Tapered Hexagonal Columns

I have made, over the years, at least a half dozen different tables using the 'curved,tapered hexagonal leg' form, mostly as a group of columns on a central pedestal. It's a pleasing, simple looking form until you go to actually make it. I have taken notes on the process a number of times, but never clear ones, until this time. I don't want to cut any more 'samples' or 'tests', I want to get the lumber and have someone make the legs. Period. I'm posting the instructions here, so I can find them, show them to one of my assistants and then go play golf .... right? Here goes ... Click the stuff to enlarge the pictures and drawings ...

One of the finished tables

Early record keeping attempts .. at least I saved the pattern .. The notes were not helpful.

Here's the new stuff :
A .. The top and bottom hexagon inscribed in a circle (the taper)
B .. How you inscribe the hex in the circle .. Basic geometry ... A hexagon is 6 equilateral triangles around a central point. Therefore, the radius and the chord of the circle are the same and you can divide the circumference of a circle into six equal sections using the radius. Connect the dots and viola' a hexagon. Offset the lines by the amount of the taper and you have your two full size hexes. This drawing also shows the dimensions of the rectangular stock you will need to make the legs.
C .. Make a full size pattern with the curve like the one shown in C and D. It's best to use half of the wider rectangle
D .. With the bandsaw on 90 degrees. Trace the pattern and cut the curves on the narrower dimension of the stock. In this case, the 3.46" face. (G in the drawing) Tape the cutoffs back on (top and fce end of the cut) and rotate the stock 90 degrees and cut the other two curves on the wider 4" face. Now strike a center line up the resulting curves of the 3.46" face (H). Tilt your bandsaw table to 30 degrees (J) and with the stock resting on the wide side (I) and the first cuts still taped on, cut the stock using the new center line you have just made on the side. Peel off the the original taped on curved cuts and you've got your roughsawn curved tapered hexagonal form, ready to sand or plane to final shape.

Congratulations ... If you followed this, you're ready for rocket science or a job here ...

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

I think it was Andy Warhol who said we were all entitled to our 15 minutes of fame ... Here's one I caught recently. My friend, Marsha Norman, the editor of Stratton Magazine was kind enough to include me in her article on 'The Boys of Summer' in the current issue. It featured 8 local convertibles and their owners cruising the Vermont countryside, exquisitely photographed by Hubert Schriebl and nicely described by Anita Rafael. Free copies at many Vermont general stores, bookstores and other local gathering places.... FYI, if you've never met me, that's me in our blue cutlass below, cruising, just around the corner from my house. That's the wife and the boys in the bottom photo .... Click the photos to enlarge

The cover of the summer issue featuring Bondville entrepreneur Peter Cornell

Text by Anita Rafael ...Photo by Hubert Schriebl

The bill of sale above explains the little old lady story ... She was my neighbor in Arlington until we moved in 1996. In 1970 it was her 50th birthday and she traded in her 1964 Falcon convertible for the Cutlass, drove it for 48,684 miles, parked in her garage and sold it to me in 1989. Julie was pretty sporty ...

Christmas present self portrait by Kit and the boys September 1989

The "boys" will be 24 and 26 next month...

Slices of Maple Coffee Table

We made this table for Open Studio this year. ( See post below) We usually try to have at least one thing kind of out of the ordinary for people to see. I bought the slices at a local tag sale about 3 or 4 years ago for not a lot of money, stuck them in the basement of my shop and waited for them to dry. They had the matching splits when I got them and, while they got a little wider, they didn't change all that much. The slices came from a branch of what was, at the time, the largest registered silver maple in Vermont. According to my neighbor's daughter, this branch had 77 growth rings. When I asked Betsy, from whom I bought the slabs, why she didn't have any slices from the trunk she said they would have been 'too big'. I bet .... Anyway, we milled them flat on the CNC, belt sanded them smooth, shuffled them around til they fit, made a quick model, gathered some pieces of firewood, cut some notches out of that, welded up a steel connector piece and finished the finish just as people were coming in the driveway... It turned out to be a good conversation starter. However, it didn't sell at the show and now it's looking for a new home. Contact me directly for a price ....Click the photos to enlarge

The two slices in the raw with the chain saw marks

Shuffling for the 'fit'

The slabs and the model

Close up of the model ... photo glued to 1/2" mdf and cut to shape

Slightly fuzzy picture of the finished table
+/- 54" x 30" x 17" high

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.