woodworking tools tips

up next, another claro walnut slab table. this one will be about 52" wide by 102" long after i make the final cuts tomorrow. the base will be welded steel, similar to the one on the desk we made in july and the dining table we sent to aspen in august. click the photos to enlarge them.

sam is ready to weld the base pieces tomorrow, and the jig is ready to go too.

the process of moving these tables from the rough slab to the final dimensions is one that we approach very slowly, a bit at a time. once you cut something off, theres no sticking it back on again. and, a lot of the time, we disagree amongst ourselves what is the best cut to make. we try to involve the client as much as possible, but its often hard to portray in photos what exactly it is that we see in front of us.

in this case, we started by trimming off the legs, and obvious choice. we did leave a little bit of the crotch showing on the face side, and we may go back and trim that a bit more before we finish.

we then cut some of the cracked portion off the far end as the table wants to be around 102" long when we finish it.

we then did some rough planing and splashed a little alcohol on it to check the figure .. looks good.

we then made a 2x4 mockup of the base and checked the proportions ... now, as you can see from the top photo in this post, weve moved the slab down to the shop now that the pool table and the oak table are gone. itll move right along now ... updates as we go ..

Minggu, 23 Oktober 2016

Three Years of Writing

I could do another picture of a sunset here and say something about how now I like to write, (like I said on anniversary one and two), but a couple things have come together in the last two months that make me want to go a little deeper ... While we were making the recent shop video, I went through our scrapbooks to get images of our first shop, and, scattered around there, were pictures of some of my early work ... my first table; my first chairs from scratch; my first sideboard (still have it); and, like David Byrne once famously wondered "How did I get here???. Is this my beautiful house??? ". Well, the days have gone by and I have now been making stuff from wood for over half of my 63 year old life. I didnt set out to do this; there was no grand plan, and as Anne Beattie so gracefully points out in the passage below, things happen ...
In looking back through the stuff I have written and photographed in the last three years, its easy to see we can now make a lot of different stuff, but, really, it wasnt alchoices like this ... Like most other folks I know, progress is incremental; we do not know instantly what to do. We work from one recovery to the next. In one of Malcolm Gladwells latest books, Outliers, he notes that interest and coincidence often combine to produce surprising careers. I was interested and was fortunate enough to encounter the coincidences I encountered and rise to the good fortune that arrived at my door.
I cant do the whole 38 years in one shot, but Ill briefly touch on the first 10 or so years and hopefully come back to finish up as the spirit moves me ... If youve gotten this far, this will be a long one ... Thanks for sticking with me. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Thank you Ann Beattie for writing this passage and thanks to my friend Tom Peters, who passed it on to me as an important piece of child rearing and general life information. Its been on my various bulletin boards for about 10 years ... See also the related quote at the end of this post from Jim Harrison .... ready and attentive ... be there ...

My first (or second?) table, my brothers stereo cabinet, my first chairs from scratch ...

Images 1973-81 ... the Welsh Cabinet I built in 1973 using F.E. Hoard and A.W. Marlows book Good Furniture You Can Make Yourself .. page 150 and 151 ... a corner cupboard lower right from our house ...Some later Windsor chairs and a cabinet for a friends daughter ... Bottom left is a table I still have in my dining room ... made in early 1981.

Before we got to furniture, we first needed a house ... which is part of the story ... In the top photo with the mustache and long hair, I am working on a project in the basement of the apartment I rented when I first came to Vermont. Kit joined me there shortly after I moved in and I later went on to work as a carpenter for my landlord, even though I knew absolutely nothing about carpentry at the time ... It was interesting work though and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to build my own house ... By 1974, the economy was in the tank and my landlord/contractor was now running a logging business, and I was working in the woods, sawing, skidding and Prentice loading. The schedule was, start at 5:30 ... out of the woods at 2:30, back to town by 3:30 ... It was summer and that gave me 5 hours or so of daylight after my real job to work on my house. Home to bed... up and at it again the next day. We moved in in November ... I was young and energetic and in great shape from logging (3 coincidences there) and we were on our choice ...

We borrowed and cheated, (a little) to get a piece of land; we somehow got a mortgage, (the bank presidents mother was Kits fifth grade teacher). We bought books and lumber ... We worked hard. We built a house in our spare time!!!! By that time, it was the gas crisis, my landlord was out of business, I got another job with a real carpenter, Mark Breen, with whom I still do projects, like right now ...

We built a shop/garage in 1976 ... I did a few things on the side until December of 1979, when, after about 40 houses, Mark and I went our own choices ... I was on my own as a furniture maker ... I often say I then attended the "checkbook" school of woodworking ... Checkbook needs money ... go figure it out .... One of Marks first jobs after I left in 1980 was a house for some people who had come to town from California. Mark hired me to build some French doors ... Well, were all still friends today. Cook Neilsen, the husband and famous motorcycle guy, and his wife Stepper, went on to become our longtime friends and photographers for the next 20 years. Stepper called me two weeks ago to adjust the latch on one of the 30 year old doors I built below... It just needed a little tuning and lubing .... Proper lubrication is, after all, the key to life. I had a nice visit with their stuff and it all still looks good. A truly nice feeling.

One of the 4 french doors in the original project ...

The cat shelf, bolted to the fireplace corner...

And a pine cabinet from, I think 1982.

Its 1982 now and kids (Sam and Kit are in the lower left corner) happen ... This photo was taken by Cook, Labor Day 1983 ... Thats Stepper in the middle along with cousins, friends, friendss kids, neighbors ... were all still here today,

And I thank my wife Kit for her constant and unending support through the last 39 years. As the official sees all, knows all, arbiter of taste branch of my work, she is and alchoices will be truly indispensable. Photo above is from the windowsill in our kitchen 1971. And finally, below, we have some wisdom from one of my favorite writers, Jim Harrison. I am now in the rowing mode, approaching life backwards, looking at the past, wondering indeed, How Did I Get Here? More later ... 1982- 1996, when we moved and built our current shop, would be the next logical chunk. Stay tuned ...

Rabu, 31 Agustus 2016

cant keep up

busy, busy, busy here the last couple of weeks. so busy, i havent been able to keep up with my blogging ... its a GOOD problem, actually. possibly a sign that things are finally, maybe, picking up a bit. we have had some good new sales and a definite increase in requests for quotes on new projects. let us all knock on wood here. where to begin? above, is the finished upper cabinet for the kitchen we have been working on. that project is all installed now. click the photos to enlarge them ...

in the works now is another pool table to go in the room with the 12 claro walnut table we shipped back in july. must be a big room !

there were two different designs floating around and so we made a scale model of both options, and the client chose the long x in the top photo. sam will be making a welded metal base for this one ...

the only problem was, not one, but TWO different sets of slates arrived from florida broken. definitely a setback as we had to drive to albany to purchase a third from an old friend who restores pool tables, so we could finally get underchoice this week.

will has about got the rails under control ...

and jim and i have about got the slate support frame under control. it will have metal edges to match the metal base that sam is making ....

and sam is ready to weld tomorrow

besides the pool table, sam is extremely busy in the metal shop. he installed two railings this week, a short one at a home in rupert, and then a more substantial one at the new chamber of commerce building in manchester ... photos of those later. he also delivered the bench above to go with the x table he made a few months back. (scroll down)

and back in the woodshop, will wrapped up this cherry trestle table Thursday, and it is in the finish room getting its final polishing.

its a new, custom version of one of our early (1980s) shaker inspired designs

.and we went to a wedding and celebratory bonfire last weekend ... it was a good un. we burned 10 years of old bookkeeping in that one ...

hot an fast

and quite beautiful ...

and will found us an almost new in the box number 80 on ebay ... you cant have too many of those around when there are four people in the shop ...

and, weve also got a pair of cherry tables going that will be mostly separated, but can be put together for large parties.

we had some beautiful matched figured cherry boards from our friends at irion lumber.

and laid them out and cut them ... going to be cool ...

and i loved this one from the new yorker ... the red sox fans are back to moaning now ... theres alchoices next year ... what else ... oh, and we stripped and refinished a nice knoll-like teak veneer desk/table from the 60s or 70s? i think ... looks like new, thanks to our friend steve holman ... spray finisher extraordinaire ...

all for now .. gotta get those quotes out ...

wait ! its hard to believe, but i almost forgot the next big claro walnut table. the slab for it is now in the garage, waiting for the pool table to get out of the shop. well be working on that soon ... it will have a metal base like the table we recently sent to aspen.

really, now, all for now ...

woodworking tools tips

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Selasa, 20 Desember 2016

You Cant Leave Em Alone For Even a Minute

Selasa, 08 November 2016

another claro walnut slab table

Minggu, 23 Oktober 2016

Three Years of Writing

Rabu, 31 Agustus 2016

cant keep up

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