Moving An Old Friend

We got to visit with an 'old friend' last week ... It was a pool table that I built and installed in1993. The owners have recently sold the house and the table will be arriving at its new home at their son's house in Connecticut this Wednesday.
It's an antique table that I bought, planning to use it in my own home for myself and Sam and Will to enjoy. They were 8 and 10 at the time ... But, like the one before that one, a client came through as I was involved in the 'restoration' and bought it before we finished. After losing two that way, I bought a more homely one that I painted and refelted and still own today ... It's how we got started in our pool table career ... I think we've made 14 or 15 now .... This one was #2. click the photos to enlarge them ....
It was in a beautiful home, which called for a really nice cue and accessory rack that also made the trip out ...
If you've never seen one in pieces, here's how it goes ... You unbolt and disassemble the pockets and rails, pry the million staples from the felt and you are left with the three pieces of slate that are screwed to the wood frame below.
Then the wood 'frame' is unbolted and broken down into it's various parts ...
And you're good to go ..
You've got a bunch of pieces when you're finished but it all makes sense if you take it a step at a time ....
The house is a beauty, designed by Jeff Barnes, a Manchester architect noted for his style and attention to detail ... Here are a few images just so you get the idea ...
The main entry
Coming into the kitchen from the garage
We were making this table when the client saw the pool table we were working on at the same time ...
Detail of the ebony and abalone inlay
A classic Sam Ogden turning piece ...And, a nice place to entertain ... great house !!!

The Partners Desk Leaves Tomorrow

Well, the house is finally finished and the desk will be on its way to its new home tomorrow. We finished it up a few weeks ago but we were waiting for the carpenters to finish, the hardware to arrive and the ok for delivery. All set now and ready to go except for a small adjustment that I see I need to make to the bottom file drawer face ... It's amazing what you don't see until you look at the photographs closely. Anyway ... no problem we'll take care of it in the morning before the shipper arrives ... A nice use of the 30" wide mahogany boards, if I do say so myself ... Good job boys .... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
Close up of the very nice handmade hardware by Richard Spreda, The Stowe Smith/
Drawers like this on both sides, 3/16ths by 1/2" brass hanging file supports in the bottom drawers. There is also a removable butterfly grommet (not shown in the file) for cord passage to the surge protector in the center below the kneehole ... The cord from that travels between the drawers and plugs into the wall that the desk will be placed up against ... More drawings, comments and construction photos from the original post here ...

Bango #3

Well, ok, now we're rolling. The first banjo we did together and it took a while to figure out and build ... Most of a summer of spare time, actually. Number 2, Will did on his own and that one also took a while, but not as long as the first one. Number 3, on the other hand is rolling right along. The first picture in this series is from 11/17... Less than a month of spare time .. Pretty good. It's a Christmas present from a grandmother to a grandson and it looks like it will be on time ... Click the photos to enlarge them ....

The photo at the top shows the traditional neck to body 'dowel stick' joint. This required a drill press set up with the table on the 4.5 degrees and skewed out of vertical ... an anxiety ridden set up for sure ... He hit it right though ... good to go ..
He started, as usual, by turning the pot, which he bricklaid in cherry and walnut...
This banjo is being referred to as a 'mini' ...and at 8", the head is pretty small.
Next the head and hardware arrived ... It's brass and now it's antiqued, which is a pretty classy look. The plywood is left on the pot until it's drilled for the hardware ...
Since the head is small, the scale is shorter so he had to cut a new indexing jig on the cnc ... That fits into this jig that guides the saw to cut the slots for the frets.
The one on the right is a steel one for a standard scale banjo.
Next is the neck and the truss rod. The pot to neck angle is 4.5 degrees and it's set off from the perpendicular a little to align the cent of the neck with the 'g' string ..
Good fit ... no, perfect fit ...
Here's the finished fretboard and the peg head with the 'swann' inlay ... that's his last name ....
All for now .... Next step .... string it up and add the finish ...

CWB Portfolio Awards

Sometimes we enter design competitions, sometimes we don't. This year though, I felt 'The Duck Bed' was one of our all time good ones, so, off it went to the Custom Woodworking Business Magazine 'Design Portfolio Awards' contest, where we were happy to receive an honorable mention. Loyal readers may have seen the original posts for the bed back in April of this year, but, if you missed it then, it's worth a look. The bed was a technically demanding and rewarding project on many different levels. The clients were old friends (that always helps), and everyone in the shop was involved in the project. Will did the turning, carving, and finishing; Sam did the mini sculpting and patinas; Trevor did the cnc work on the inlay pockets and walnut inset, and Jim was there as always to help you do whatever you needed help with at the time .. fun project.
Click the photos to enlarge them ...
Our neighbor and sometime collaborator, Steve Holman, (see 'The Big Tables") also won an honorable mention for the piece he did for the Bennington Museum Show 'State of Craft ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont' that took place earlier this year ...
The overall winner in our category, 'Residential Furniture' was Parnian Design of Scottsdale, Arizona. They nudged us out with a project that took 'Parnian's craftsmen 8 months to build and
was two years in the making by designer Abdolhay Parnian.' ... nice commission ...

We've had luck in CWB Portfolio Awards in the past and so has Steve ... Honorable Mentions before for 'Harvey's Sideboard', once for 'Nancy's Screen' and just two years ago for 'Elliot's Poker Table'.
In 2005, we were the overall winner in the 'Specialty Products' division for our mahogany,curly maple and walnut traditional style pool table ...

Below are few photos from my earlier duck bed posts describing the process of building the bed ... This post is the last one I wrote and has links to all the previous ones so this is the place to go for a start to finish tour of the project ... Feel free to comment or email if you have questions on our techniques or execution ...
First rough mockup on site ...
Will, adjusting his music before carving the posts ...
Headboard template test fit with inlay designs still in progress ...

Carving the Pine Cones

A reader sent me an email looking for information on carving the pine cones on the bed in the post above ... I looked back and found that that was one topic I hadn't really covered in depth .... I think this was Will's first time carving them but fortunately I had saved a half carved sample cone with the layout lines shown so all he had to do was make the turning, steal the layout from the sample, find the right gouge and carve away everything that didn't look like a pine cone ... This time we actually took some pictures too ... It helps if you can find a nice fresh one in the woods that is just about to open to get the top right ... I think it's too late to find one of those this year ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
The top photo shows the horizontal and vertical divisions ... you'll have to find (or buy) the right sweep chisel in your carving tool collection and then match the number of lines and divisions to the size/height of your cone and chisel .. Outline first as shown above in the top photo and photo above,
Then hollow out inside the outlines, getting smaller as you approach the top ... This is a learn by doing' detail and no quantity of words will substitute for some trial and error here ... Have at it !!
Same deal for the spirals except the layout for those is shown in the original bed posts .
In this picture, you can just see a little of how the top of the cone is resolved to appear slightly 'open'.

TURKEYS !!

Update 1/30/11 ... The turkeys come back from time to time ... I was watching them Sunday morning through my camera lens when i accidentally bumped the door glass ... They're off !! It's amazing house fast they can get airborne ..... there's a short, strutting male you tube video here.
Well, we just had some turkeys at the feeder ... Maybe 20 or so ... And we thought we were going through the birdseed last week ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ..
This is the 'Danger Will Robinson' photo ... I think they saw me move to a different window inside the house. They didn't spook though and eventually they ambled off with probably a couple pounds of seed ...

Slide Shows

I have mostly known that it was possible and easy to post slide shows to the web, but I didn't know how to do it ... I've seen them up there. I had a pretty mellow day Saturday so I took a couple of hours and figured it out .. It is, actually, a snap, once you've got it ....

I think to communicate a sense of depth and variety of work there is probably nothing more immediate and grabbing than a parade of projects, both completed and in process flashing by on the screen. I've got one scrolling across my website homepage that sort of annoys me by now, but it's there to stay for now I'm afraid ... Try the links below for an idea of what I'm talking about. Almost all of these photos (except the Greene & Greene photos) have a corresponding blog post and if I take the time, I can add captions with links to the photos ... Try the search box above for more info ... The amazing thing is that you can scroll through these full screen images as fast as 1 second per image and the quality remains excellent.

2010 and a few stragglers This show is some/most of the stuff we have made so far this year
160 photos .. it takes zero time to load ...
2009 and a few from 2008 This one's got a few pieces from late 2007 and 2008, but mostly it's 2009 stuff ... 192 photos
A Trip to the Gamble House, Oaklawn, and The Huntingdon Museum in Pasadena ... a collection of random images of Greene & Greene design and Pasadena downtown ... that I took on a visit in 2003 .... 77 photos
If you would like to do this for your own work, here's the deal ...
go to picasa.com ... download the program ... (surprisingly quick)

tell the program to search for photos and it will make a browser display with the folders on your computer that contain photos. (I had 1091 folders with photos in them on my six year old office computer) !!!!

click on the folder and upload or sync or something ... (the help section is good here)

when it's 'synced', push 'slideshow' and copy the browser link

paste it in an email or to your blog or website ...

you can then 'edit and organize' the folder to get the photos in the order you want ... similar to facebook

here's a you tube video that was helpful

Pretty Slick Google ... Thank You ...