The Tansu Stair Project

besides the post below, there are several other blog posts about these stairs. here is a link to the final one and you can work back to this post from that one ... great project !!!

3/9 ... Had it all together around 1:00 today. It's all disassembled now and the cabinet interiors are being shellacked and waxed ....

Proposed railing design including second floor landing

The case taking shape today 3/6/09

The cad drawing showing the three subcases seperated by color

About 20 years ago I made the tansu style stair cabinet above for clients who were remodeling a house up the road in Danby, Vermont. Last spring, I made another tansu style cabinet for a New York City entryway and one way or another, last summer a gentleman from California found my pictures on the internet and contacted me regarding a stairway project he had in mind. We went back and forth for a while, and now, they're underway on construction of the addition to his house and we have started the stair cabinet. Unfortunately, my contract doesn't call for me to install so I'll just wave goodbye to it, and, maybe, by then, it will be spring here and I won't be wishing I was in sunny CA.. It killed me back in January to get pictures of carpenters in shorts and sunscreen while it was zero or so here. Anyway .... More to follow .... This'll be a long one ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

Last summer's tansu cabinet in walnut

A sketch for the cabinet we're working on made by laying trace over the photo in the top left corner in the collage below

Photos from the client (sent in January) with my photoshopped sketching of the railings etc.

THE FAMOUS HAMMER JUGGLER !!!

So, you've never seen the hammer juggler? You really shouldn't miss him. This video's been going around for a year or so but I forgot how fun it was until I had to show it to some friends last night. 52 unbelieveable seconds .... Check him out ...
Here's the link

Economy slow? Time on your hands? Practice that for a while.

While I Was Working

Metal drill chip and cherry/walnut edge curl .... Click to the photos to enlarge them

I have always wanted to do a little show of stuff that happens while I'm working ... Not of the stuff I make intentionally, but of the scraps and side effects and by-products of the stuff that I'm making. The unexpected interesting little visual bonuses . Will was planing some edge inlay Friday and handed me a little piece of the shavings that came off the hand plane and it made me think of that show concept again. Somewhere, I have a cardboard box of stuff I've saved, waiting for the show to happen, but today I couldn't find it .... In the meantime, I looked around a bit and there was plenty of items, accumulated over the years, decorations with a story .... Here are a couple of my images, but feel free to send me yours too and we'll see what happens. I think this could be interesting ... Thanks ...

Offcuts of tapered table legs and a bowl on the sawdust shed

The shape over the door of the finishing room is the plywood left after we cut two 32 x 64 1/2 circle mockup parts for a table we were building

The table mockup mentioned above

The bird on the porch ... more scraps from tapered bench legs ...

More to come ...

Railing Progress

3/4/09 One more section to go .... down the steps ... carboard template is in place .. Click the photos to enlarge them

Back in January in a post titled 'No Time For Details' I mentioned a new railing project Sam was about to start. We put the second section of it in place on Wednesday and the rest will be finished in the next week or so. It's coming out nicely, and starting to look remarkably like the sketch below...

The fourth, a long straight section is on the bench ... It needs a couple more details on the close end where it attaches to the wall ...

Proposed connection

Third section in place

sketch

First two sections

Third section in place

Mirrors for the Tapered Cabinets

Back in December, we finished a pair of tapered cases for a client in Philadelphia. The whole concept has now evolved to include two mirrors and a beautiful handmade quilt ... We finished the mirrors yesterday and they will be delivered next week sometime to complete the picture ... I kind of like fooling with Photoshop and I've got the whole concept mocked up below. This was a great project and I look forward to seeing it in person next time I'm in Pennsylvania, which may be to see the Philadelphia Fine Furniture Show at the end of March ....

The mockup with the mirrors and the quilt added .. Click to enlarge

The Tapered Cabinets

Head on of the finished mirror

We made up the stock, sanded and assembled all the frame parts with the walnut edges tacked on. Next we mitered the molding sections and then disassembled the outside edges so we could glue the corners and reinforce the joints with corner screws. Then we added the precut walnut edges back to the frames with clamps, glue and blocks to wrap them up.

Adding the walnut borders

Some Claro Walnut Slabs

2/28 .. the three slabs with one coat of linseed oil

Close up

2/26 ...Oiling the first of the three slabs earlier this afternoon ... Click the photos to enlarge them ..

In the last year or so, I've had a couple of clients interested in tables made from big slabs of wood and we did make one from a huge claro walnut slab from Goodhope Hardwoods, but I haven't convinced anyone to bite the bullet buy one of my slabs yet. I've had these three in the rough since 2006. People would look at them, hmmm around a little bit, but end up passing. It was, I think, too hard for them to see the potential in those big rough boards in the somewhat dark upstairs of my garage. I even have a picture of a cardboard mockup I made for a potential client on my website. No luck ... This time, I decided I would just go ahead and sand and scrape them up so a potential client can see exactly what they might be getting. I don''t think I'll regret it ... They're looking pretty good.

#2

Butterfly keys for the cracks

A little more sanding and we'll put the oil to it

Slab #2 ... This is what they look like after they go through the widebelt. Sanding out all the roughness on the widebelt would have made them a bit thinner and I think we'll like the 'wavy' texture of 'not perfectly flat' table top just fine

Here's the cardboard mockup I made for an 'almost' client last year

I also found this 32" wide piece of cherry I forgot I had. It's got about 6 and a half good feet in it and then there's some funky stuff at one end. It's also got a little bruise that wll need some creative attention too, but overall, it's got some subtle figure and will eventually make somebody something pretty nice ...

100 Words For Snow

update 2/21/14 .. saw a good 'snow slide' at a friends house .. best one ever

 this hanger was at least 3-4 feet long

 

 and about 20' wide  ... fantastic!

a real old fashioned winter, this one... 

2/26/09 ...original post below

They say the Eskimos have a hundred different words for snow .... I think we've had about 50 of em this year so far .... Here are two from this week .... 'slidycrawly'

This is my garage roof this morning at about 7:30 .... The snow is hanging down about 2 feet and is about 3" thick ....

You can see it better if you blow it up

And this was Monday morning I think , ... 'sticky'

The robin was sitting here about 3 weeks ago