we had an excellent first day of open studio weekend saturday. we started off with a long list and a pretty big pile of disorganized stuff friday morning, but by 5:30, we had it all together, the studio doors were locked, and kit and i were sitting by the pond. click the photos to enlarge them ...
we added the leather seats to the chairs first thing and put them upstairs out of the dust explosion that occurs once a year when we clean the shop for this event. this is what it looked like around 9:00 am, and the photos above and below were taken just before i shut out the lights at around 5:00.
as you come in the door there are two slabs of claro walnut that we finished in anticipation of clients who were arriving friday after lunch to discuss a coffee table, which they ordered. the weekend was off to a good start ...
they considered the two we had put finish on, but in the end, selected one that we hadnt prepared ... bonus ..
these 6 ladderbacks we built to go with the claro slab table with the rebar x base that we finished thursday. that table and chairs will be going to the guilford, vermont, welcome center on route 91 for july, august, and september as a display piece to troll for new work. the state offers space to crafts people who ask for it for free in three month blocks. i was lucky to get the summer block and my contact told me that over 600,000 people stop there in an average year. it is a beautiful space. imagine that ... we have high hopes for that piece of marketing.
probably the most commented on item of the day was this copper top table we finished on friday around 2:00. (cut it a little close) .. its 3 wide and 11 long.
its based loosely on an antique french provincial wood top table image from the internet. this table will get its own post as the whole process was interesting. you can see most of the half size mockup behind the chairs photo above. 
it turns out that the mahogany coffee table will be around for another 3 weeks or so so we found a place for that .
sam finished the base thursday for this bench we fabricated from an offcut of a table we made two years ago. it was originally about a foot wider and had some issues, but after some judicious trimming, made a nice little bench ... i actually sold it today and it will be going to a local home where theyll use it as a coffee table on a covered porch ... perfect ...
sam had two of his three spark screen/fireplace inserts on display and they received some excellent reviews ...
and will dropped off his new daffodil banjo that he finished wednesday on his choice to a gig in glover, vermont, waaaay up north ...
rum drinks and beer for my crew ... kit got her jewelry set up in the finish room ...
and penny set up her colorings in the finish room with kits jewelry and then took a rum and a tour of the shop with trevor ...
we go back to the late 70s with jim and penny, and you couldnt ask for better friends ... all for now ...more photos tomorrow ...
weve never used this wood before, and im not sure im real anxious to use it again. as you can see in the photo below, it is completely wrinkly off the splitter. so wrinkly in fact that we couldnt actually join the veneers, but had to glue them down to individual pieces of substrate, which we then glued into a panel. the problem was that the edge of the cut veneer actually change shape as it flattened out (duh) so unless it was perfectly flat when cut, the cut wasnt straight. im not sure how folks deal with this in a commercial veneer shop, but we did it the only choice we knew how... click the photos to enlarge them ... 
close up of the veneers on arrival
cad stuff for estimating material costs ...
in the architects specs, there was a 1/4" x 1/4" reveal, which, after making the mock up above, we determined also had to be veneered, which called for a change order for the considerable added very fussy labor.
we started with the legs and the tops of the legs ...
then will veneered the individual boards that make up the central box which was on the specs at 7 x 48 x 42 high. this is a tall table for an employee lounge ...
well, you know what they say about all work and no play .... sam and i just returned yesterday from 8 days in montana. one out, one back, and one day, saturday, of rest. nice to have a holiday to recover today, before we both get back to work tomorrow. as planned back in july, we evacuated vermont the day before the hurricane and only saw it as it happened on the internet. the damage was incredible in vermont. 
we started on the missouri, floating with russ dobrzynski of pro outfitters in craig. it was for us, a day of hard fishing in big winds, but we were able to land some good size missouri river rainbows, 18-20" long, but were unprepared for the serious physical effort it took to fish a big windy river for 8 hours standing in a drift boat. phew! 
and, as soon as we got off the river we had to leave wolf creek and drive about 60 miles over an incredible road above (route 348) to lincoln, where we spent the night and next day at a friends camp, fishing the grantiers, a spring creek tributary of the blackfoot. 
it was a great cabin that was moved to the site from another part of the state, log by log. it was estimated to be from the late 1880s and was beautifully dovetailed and scribed. 
nice front yard 
the grantiers is a small spring creek full of feisty cuttthroats, and sam managed to land a good one in the afternoon. 
we caught quite a few other small ones, which were about the same size as, but slightly stronger and more fun than our local foot long rainbows. it was challenging, technical, fishing and we had an excellent guide, chad harberd, also from pro outfitters who walked us through the mile and a half stream and told us where to try and present our hopper flies. sometimes we got it, sometimes not. we all, including chad, missed opportunities at the cagey big browns that chad knew were in there. they were too fast and smart for me, but sams cutthroat was the star of the show anychoice. 
that night, we moved on to philipsburg and the rock creek below. 
we had a little rain, which chased off some of the other fisherman ... a nice size cutthroat above ... we then headed off to melrose, and the big hole river, about an hour to the south. 
the next day, rather than fish the actual big hole (i hope to go back and float that one sometime), we fished a small tributary just out of melrose, which was beautiful, and reminded us of home, and again, sam caught the best one of the day, a nice 18+" brown. 
on to ennis from there, and into the heart of the rockies ... breathtaking in every imaginable choice. ennis is on the madison, and is definitely a fishing town with lots of friendly people and good food. coincidentally, there was a fly fishing festival and there were boats everywhere. the river is big enough to handle them all so that you dont notice the traffic, and the fish dont seem to mind either. we had a great day with clayton paddie, of the tackle shop in ennis. 
a nice brown 
another one with the proud fisherman 
and sam and clayton again here with the sculpin rainbow ... 
the sculpin 
we floated about 10 miles in claytons 
interesting architecture in all these towns. 
we had a little time to kill saturday afternoon, so we drove about an hour east to livingston, thinking we might cast a few into the yellowstone to make it six, but we were fished out and took a pass. 
there were great galleries and a thriving arts community in livingston, so all was not wasted, plus the drive was incredible. shortly, there will be more photos of scenery, fish and architecture on my personal facebook page. send me a friend request if you want to see them ... back to work tomorrow ... 
here was a fun one ... a curved couch, not 
we started out with a 1/8th scale model, which you might remember from a post earlier in the year ...
the cad drawing, from which we made the model, was made from a paper template that the builder sent us ... it was a little rough, but surprise,surprise, when we checked our cardboard cuts in the space, they fit not closely, but exactly. you dont often get stuff like this on the first shot ...
from the elevation in the cad drawing above, trevor made the cardboard parts for the model and we had at it.
he cut the seat planks on the cnc after altering the cardboard pattern drawing and then we created a framework for the bench seat to sit on ... it has a slight angle for comfort (about 1.5 degrees ) and the back is angled at 8 degrees from the seat face. its surprisingly comfortable even with no cushions ... we fooled with various concepts for the tapered, angled, (part of a cone) backboards on the front and in the end chose a simple butt joint with a combination of construction adhesive and micro pins. sort of carpentry like, but the options were limited and in the end, since the wood is reclaimed and there are other distressings, it looks great.
the backboards were vertical, and not tapered, and we made them narrow and since they are against the wall, nailed them on.
neatly fitted and applied by trevor ..
we had a brief study on the table which will stick off the end and made it 18.5" wide, and so, even with the seat support below it. it will have a vertical support element when everything is assembled later in the week after we complete the staining and finishing, and install it on site.
