june

where does the time go?  it's almost the first day of summer !!

since my last blog post on may 22nd we have been ripping through

lots of projects including some that were in the works a month ago.

below is a sample of some of the more interesting ones

a nice walnut coffee table .. 40 x 60 x 18 with two drawers

a beautiful job on a king size cherry pencil post bed by trevor

first time running the pencil posts and mortises on the cnc

safe and perfect .. gold star for trevor

 and i got some time in on the lathe for the finials .. 

first time i turned anything in  quite a while ... 

kinda like riding a bicycle, but not quite ... i'm a little rusty ...

 and the metal shop has been particularly busy the last couple of weeks

sam installed this railing high above lake george today .. 16' 7" long ..

and he made some parts for another railing before this one .. 

same  builder, different house

lots of parts

lots of railing too

and tyler did 5 repairs the week before last ..

this chair was a family heirloom and needed some love

like some new front rail tenons

tah dah .. ready for another hundred years

and the cutest little chair about 18" high ... 

it needed a disassemble, reglue and polish 

and we installed vanities 3 and 4 on the vanity project

chris has become the resident vanity expert .. 

danby imperial on site now by bennington marble and granite

ready for plumbing by GSK climate control this week

and we picked up the 'thoreau cabin project' bed from sandy sherman chair caning yesterday

beautiful job by tyler and sandy

and today tyler and i finished the reproduction rocker for the cabin ..

though i have made a lot of windsors over the last 40 years, this one was

the first in this style and the first windsor in about 15 years

talk about rusty for sure .. 

quite the four weeks ...

a fireplace mantel ... with ducks

fun one here !! we made this mantel for a client's rustic retreat on 

a tributary of the mississippi river .... on the central flyway

the masonry was going to be finished before the mantel, so we
sent a drawing to thebuilder, which he and the mason executed flawlessly.
 jon slid it right into place when it got there ..
click the photos to enlarge them ...

 essentially, the builder gave the mason several 2 x 8s cut exactly to the
size of the mantel (6" x 84") we were making to install  in the masonry.
the topp one was removable and that allowed the mantel box to be
recessed into the stone work

we sent an installation template for installing the backing block

it was commissioned by the folks we made this bed for in 2010,
one of our all time favorite projects .. lots of words and photos at that link .. 

 

we started with a mockup and full size drawing, mounted to the front outside wall of the shop

beautiful walnut from irion lumber (naturally), and trevor made some sample
pockets in mdf to fit the inlays into for the patinas.  there is a flush, no hardware, 'secret compartment'
on the right end that you open with a piece of steel that is attracted by some
rare earth magnets inlaid into the inside face of the drawer ... fun!!

all the ducks, with almost all their patinas on them

the central inlay on the bed headboard mentioned above ...

these two photos show how the inlays that are cut on a local waterjet

arrive for us to work with ... all the parts have little 'bridges' that keep the parts from flying around as they are cut.  those have to be sanded off before the pieces will fit together.

it's basically a high tech jigsaw puzzle

tah dah!

mahogany and maple burl chairs

finished up these 8 chairs to go with the big claro walnut table 

we sent to hawaii earlier this year ...

and they're off !!! left to be airfreighted to the big island yesterday

they shouold be at home this time next week ..

 

these are contemporary versions of our 'transitional chairs', a design

we lightly adapted from a beidermeier chair we were hired to reproduce 

back in the early 90s ..

the house has a lot of mahogany in it and it looks good with mahogany

lots of legs and curved rails on the cnc by trevor

fit up the backs first ...

we used to use individual corner blocks, but we have found that 

a cnc mdf sub seat is faster, more accurate, and gives a larger

glue surface for reinforcement ...

before the finish

after

ready to crate

crates .. we added some 'closet dessicant' available from your
local lumber yard to (hopefully) control moisture on the short air flights

more info and pricing at this link

a round expanding dining table with a leaf

the 'black' walnut tables roll on ... i think this is our 4th or 5th in the last
couple years.  this one is a variation on our' midcentury modern' style, only with a more open,
stationary pedestal, rather than a two part moving one in the photo below.

 

we made this design in july of 2014

of the same genre, there is also this design, from march of 2014. 

as usual, we started with some nice matched walnut from our friends at irion lumber.

both the earlier and the current cad drawings here

the equalizing runners we used on this table were from osburne manufacturing

base with the sub top, on which the runners are mounted.  

patchwork veneered top frame for the python chest on the sub top there.

trevor cut the halves, the base pieces and the aprons on the cnc, but
all those processes could be just as easily done by hand .. it might take much longer,
but the operations are standard for most woodshops.

here's trevor checking the runner mounting.  this hardware actually worked very smoothly.

ready for finish above, with one 20" leaf.  add the adam brown mahogany water stain and

a three coats of lenmar poly, and it left for virginia on tuesday.

fun project with a new designer client from the d.c. area ...

this just in ....