Clean House ... Back to the Big Tables

Quite a week .. In the last seven days we have delivered or shipped a total of fifteen (15) pieces.
The duck bed last Thursday, the big tv cabinet and two other pieces to the house in Grafton last Friday, a table and 6 chairs to the Southern Vermont Art Center for an upcoming show of New England Furniture Makers that opens next Saturday, two single beds and the recycled oak table to Martha's Vineyard, and today, last but certainly not the least, the big claro walnut slab table to Connecticut. ... I can't believe all that stuff was here at my shop at the same time ... I should have upped my insurance ... My mind is clear, the shop is empty (?) except for the 26' x 9' table and another dining table Will is working on, and I even got a round of golf in today .... Sam's in the metal shop working on a piece for another upcoming show at The Bennington Museum called 'State of Craft 2010' and the steel for the big table .... All for now ... individual updates on these projects and shows as time allows ... Click the photos to enlarge them .... click the links to see the pieces ... One of the single beds heading for the Vineyard ... Simple, modern, maple ply ; the two singles push together to form a king for guests
One of the 'State of Craft' flyers ... more on that later. the show opens the 22nd of this month..
Sam's got his part of the bench ready to paint ... Will and I will start the wood tomorrow ... Hey, we don't have to deliver it til next Friday ... 'Bridge To The Future' ...
The steel granite supports for the big table ... Sam will tap them to bolt two to each of the seven sections and weld end plates on to finish them ... Rugged stuff ...
Almost forgot .. We had our first meeting at the shop yesterday afternoon for a sculpture we;re building at the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester to celebrate this year's Open Studio which takes place May 28th and 29th. Over 250 Vermont artists will open their studios to the public for the weekend .. I think it's the 17th annual and there will be a total of five artists represented at our studio here ... Kit with her jewelry, Dorset Custom Furniture woodworking, Sam and his metal work, Penny Viscusi with her pastels and Denise Tilley with her hand made totally cool hats ... More on that as the event approaches.
Artist's concept ...

The Ladderbacks

Ok, I admit, this chair design took a long time to get together ... There were several posts along the way, originally starting back in October !?. For one reason or another, there was no hurry, and now that we have finally finished 16 of them, I'm really liking them for a number of reasons ... Clickl the photos to enlarge them ...

1. They will look good with a lot of different table styles.
2. We can actually do most of the joinery work on our cnc ... I know, I know, that's cheating but I have yet to EVER make a profit on a new chair design. There is some small hope for this one.
3. They are incredibly light to move around and more comfortable than the look.
4. They don't take a lot of wood.
5. I feel like they will also be more durable than they look. (see leg test results below)

The photo at the top of the post is with my clients's Nakashima table which arrived the day before our chairs .. I think that was actually the 'no hurry' part.
Parts for 10 chairs, ready to glue up ...
With my table for the SVAC show opening on May 8th ... more on that later
With our big Claro Walnut Slab Table ... They looked great with that ...
Ten of them lined up and ready to go ....
By themselves. The chair in the background is lacking it's pierced plywood seat support which was a last minute brainstorm to add structural strength without laborious and weaker corner blocks. It also afforded good attachment for the slip seat ... gold star for engineering if I do say so myself.
The original first prototype from the first post back in October
Another post in the series showing a 'real' cherry prototype. I was intending to make a set for a cherry table that I had on hand, but I sold it before I got the chance, which was good ...
I have a few more photos later

4/22 The Duck Bed Has Flown To Its New Home

Update 4/22 ... Usually, after a long and complex project like this one, I'm glad to see it go. You know, time for the next one. This one was different. It's been in the works for about six weeks, involved a lot of old and new skills, and everyone in the shop pitched in ... I give Will the credit for the turning, carving, fussy inlay fitting and finishing; Trevor gets the credit for the complex cnc work on the headboard and walnut overlay with the inlay pockets, and Sam, well, he did a great job with the metal shaping and patina work ... I'll take a little credit, for the CAD drawing of most of the ducks and for leading the parade, but it was overall a shop wide effort. Jim pitched in too but mainly his job was to keep our other projects truckin' along. The clients were happy today and I thank them for their trust in us to commission and support us on a challenging project like this. Whew ! I'll also miss the ongoing duck puns ... ducks in a row, all ducked up, just ducky, duckin'around, what a bunch of quacks ... and so it went ... The whole project was a great one .. Click the photos to enlarge them ...
The whole shebang ...
To the right
To the left
At home

Other posts
Waterjetting the inlays
A Bed Update
A New Bed Project

Update ... Tax Day ... 4/15 ... Glad I have an accountant ... Jim had to leave early to do his ...

Inlay update .... Almost finished ... Sam has done all the chemical patinas on the ducks and I think he has just one or two more wing parts to wrap up tomorrow ... Will will be applying the final coat of varnish to the wood parts and we'll epoxy the inlays into the finished headboard next week. Can't wait ... Gonna be cool ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
To see how we made the parts for these inlays, check this post on waterjetting
This is the headboard today, after the gel stain coat ... top coat tomorrow ... Out the door soon ....
4/13/2010
Previous blog posts on the bed here and here
Close up of the center inlay for the headboard below .... Sam's adding the color now ....
Inlays for the duck bed are underway ... click the photos to enlarge them, ... more later
Cad drawing of the headboard
Waterjet cut inlay parts ... see this post here
Trevor's sample mdf headboard overlay ... 'Always best to test.' You can quote me on that.
In the test pockets
Fitting, filing, and beveling where the pieces meet. Some of the individual pieces (beaks, wings and feet) were also made thinner to create an illusion of depth ...
The first sample center inlay ... cut in aluminum, just to see if it would work ... who knew?
The brass grass was rounded and the inlay pockets were pointed by Will with an Exacto knife.
Unpatinaed redhead
More on the inlays for this bed coming soon .....

First test assembly .. twist and pinecone carvings by Will see previous bed posts linked above

The Biggest Table Yet ...(For us) ... 9' x 26'

I just cut and pasted the info from the previous post below rather than rewrite the whole introduction ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Well, so far, for a refreshing change, it's been a pretty busy month ... Last week, we finished what I thought at the time was a pretty big claro walnut slab table, 3' x 10'. Turns out, it's not so big. We'll be able to put four of them, with chairs, on one of the tables we are designing and building with my neighbor, Steve Holman of Holman Studios ... The first of two tables in this commission is getting under way below and will be 26' x 9'. Then we have another slightly smaller one to build that will be only 8' x 20'. Steve's shop is just down the road from ours and we often collaborate on projects like these tables and like this project we did last year.

Here's the cad drawing ... The top is divided into seven sections with a 2" cherry border on the outside edges, around a 24" band of black granite, with veneered curly maple center sections. There will be a bunch of flip up power and data ports in the center sections. As you can see from the drawing, there will be some engineering involved to support the cantilevered stone. The base will break down into about 10 separate boxes for shipping and assembly on site. We've opted to use 1.5" x 2.5" rectangular steel tubing with 1/4" walls to support the granite. We'd probably prefer to use something taller, like 4", but than we get into a bump your knees issue. We wouldn't want that, for sure. Anyway, we've done a couple of tests and we think it will be ok. We'll know more when we get the actual steel from Melanson's next week. We can't cut the steep angles easily with either of our saws.
The steel has to be cut on a 67.5 degree angle like the timberstrand in the temporary working base above that we set up in the driveway ... It's hard to see, but the lengths of the steel pieces follow the curve of the table top. That's the base for half of the table you see above ...
Trevor and Sam sitting at the end section ... you can see about half of the 44.5" wide second section in this photo too ... It's seven feet across the narrow end where they are sitting and curves out to 9' in the middle ...
Here we've assembled two of the middle sections on the table saws to check Trevor's routing for the Norse connectors and some plywood butterflies we'll use to level the surfaces of the table where they butt together ...
There are a lot of operations to get this thing into shape ... Plus, only one section is less then 8' so we have to index the pieces, cut one end, and then shift them 18" to cut the other end on the cnc. That, actually, worked really slick.
Here's the view of the boys from the halfway point ... The raised sections are templates for the granite cutter ...
This is the drawing for the second table in the commission, a somewhat smaller 8' x 20', 5 piece table ... same deal, different dimensions ...

Catching Up

Well, so far, for a refreshing change, it's been a pretty busy month ... We finished what I thought at the time was a pretty big claro walnut slab table, 3' x 10', below. Turns out, it's not so big. We'll be able to put four of them, probably with chairs, on the table (that's just half of it above ) we are currently designing and building with Steve Holman of Holman Studios ... The first of two tables in this commission will be 26' x 9' and then we have another tiny one to build that will be only 8' x 20'. Steve's shop is just down the road from ours and we often collaborate on projects like this one and like this project we did last year. More on the big table later this weekend ....
Also, today, Will and Ashley are on their way to New York City for the weekend and, while they are there, they will drop off the 10 walnut chairs in the photo above to the client who got the black Art Deco vanity a couple of weeks ago. They looked really good with the table above, but the client received their Nakashima table yesterday and I'm anxious to see how they look with that. Last weekend, I went to Boston to drop off three tables to a designer I sometimes work with, Jennifer Palumbo. You can see two of them in the photo below. And then I spent the weekend visiting my sister in Rockport, just up the coast by Gloucester. While I was there, we made an afternoon of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem with the Ying Yu Tang Chinese house ... Spectacular museum with a great collection of North Boston shore Federal furniture, ship models, and other fascinating stuff.
Classic Rockport, motif #1 Roy Moore's LobstersOne of the Seymours.
Also, in Boston, I visited my Brother in law's letterpress print shop, Firefly Press, (more on that later ... It was really cool) and dropped a small table/mockup Sam made at the home of the cockatoo chairs ...
We're about a day away from finishing the king size bed with the metal inlays we have been working on. That has been an immensely rewarding project on a number of different levels. Love the clients, Will did all the turning and carving and some of the inlay work, Sam did all the metal finishing and coloring, Trevor did a fantastic job with the CNC work on the inlays, we learned a whole lot about waterjetting, (the post just below this one) which was fascinating. As we were working on that, Jim occasionally entertained us all with his new coat.
The duck inlay parts ...
The week before last, we installed one of the two tv cabinets we made back in the fall in the 'This Old House' project. Looks great' the big one will go in the week after next.
For a 37" flat screen
Yesterday, a colleague asked me to join 'Linked In', which I did...any 'Linked In' folks out there? Don't know much about it but it seemed like something I should do ....Comments? If you haveany experience with it. Kind of like Facebook for business people it seems ... Anyway, it's a really rainy Saturday.... no golf or tennis today ... Where's that Hunter Thompson book I'm reading?....More later if it keeps raining ...