What Im Reading 2010

You lost me there for a minute .... Ive been reading ... And, actually, I am pleasantly surprised at the flow of new inquiries and project design requests trickling in ... Were currently working on a walnut slab table project, the ladderback chairs, a new vanity project inspired by Dean Martins Bar, a couple of steel and walnut tables, and my website, where we have added a new section called client testimonials. Theres a recent one in the Updates post below. Over the years, clients and friends have suggested that I post some client letters, but, somehow, it seemed a little shameless to me ... Ive been converted recently by a persuasive consultant, and now that I have them up there, it feels pretty good.
Ive also been reading some. Winter is a good time for that. I recently finished Greg Mortensons powerful new book Stones Into Schools, an update from his previous bestseller, Three Cups of Tea. Its a great read and a timely and persuasive testimony to the potentail power of education rather than bombs in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It has recently been adopted by the US military as a common read for soldiers on duty there. The stories of challenges and sucesses building schools there are truly inspiring.
Also, one of my friends/clients has written a book about his familys experience. Its called What Else But Home, and the subtitle is Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse. As a family who had two different guests in our home for Wills junior year and most of his senior year in high school, it particularly resonated with Kit and I. The Rosens journey, however, was much different. Its another testimony to education and support rather than discipline and (attempted) control.
And, finally, a revisit to a favorite author, Jim Harrison, who we have been reading for at least 20 years now. This guy can get you thinking with every, and I mean every, sentence. I borrowed it from a friend but Im going to get my own copy. Some sections are so beautifully written and thought provoking they just take your breath achoice .... You find yourself opening to earlier sections to reread the best parts before opening to where you left off. A historic saga of family life and nature on the American Plains ... Try Dalva too ...
2/20 ... update .... having been so taken with The Road Home, I visited the library and in the last week and read two more of Mr. Harrisons books. The Summer he Didnt Die, and yesterday, in the throes of a headache and general malaise, The English Major in about a 20 hour period ... Both lived up to my expectations and if you like his style, youll probably enjoy thesee too ....

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State of Craft 2010 Goodwood Lane

I had sort of a revelation this morning. It was related to the show that opens Saturday at the Bennington Museum ... State of Craft 2010 ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont. I realized I have been nosing around the crafts scene here for almost 40 of those years .... Kit and I lived in The Wall Family Gallery building in Manchester, starting in September 1971. The Wall Family Gallery was basically a pottery studio, run by husband and wife, Beriah Wall and Janice Farley... our age, more or less .... We still see them when they come to town ....Kit traded batches of chocolate chip cookies for pottery .... You get the idea ....
Starting in 1972, I worked for Beriahs brother who had a landscaping business and he introduced me to carpentry ... Time went on; we built a house, in our spare time, pretty much every nail and slate, in 1974; after that I worked for a (much) more professional carpenter; we started a furniture business in 1980. Talk about clueless.
The 1974 house ... The shop at the old house where we worked until 1999 ...
Now, 30 years later, what have we got and where are we???? Almost 40 years in the same geographic area, lots of regular friends, unbelievably interesting clients/friends, a great shop, a great place to live, fantastic gardens by Kit, two great and talented kids working with us, beautiful gardens, a little time for golf and tennis ... What more could a person ask for? Id say the State of Craft on Goodwood Lane is pretty good right now and I cant imagine where I would be if I had stuck with that sales job I took after college in 1970. I realized this morning I have to occasionally stop and appreciate how lucky Ive been to have been involved with the State of Craft ... Its been a good state for me ....
The boys working on the duck bed
This morning 7:00am

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The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge Part II

My saga of the 2010 Sawdust Chronicles Build Challenge continues.
The Build

My milling equipment is set up
and ready to go.

The build was done mostly with power tools. I prepped the stock with my jointer and planer and dimensioned with my table saw. I used a 5" random orbit sander to smooth the pieces once they were cut to size.
I ended up fabricating three (3) of the center sections as the first warped before I could tile it and I miss dereferenced a joinery mark on the second. As I had never tiled before and I had plenty of tile, I chose to tile one of the unusable center sections and the real section. Since both the mortar and grout had mixing ratios and pot lives I set the real tile immediately after the test tile and mortared the real tile immediately after the test tile. Even though this only gave me about 2 minutes practice, I feel it did help and Im glad I did it.

The bottom lip and upper wing
section are Dominoed and ready.

All of the joinery was done using Dominos and Tightbond III glue. I used Tightbond III because of its longer open time when compared to Tightbond II. As many of the glue ups were clamped at odd angles with custom made cauls, I wanted as much open time as I could easily get. Luckily, the glue ups went smoothly. Once the top section was done I smoothed some misalignment in the face with my block plane and flattened the back of the center section to the wings with my new Rotex in a moment of mental ineptitude (I bought the Rotex during the project with no intention to use it. As I did use it for this one step, it is included in my project expenses under power tools).

Gluing the base/arm assembly to
the top assembly using one
funky looking caul.

After 5 glue ups the book stand was assembled. It unfortunately needed dramatically more touch up sanding at this point than I was planning on, so I went to work with a variety of sanding sponges and my 5" random orbit sander. Once the sanding was finally done, I began with a 1 lb cut of shellac applied with a rag. After that I switched to the full 2 lb cut of Seal Coat and applied 5 more coats by rag, sanding with a "00" steel wool equivalent synthetic pad between coats. When the final coat of shellac was dry I installed a thin bead of tile caulk to act as an expansion joint between the glass tile and the walnut which surrounds it.
My 2010 Build Challenge Photo Album
The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge, Part IRead More..

Selasa, 07 Juni 2016

Petes Pizza Ovens

Theres a new pizza place in Manchester ... Uncle Pete (Peter Moore, Vermont Brick Ovens) built the oven, and Sam added some metal door details (digital thermometer covers), and a custom damper .... I stopped by a couple of times as he was working on it and it was choice cool to watch it happen ... great process but Im sorry I missed the actual dome building on Petes round forms ... Click the photos to enlarge them .
Main Street, Route 7, in front of Shaws
The trout door ... they just fired it up Saturday and Im not sure what the rusty stuff is
The dome before it was grouted
from the outside
Sams custom damper
Finishing up
The completed oven ... I heard the pizza is GREAT !

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Sabtu, 21 Mei 2016

Chain Saw Fine Furniture

3/2/10 Were moving relatively slowly on this project to allow the 2.25" thick slab to acclimate to our heated shop ... It had been stored in a concrete floored, unheated barn until it arrived here last week .. We took a little off both sides last week and we flip it pretty much every day. It has stayed remarkably flat and now were working to assemble the base ....click the pictures to enlarge them .
The figured are at the crotch end of the slab
looking down from the crotch end
from the stump end
Last week, ready to cut ....
I started my woodworking career in 1974 as a logger for a local timber contractor ... I lasted about 6 months ... After that, I spent the next 23 years cutting and splitting firewood to heat my house and shop in Arlington .... I got back into the wood heat thing last year and Ive become pretty good friends with my chain saw again. When we had to cut this slab to size, I thought that my Stihl might be the best tool for the job as the log had already been chain sawn to rough shape before it was milled into slabs .. Ta Dah ... The edges actually will look like before we cut it .... Dont try this at home ....
Click the photos to enlarge them .... Previous post on this table ...
It was a bit of a reach
This was actually really fun .....
Cutting to 10
All done ... ready to smooth ....

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Sabtu, 05 Maret 2016

The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge Fun with Picasa

Having documented my build with about 150 photos, Ive spent some time playing with them in Picasa. As it integrates so well into Blogger, I use Picasa for all my Penultimate Woodshop photos.

The completed book stand.

A Picasa generated collage of all 165 photos.

The first thing I did was make a collage. With Picasa thats as easy as selecting any number of photos and then hitting the collage button. If you dont like the choice it arranges the images, you can have it re-arrange them automatically, or you can drag and drop them anywhere you like. Once youve settled, hit save and it turns the collage into one photo. The image above was made by selecting the whole photo and having Picasa re-arrange the images once automatically.

The next thing I did was make this video. Its really just a slide show of all 165 images, but I think its cool because it takes the viewer thought the entire process (could just be cool to me, since I lived the build). I could (should) have added music. Pleas forgive the fact that I didnt have my audio library connected to the computer when I did this.
If fancy collages and slide show videos dont do it for you, then just check out the Build Challenge photo folder.
How do you document your builds?
The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge, Part I
The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge, Part II

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The Sawdust Chronicles Build Challenge 2010

Ive entered the Sawdust Chronicles build challenge. I did it kind of last minute and havent yet completed the idea in my head, but Ill be sure to share my progress with you kind folks here. In the mean time, take a look at The Taylor Garage post linked to below. Steve does a much better job describing the event than Im doing here. Also follow the link on Steves site back to the Sawdust Chronicles to learn more about the event and watch as it unfolds.

The Taylor Garage ? Blog Archive ? The Sawdust Chronicles Build Challenge 2010

The Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge Part I

The finished book stand.

I begin with an apology. Im sorry for not having posted since October 22. I try to post at least weekly. A number of personal and work projects have conspired against me lately to prevent my posting. Chief among them was the Sawdust Chronicles 2010 Build Challenge.
As I was entered in the Build Challenge, Ive spent every free moment over the last few weeks working on the book stand which I submitted as my entry. When I lost my build time on the final Friday and Saturday of the challenge I feared it may have all been for naught if I failed to complete my project. Thankfully Rick was nice enough to extend the deadline for all and I successfully submitted my project almost 4 hours before the it was due!
Here for you, my dear readers, is part I of my submission description.
As my entry to the Sawdust Chronicles 2010 build challenge I have constructed a book stand. The book stand is constructed from walnut and glass tile, assembled using Domino joinery and finished with 6 coats of de-waxed shellac.
Design ProcessWhen I decided to enter the Sawdust Chronicles 2010 build challenge in late August I had already been asked by my mother (a second grade teacher) to make a book stand for the dictionary in her classroom. She had given me a print out of some book stand designs, a physical copy of the dictionary to be held on the stand and a request of a 60 degree display angle. On review of the Sawdust Chronicles 2010 build challenge rules and entry form I quickly abandoned the designs she had suggested and got to work on my own.

The Bell Forrest project pack &
the glass tile laid out on my
table saw.

My starting point was walnut. I had alchoices wanted to work it and when I saw Bell Forrest Products labor day sale I ordered a 10 board feet project pack and hoped that would be enough (it ended up being almost twice what I needed). Another point I wanted to incorporate from the beginning was a secondary material. My initial though was copper, as I have experience working with sheet metal at work, and copper is such a beautiful metal and so easy to work with. My idea was to use copper sheet metal to veneer a piece of MDF which would act as the arm portion of the stand. Unfortunately, the build challenge rules forbid the use of MDF, so I began to track down some plywood to veneer with the copper. During this early stage of the design I was walking through Home Depot and was inspired by the glass tile on display. I bought some there on the spot and decided that rather than use copper to veneer the arm portion of the stand, I would use the glass tile as an inlay for the center section of the top where the spine of the dictionary rests.

The tile laid in position during
a dry fit.

Incorporating the tile into the design was the inspiration for the top. I recessed the center tile section for the practical purposes of housing the tile and holding the dictionary spine and for the aesthetic purpose of allowing the side sections of the top to rise up and achoice from the center like wings. After some trial and error with the actual dictionary, I decided on 10 degrees as the appropriate angle for the wings. Once I had the top designed, I set to work constructing it. I had finished assembling the top before giving the base design any serious thought. Since I knew the top had to be held at a 60 degree angle, I started with that and cut the now walnut support arm at 60 degrees. I ripped it to width so that it matched the top. The base was the final component I designed. I made it slightly longer than the support arm to give it small lips in the front and rear. I determined the width of the base though a combination of what looked good to my eye and what was wide enough to support the top. In order to give the piece visual balance, I gave the bottom wings angled down at 10 degrees to mirror the angle of the upper wings.
More on the build in the next post. Until then check out my 2010 Build Challenge Photo Album.
What did you build this fall?

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