A Cool Project from the Metal Shop

Sam's uncle, Peter Moore of VermontBrickOvens.com , Pawlet, VT, builds elegant wood-fired pizza ovens. Sometimes he needs little details like this digital thermometer door cover above or a fancy damper handle that Sam made earlier in the week (The camera missed that one) . The outer door frame shown here is maybe 8' x 10" made of 1.5" angle iron, but I thought it had a cool look when it was done so here it is .... Click the photos for a better view ...

First step, cutting and welding the 1.5X1/8" angle iron frame, fitting the 1/8" door

Step 2, scan a logo and cut a tree out of thin, (14 guage?), flat stock... or maybe it was an 1/8"flat stock ... Sketch on some mountains

Find some brass hinges and rivets and practice your mountain making and all you have left to do is make your mountains and stars on the real thing, hand forge a small pull, texture the big copper rivet, figure out how to epoxy on a little rare earth magnet to hold the door shut, patina the brass hinges, and you're all set .... Nice Job Sam!

click to enlarge for details

'Story Board'

The Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers Show opens tonight at Gallery 2, Vermont Artisans Designs, in Brattleboro. (See previous post) ... The piece I made for that show has an interesting story that goes with it .. When they originally cut the Northwest Coastal forests in the late 1800s, a lot of the trees had bark so thick that they had to cut them way off the ground using springboards that they notched into the lower sections. Looks like fun. I bought a slab from Berkshire Products about 4 years ago that was cut by a harvester who was going back into the woods, cutting the stumps, and sawing them up into boards ..... The redwood pretty much lasts forever, but you can see evidence of the 100+ years of exposure on the one end of the plank. For this piece we left it. For the other piece of the plank that I used to make the coffee table shown below, I trimmed the live edge and cut most of the discolored wood off. While I was making that piece, we counted the growth rings that you can see in th eclose up (484 in the coffe table) and again when we made th console ( another 177) so the part of the stump where the plank we got came from had over 650 years of growth before it was cut.....Kind of humbling .... Anyway, the table is part of our new metal leg series. The tables all bolts together and are extremely rigid for tables with such delicate looking legs .... Click the pictures to enlarge them and enjoy your tour of a remarkable board ....

At the show

A less dramatic photo ... Lots of fine art too ..

First couple passes of the smoothing plane

The coffee table I made with Sam a couple of years ago

The new table slab juxtaposed with the coffee table top showing the width of the original slab

Close up of the growth rings

In process mockup
Save a tree ... use recycled wood

Arts and Crafts Pool Tables

I posted an attachment photo of a Greene & Green style pool table to a newsgroup forum I belong to (Green & Greene at Yahoo) and the attachment shows up for some members and not for others so I'm posting it here. It's a table by Catskill Furnituremakers from a 2004 or 2005 ad in American Bungalow Magazine (the price is from then) . Coincidentally, we'll be starting an Arts & Crafts, though not Greene & Greene, inspired pool table for a client in Virginia in a couple of weeks and Ill be documenting the building process for that once we get underway. I have also posted some of my other Arts & Crafts inspired pool tables. Other models with different design influences are shown in the 'pool and game tables' section of my website ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The ad from American Bungalow

We built this table in 2004 and we'll be doing another version of it in a couple weeks ...

Got some walnut for it today ... Actually, I talked to my friend Myron at Irion Lumber Tuesday when I was looking for some 10-12" walnut for the legs and rails and I ended up talking myself into a whole log of walnut. There are about 10 boards in the 18-20" range which I'll use for other projects in the future and the other 10 boards (10-14" wide), (it was a big log), I'll use for the legs and other parts of the table ... Hey! how can pass that up ... I can always refinance the house...

Mahogany and maple burl ... this one had a nice hanging light with it ...

Other pool accessories in vertical grain fir, cherry and oak that went with a table similar to the one shown below. The spectator chair I notice has some vague Greene & Greene references ...

Vertical grain fir in a simple though very pleasant combination of elements .. End grain cherry details and gold abalone sight inlays.
Pool tables are great ... As long as the slate's level and the cushions work well, you can hold it all up with whatever kind of a structure you want ...

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 ....