 

soon after the cabinet arrived, we were asked

to design a bookcase cabinet to go underneath it ..

fast forward to 6.24 ...

homestretch on the bookcase

we offered two options for the bookcase ... 

the clients selected the longer option.

we had a few questions ... or actually, a lot of questions ...

and then there was the outlet for the lights ...

although i had the theoretical location for the outlet, 

we all decided that it would be best to cut the box in on site ... 

it would have been a project to fix it

if i got it in the wrong place ...

above is the base with the levelers we needed in place.

the cabinet, ready to go, and out the door on Monday... 

it arrived in Great Neck on the 3rd of july

and will be installed sometime soon ... 

i admit to being a little anxious about it as the floor is not level,

the wall is not perfectly plumb, there's the outlet,

and the list of instructions i sent were all COMPLETELY theoretical.

i have faith in Major Tom, who sent me measurements and

agreed to cut the outlet in on site ...

i cross my fingers and await some installation photos ... 

7/11 ...

well, as the auctioneers say "all in, all done!"

i am so happy that the installation went well .. 

thank you Major Tom! and everyone else who was involved in this project ..

as they say, 'couldn't have done it without ya!'

tonight i will probably not wake up at 4 AM and wonder if 

everything is going to fit! 

 

 

Father's Day 2024

 i am reflecting on father's day here this morning 

i was lucky to have a good father ...

 

here he is at 91, still fitting into his army uniform !

and that is his college picture there over his right shoulder 

i recently stumbled onto my funeral speech from 2006 in an old sketchbook

click that one so you can read it ...

as i said above .. he was a good guy, and had a huge influence on me

we did some fishing ... and there he is with my sister, after his fall ..

 i keep some reminders around the office

i hope y'all have a good father's day !

blog to print ... a woodworker's photo journal

                                  ok, i got a notice recently from the company that translates

my online blog into printed books saying

that they would be ceasing production soon, and if

i wanted anything printed out, i better get on it.

i did, and last week, i received two books, one from 2015 that i had not

previously printed, and one new one with posts from 2019 through 2024 so far.

when placed with my other blog books already printed ,

it makes for quite a stack ... 

about 150 pages per half inch ... 5.5" x 150 ... 1850 pages?  really? 

the Shaker Design book is 228 pages

  so, there you have it, 17 years of blogging

     957 posts. 2,276,730 page views

       one more post coming soon!

a few  of our favorite blog posts at this link

    

 

and a not so brief history of Dorset

Custom Furniture at this link 

below from john mcphee, tabula rasa, in the new yorker

click the photos to enlarge them ...
 

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 ...

anniversaries !

so, 2024 is here! 

time to reflect  a little.

 

except for a few health issues like a burst appendix for Sam,

who was out for 9 weeks, and a broken collar bone for Luke,

it was a pretty good year !

 

my carpentry job ended december 31st 1979,

and as of today, i am starting my 45th year of custom furniture making.

 i delivered my second piece of commissioned custom 

furniture,  a 'shaker style' desk in november of 1979 ...

native white pine with yellow milk paint

with a leather insert on the fall flap, and two small drawers

and, in november we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary

1973 above and 1971 below ...

we have been living together for 52 years, but 

we got married in 1973 so the bank would give us a mortgage

 

we built our first house in our 'spare time' in 1974, 

and that was 50 years ago

we first built only the 4 window part on the left in 1974, 

the addition on the right came along in the 80s

 

and in 1997, we built the shop we are working in now 

as a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house, designed in a way that it would

be our shop when we sold our Arlington house.

the move to dorset, gave the boys a choice of two excellent schools.

sam graduated form long trail in 2000, and will chose the target

program at BBA, where he was recently inducted into

the BBA hall of fame for the arts ... so, it was a good move ...

this year will be our 24h year in the 'new' shop

wood shop in the middle, office on the right, and

the building on the left is sam's metal shop which 

we completed 10 years ago at the very end of 2013 ...

and, november marked 16 years of writing this blog ... 

i wrote the first post in october of 2007

 955 posts and as of today 2,174,895 page views ...

a slide show of work from 2023 is here now ... 

i leave you with one further thought

 all the best for 2024 to my clients and readers ...

y'all have a good one ...

dan