4/12/2011vvi spent parts of the last couple of days reconstructing the base of a clients aaron willard tall case clock ... aaron died in 1844 so its been around for a while ... i love a good repair. they are challenging and engage the creative process in powerful choices ... like a good puzzle, you can, and often have to, work on them over time, allowing your concentration to wonder off to other more pressing things ... perfect for the ay dee dee mind ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
my client emailed to tell me that one of the the 20 pound weights that drives the mechanism had snapped its string (or, as it looks by the red arrow in the photo above) or the weights hook broke. regardless, it crashed to and through the floor of the case and smashed the base of the clock ... it was easy to see upon disassembling the base that it had been poorly repaired several times in the past ... just cleaning the clots of glue off the pieces was a real challenge ...
everyone else in the shop was doing their thing and as this was an unexpected project, i squeezed it into my work week, working a couple minutes here and a couple hours there until today, it was back on its feet ... ha ha ... above i started with the biggest piece and did some small glue ups to the obvious pieces monday ...
tuesday i puzzled out the side pieces and added back a few missing pieces
planned my strategy ...
until it was ready to go below at the end of the day .
wednesday i added the sides
and clamped the front feet to the rest at the end of the day
this morning i added the back foot supports and the missing glue blocks
and it was ready to go .... somehow, and it is still a mystery to me why, i needed to add a 5/16ths shim to the front right foot and an 1/16th " shim to the front left to get the case to sit level and plumb ... i measured all four feet; all were 3" tall ... but i knew it wasnt a new thing because in the container of broken pieces there were two newish shims with my handwriting on them that i added to level the case when the clock originally arrived several years ago ... now they are officially attached to the feet ... the last thing i have to finish tomorrow is to fit up a new brass piece that was missing in action ... fortunately we had some 3/16ths x 1/2" stock on hand and with a little patience tomorrow, it will be fitted up and in place ... 
well deliver it next week and meet with the british clockmaker, ray bates and/or his son sometime soon to fix the weight and set the works and bonnet properly ...
in closing, i can say that a good repair to a worthy piece is a fine thing to take on ... theres the challenge to execute it properly, to get it to look right and function correctly, and to change what you are working on from not so good to good for another 100 years ... most rewarding ... and, highly recommended as a study of classical construction methods ...
all done ...4/20/2011 ...
the clock is home now, in this beautiful room ... we made two pairs of the fancy old glass doors for this same room a few years ago. i started a blog post about them but the process was soooo complicated, it was, in the end, undescribable. at least for my writing ability ....
the works
the dial
the lightly stained cherry one; 48 x 84
and the recycled chestnut one; 46 x 108
and, a better picture of the cherry coffee tables ... great wood
5/6/2011 ... weve had a little run of tables in the last two weeks ... two coffee tables and two dining tables ... the two coffee tables go with the couches and lounge chairs we delivered last month ...the other two go to a cabin in georgia to one of my long time internet clients and instigator of the original duck bed. weve never met, but we have several connections that make you realize just how small the world can be ... #1. one of her best friends from high school in tennessee has a house in dorset and he and his wife were in our (will) lamaze class ... they live in new york city now and we see them only occasionally but still consider them pretty good friends. #2. when i was making the original duck bed, my fire client was in the shop and asked where that bed was going and when i told him, he knew the husband slightly as he was a member of the same club on lake erie exactly where the bed was going ... #3. when we were discussing the tables recently, she informed me she and her husband had just had dinner with some people who used to have a house in dorset and knew me ... turns out i kept my convertible in their garage for two winters about 10 years ago. its a 
this is the beginnings of the chestnut porch table in the sketches and cad drawing above ...
we sort of adjusted proportions and details as we went along and will put the first coat of finish on the table base and bottom of the top on his choice out the door today ...
here hes gluing in the central elements and attaching the long beam to the glued up base ..
we hosted a dorset chamber of commerce (check out our new website) mixer last night and i was able to set up the table to show work some of our work in process and as a place to cut the cake celebrating the 250th anniversary of the chartering of dorset in 1761. the celebration will be townwide on the 20th of august ...
the second dining table started with this fine log of cherry from (as usual) our friends at irion lumber ...
the cad drawing based on our own dining table
nice wide matched planks ...
will will put the final coat of finish on the base and top of this one tomorrow ... this design is based on our own dining table that i made in 1987, only without the black legs and inlays ...
and then we also made two bethlehem steel style coffee tables .. this client bought the original one board mahogany version last year at open studio, which, by the choice, is coming up again in just 3 weeks ... memorial day weekend, hundreds of vermont artists will be once again be opening their studios saturday and sunday to welcome both local and out of state guests ....
you know, these pictures just dont do these boards justice ... they have that once every 5 years ropy curl to the cherry ... alchoices a treat ... alchoices hard to capture in a picture ... these tables will go in the same room, which is appropriate, because the boards were once ten feet long and the round table boards were attached to the rectangular table boards before we cut them ... another connection ...
