5/13 ... we delivered this challenging rosewood chair last weekend ... this project was a real wrestling match for everyone involved. the upholsterer had a long backlog and then, a long struggle with the edelman rattlesnake leather ... i have to agree, it was an unusual material, and, for him, a real bear to work with. looks great though; sits great; glad its done ... cool object ...
the challenge ... make a chair from a photo .... if youve never tried it, its
not easy ... we had a photo that the client took from a french website of a "Lady Vanity Chair by Christian Krass (Design of JE Ruhlmann) france, 1930, very elegant and slender vanity chair by Christian Krass after design of J.E. Ruhlmann ". .. since my client didnt want to order the chair from france and also wanted it to match the other furniture we made for her dressing room a few years ago, she called on us to do the job ... we had no measurements or details but we went at it in the only choice we know how ... make a full size mock up; sit in it; walk around it and make changes mentally before building the real thing ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
mock up on the left ... the real thing, (in morado), on the right ... in this photo, we have made a cardboard template for fitting the real back piece, which is actually a section of a cone and tough to fit. we glued it up on a curved form already on hand from a previous project ...
at this point, we realized that the back seat rail also had to curve out to match so we had to make a new one of those ... details, details ...
next we fitted the real backsplat (two wacky wood layers and two and 2 1/8" birch ply layers) and made up the bookmatched/slip matched veneered piece that would finish it off. next we glued that to the fitted backsplat and flushed it up ...
viola ...
one thing i kick myself for not noticing was that the back legs of the original chair are vertical and parallell, and i did mine in my typical, turned out fashion that gives the chair a little more style. but, it also makes the legs flare out at the top which made making the back piece removable for upholstering a real challenge ... i fooled around with it for a long time, moving the tapered connectors, filling bad screw holes etc, but i finally got it. it will take two people and a clamp to install the upholstered back splat, but hey, what are friends for?
you can see the connectors here ... photo of the matching splat hardware later ...
its in the finishing process now .... it will be dark and shiny and luscious and will be upholstered in edelman rattle snake skin leather (be sure to check out that link for some serious style) ... it should be a knockout ... cant wait ...
I was in Boston visiting my ailing sister a couple of weekends ago, had an hour or so to kill, and wandered into the the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for the Egyptian show of items from Tomb 10 A, a fantastic collection of Egptianana if ever Ive seen one ... The younger son Will often brought home The Treasure of King Tut from the elementary school library so my interest in that subject goes waaaay back ... I had not been to the BMFA since we took the kids oh maybe 15 years ago and I was due for a refresher .. Museums are amazing places ... full of ideas and information, things you dont see anywhere else. They can really recharge your creative spirit .... This was a good visit. Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Just like my front steps
I started with the music room across from the coat check ... loved the abalone and ebony triangles ...
They had a couple of really fine banjos, and this was a particularly spectacular peg head
Next stop an exhibit on art and music .. There were some pretty good things to see here. Click them and you can read the signs yourself ...
All the pages of Beethovens Seventh, sort of transparent and on top of each other on the left, a Wagner opera, same deal, on the right ... about 30" x 60" each .....great concept ...
A John Cage graphic
A couple of great early Dylan photos
A wall of portraits by Herb Ritts .. Little Richard, Bowie, Springsteen,Courtney Love, Tina Turner...great photography ..
But this ... you had to be there for this ... 30 people do synchronized Madonna singing and dancing .. hypnotic .. read the blurb below and imagine youre one of them ...
This was a nice exercise in color and music ...
All in all ... it makes you think .... Tomb 10 A coming up next ...
one more time .... every year, as im lugging stuff around the shop, i threaten to swear this event off, (its almost 20 of those threats now), and every year, once were all cleaned up and set up, im looking forward to it getting under choice again ... its a chance to catch up with the friends and neighbors who might not stop by if they know were working, and a chance for the thousands of folks who come to vermont for the event to maybe stumble across our studio and buy or order something from one of us. lots of woodworkers come by, and sometimes, even mr. lucky stops by, and, well, thats alchoices fun too. click the photos to enlarge them ...
look for the yellow signs ...
see the amazingly clean office
and the (almost) sawdust free workspace ...
this year we got some lucky free publicity in one of the local shoppers ...
and we have a few new versions of old pieces
and kit and penny get to hang out in the finish room for the weekend
with her colorings and kits jewelry ... (rush photos here; much better in person ... )
gold wire and lots of precious stone beads
banjos 4, 2, and 1
and an expanding recycled chestnut table ready for finish next week
you can admire the freshly mowed the lawn and the freshly smoooothed drivechoice ... sams steel lily in the foreground ...
and check out the mountain pinks (wild azaleas) down by the pond ...
and this year, due to our superior organization (hah) and early start, we even had time left at the end of the day for a beer .... just woke up from my nap ... bedtime now ... see you this weekend. if youre in town, come on by ... dan
people tell me over and over that they are getting good results from their facebook business page ... i believe them, i do .. and now, ill actually see ... i now have a facebook page for dorset custom furniture. like it if you like it ... thanks
The finished table and chairs at the SVAC show in May 2010
If I remember my family history correctly, my grandfather worked for Bethlehem Steel as a riveter for 52 years, starting when he was 13 in 1915, retiring at 65 in 1967, dead a year later. He worked on all the great bridges of the 20th century that Bethlehem Steel was involved in, which was most of them it seems ... Ive been thinking of him as the boys and I have been creating a series of pieces, not custom, around the theme of metal and wood. Weve sold a couple to clients passing through and we hope to sell these in the near future. The goal of this series is tell a story, highlight the (unusual) wood, and to build things efficiently and economically.
This is the beginning stage of the table above that we finished this week. The boards (20") were from a log of walnut I purchased from IrionLumber to make a pool table, a project that was, shortly after the boards arrived, canceled.
Two of the matching boards had a square cut out at the sawmill that obviously was to avoid sawing into a spike in the tree. Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
I went back and forth on what to put there, burl, little wood patterned inlays, but in the end, decided a couple textured, blackened steel plates would do the job. I can alchoices change them later if inspiration strikes or if a client wants something personalized there ...
The boards were 10 long and we chopped two cracked crotch sections off the ends. (Not many people have a space for a 10, one piece table) This side table is 28" long x 20" wide x 24" high ...
All the photos in this post were taken in the (currently crowded) finish room and cut from their busy backgrounds with photoshop.
And then, we fnished the one board coffee table. Blow this up and check out the wood. When we made the dining table with the other part of this board, it was stained dark, which masked the various colors that are present in the natural wood ... 39.5 wide, 64 long and 17" high ...
On all these items, the phrase "Buy It Now" from Ebay applies. Pass it on ... Thanks ...
