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