The New Year

in the spirit of recycling, i give you a reprint from new years' time, 2011.

Ahhhhhhh.... I always think of the New Year as kind of a blank slate .... I know it's just another day/week/year coming up, but I like to think I can start anew and correct little things in my personality that irk me. Hasn't happened in the past; probably won't happen this year either. I did, actually, even though everyone else had a paid holiday, spend some time today organizing my office and getting my job list on my whiteboard, but, why is my bench always such a mess .... Where is that thing I had in my hand not TWO seconds ago? Why oh why do I hate Quickbooks Pro 2010 sooooo much? Why don't I have a proper tool cabinet of my own after 35 years of doing this when everyone else in the shop is so orderly? This is starting to look like a list of new year's resolutions and maybe it is ... We'll see ... My wife Kit is finally getting a real bureau as we speak, after about 5 years of me talking about it, so there is hope, maybe .... I leave you to ponder the above with me and also you can ponder the stuff below I scraped off my bulletin board recently ... Enjoy ... Don't go too deep with it ... It's light stuff ... Click the images to enlarge them ....
I had a wonderful conversation the other day with an old friend about the current vagaries of the custom work business ... the slow pay .. the almost order that takes as long and is as complicated as the real order, the lack of choice caused by the lack of demand, and it all boiled down to cash flow. Things do seem to be picking up though recently, (dare I even say it????) The above quote from Paul Downs, a Philadelphia furniture maker who was interviewed a few years ago by, I think, Woodshop News is a true thing. His quote above resonated with me as it has been the back story of my 31 years in business ... So true ... We like the 'craftsmanship', but we also need to do the money stuff. ... almost everyday ...
Error and Trial .... We often say we work from one recovery to the next ... No mistakes, no progress.
'We don't know' .... in some ways, another part of the story of my life ... listening for inner voices .. I'd like to write some this year about 'creativity'. Where do ideas/designs/processes come from? Can you teach other people to 'have' ideas? I'm interested in your thoughts ... Comments?

Failure to failure, one recovery to the next ... obstacles into opportunities .. variations on a theme ....

More on having ideas above... We do know,however, that every idea is not a good idea ... 

Then there are a few humorous ones ...

I love Roz Chast ... she often has her finger on the pulse of the thoughts in the back of my mind.How can you not buy that painting after a good ad like that ... ?

A little Zen .... I guess this means that hings are just as they are, regardless ... 'Who can tell how events will be transformed?' Indeed ... I love this story .. It's from the reference section of the Steven Mitchell translation of the tao te ching. It also, along with the one below, has the most thumbtack holes in it and I now can retell it almost verbatim ...

Tom Peters gave me this one one day when I was complaining about teenagers (Will, I think) ... Nature? Nurture? Coincidence? All Of The Above? Who knows?

Good thing ...

The Moby Dick guy .... Hand lettered and posted by the time clock for about a year by yours truly .. Everyone should memorize this one ...

Jim Harrison ... another favorite ... 'ready and attentive' .... love the concept ...

And, I would have written you a shorter blog post too ...

a spalted maple table top

just before christmas, we delivered this spalted maple table top made from a few planks of
this log of spalted maple i had online

based on the client's existing glass top table that came with the house,
he requested a 52" x 115" table top. 

 

the log was 10' long, but there were some 'soft spots' on the
ends of the planks that needed some attention, and in some cases,
some inlays to make them work ..

after a bit of wrestling with skilsaws, straight edges, routers, and jointers,
we got the planks glued up and ready to scrape and sand.

there were two existing pedestals supporting the existing 1" glass top, and they were 

tiled into the floor and for sure not going anywhere

after adding some 1 x 3" steel tubing stiffeners, we took the cardboard patterns that 

the client made for us, along with his measurements, and routed the bottom of the top 

until there was an inch of wood remaining, same as the glass.

we then added some 1.5" angle iron with tapped holes and 5/16ths bolts
to clamp the top to the tiled bases.

  trevor added the contrasting claro walnut 'patches', along with a couple cans of 

minwax wood hardener, a product i would highly recommend if you've 

got some punky spots in your wood.  it's some kind of epoxy that firms everything 

up nicely and does not show discoloration under a clear finish ...

       

the finished inlays

and we squared off the corner where the log was notched for felling

good to go ...

and we also made three 'trays' from another plank from the log.

and those will be flanked on both sides by custom cushions at a later date ...

we still have a few long planks and about 8 short coffee table planks available for other projects.

great looking wood ....

merry christmas !

merry christmas, happy holidays, and best wishes for the new year to you and all your families.

we had a rainbow briefly over the metal shop on tuesday afternoon .. we all took it as a good omen for 2016 ...

and a fine sunset to go with it  ....

worst case scenario

i just received notice that an installation originally scheduled for november 

and then january, has been postponed to mid february .... 

just after, i passed this new yorker cartoon that is on my office bulletin board

and had a little chuckle.

a base for a glass topped table

interesting request here .. the client needed 'just the base' of a table like the one below
to support a new glass top for a custom banquette in their home .

click the photos to enlarge them ...

we've done several versions of this design
and i just had to adapt the dimension to their floor plan shown below

we made a quick model with a plexiglass top

got the approval and i passed it on to trevor, who has become our specialist in
creating these unusual table bases.

he has worked out the engineering for the jigs and joinery cutting ...

looks scary maybe to some, but it's actually very safe the way he has set it up

and he has figured out the gluing up .. glue two halves together, one at a time,

 then glue the two pairs together

don't forget to add the dowels that are engaged by the lag bolts that hold the base
very securely to the arcing supports ...

check it for level .. pretty good

and send it off to florida on the southbound ... 

all good!

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 ....