Guild Furniture Show Starts Friday

The Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers will be opening it's Second Annual Show at Vermont Artisans Designs Gallery 2, 106 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont this Friday . There will be a reception this Friday from 5:30 to 8:00 at the gallery. Fifteen members of the Guild will be participating. I took these snapshots of some of the pieces that were already set up when I was unloading my curly redwood console table last Saturday. More picture to follow after the opening...Stop in if you're in the Brattleboro area .... Click the photos to enlarge them ..

A list of the participants and a top view of my curly redwood table

A less dramatic front view

Bill Laberge's Arts and Crafts cherry desk

Steve Holman's tv cabinet and one of Mario Messina's lamps

A Macassar ebony cabinet by Johns Congdon

A mahogany bed by Bill LaBerge
LOTS more to see at the show ...

Project Parade

The last 10 days have been a whirlwind of activity in and out of the shop ... We finished up several projects that have been in the works for a while, started and finished a few new ones, and I have generally been too busy to write much about them individually. It just poured and Bill L and I canceled our golf date, so I'm taking a minute to try and get some stuff down here ... Lots to see .... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

We completed the last of the trim and returns on the walnut paneled room a week ago Thursday

Yesterday I took some furniture to Brattleboro for an upcoming show by the Guild of Vermont Furnituremakers at Gallery 2, Vermont Artisans Designs on Main Street there. I had a nice curly redwood console table that Sam, Jim and I whipped up last week, a piece for Steve Holman, of Holman Studios and a desk and a bed for Bill Laberge. In all, I think there will be over twenty pieces representing the work of members of the guild. The show opens next Friday ... more on that later.

Furniture and Fine Art ... good combo

A week ago Friday I finished the slate on the first side of the roof of our new woodshed ...

This past week we made and gilded a frame for a giclee of an NC Wyeth painting. Will, and Anne, (of Wood and Signs), did the gilding and it will go to The Image Loft in Manchester for John Conte to install the painting, maybe tomorrow ... We made a similar frame for the same print last year for this client's brother ...

Discovered (after a visit by a friend who works at the Met) that it's possible a chest we have been doing some cleaning and restoration work on (post fire) may have been in the client's family for over 300 YEARS !! Unbelievable !

Finished the cockatoo chairs ... delivery to Boston Tuesday

Flock of cockatoos on the bench .. Painting by Sam ...

Finished a recycled chestnut dressing table, bench and tilting mirror for the walnut room client. The mirror was unable to attend for the photo ...

Cut one of the big walnut slabs to make a wall mounted console

More on this piece later

Finished the zebra wood tables ... sweet!

Finished the custom bookcase and delivered it

Will and I made some progress on our banjos ... (Previous post)

Fretboard and peghead next

And started work on 4 lounge and 2 rocking chairs for a porch in Newton ...

Banjo Progress 7/31

July 31st Update .. Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

Cutting the neck with a 3 degree angle. we made this jig with a pivot 5.5" from the blade to cut a swinging angled arc on the end of the neck.

We added onto the other end of the same jig, dropped it over the spindle sander, added another 5.5" pivot, inverted the neck blank and sanded the bandsaw cut smooth. the 'same jig' innovation was Will's brainstorm.

We added a 3 degree inclined ramp to the neck to cut the rabbet where the neck intersects with the head tensioning ring.

This is where we were as of Thursday, ready to cut the fretboard and shape the neck

I'm cutting my fretboard with the pockets for the inlay on the cnc ... The peghead inlay is also ready to cut. The cnc is a luxury and this can be done by hand as long as you accurately layout the frets beforehand
7/19/09

OK ... We're making some progress on the first of two banjos Will and I are building (first post) ... (one to figure out the problems, kind of move it along and see what happens, and then the second one, hopefully, for really real). So far so good on #1. It's complex, but not mind boggling, and it helps that Will can really play the thing, knows what makes a good banjo and what makes a not so good banjo. So here we are, as of Thursday afternoon ... click the pictures to enlarge them ...

First thing after we turned the pot (see previous post) we had to figure out how to drill the holes for the hardware. The tensioning ring has slots in it (see photo at top) and a recess for the neck to attach and we traced the center points of those notches onto the plywood part of the lathe faceplate creating an index. We then removed the metal faceplate and drilled a hole through the center of the faceplate and then one in the table of the multi router, inserted the pivot center pin, set the bit height, backed up the holes on the inside of the pot with a piece of 2x4, figured out how to clamp it, and proceeded to plunge 27 holes through the wall of the pot. ... click the pics to enlarge them ...

Then we put it back onto the lathe, touched up the finish where we drilled, and parted it off the faceplate ... far out ,,, felt like a major accomplishment ... beer time !!

We had previously made some patterns for the neck, fingerboard and head stock veneer ..

and figured out the jig for cutting the angled arc on the end of the neck and now it's fingerboard time ....

Kit's Jewelry

I've been writing about the woodworking shop, the metal shop, the music, the yard and garden and there's one thing I haven't written about yet except in a few scattered mentions, Kit's jewelry. She's been making stuff like the items pictured for years now but no longer has a website, she doesn't much like sitting at the computer. You can however, get an idea of the various styles that she is known for from the photos below. She finished the necklaces and earrings above today. They are made from Nova Scotia beach stones in the style of Turin, a famous 20th century jeweler. One of her clients supplied the stones and will be taking the finished items back to Nova Scotia with her for her friends and clients there. Anyway, if you are interested or have a project you'd like to discuss, give her a call at 802-867-0139. She also does fabulous repairs and can do amazing reconfigurations of your antique jewelry ... Clever gal ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Knitted cuff bracelets

Silver and Malachite

Opals, I think

The Danby Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival

Yesterday was a beautiful summer day, actually one of the first hot sun, blue sky, put your shorts on, summer days of the season and I took advantage of it to go to the Danby Bluegrass Festival with some friends. Will and his Goldtown group, were playing with some other friends as The Johnny Davis Band so it was an easy decision to hop in the car and go. Compared to the other acts, they were definitely the youngest, but they ripped through a number of bluegrass standards and some of their own stuff and were well received by the crowd. I know they had a good time too ... The site was picture perfect, the other performers were real fine and it was just a great afternoon .... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

I got there in time to see Smokey Greene sing that 70's classic, "Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts of Life" ... I last saw him do that locally in the 70's before we both quit the bar scene. I missed a great photo op of a small group of line dancers doing the dkmjttgpol line dance ... quite the sight. Smokey closed his set with about 20 people on stage helping him sing some classic standard, though I can't remember which one it was.

Next up was Will and his friends doing their stuff...

Will, getting down some good banjo licks ...

Acoustic Blue ... Classic standards and gospel, with Smokey helping them out..

the crowd

The last set I caught was by Junior Barber and his friends from Platsburgh, New York.
Junior as a dobro player is right up there with Jerry Douglas imho, and it was great to see them perform. I'm sure the group after them was great but we had the 'Lilly ' party to go to, where there was an acre of blooming daylillies, an acre of friends, a 1/2 acrre of pot luck food, and about a half hour of professional quality fireworks. It's an annual event for at least the last ten years and never fails to be great. Had I checked my email before bed I would have found an order for one of our fanciest pool tables. Today I feel like I went through the 'goal posts' for the winning point.

The Zebra Wood Tables

Will is working on a pair of zebra wood side tables. They're small, 15 x 18 x 22 high, but challenging. They are based loosely on the table shown above that we built in the Fall of 2007. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Cad drawings

First step ... layout the solid wood for the veneers

join up the veneers for the tops and shelves

might be an interesting table for the future ... The zebra wood is cool no matter how you arrange it .. I'd also like to do a small wall piece eventually ...

Veneered the flat sawn faces of the legs

The flat sawn stuff is really different than the zebra stuff

Tables knocked up before veneering the aprons ... with violin

more on the violin restoration later