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 ...
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 ...
And we assembled the table as we went out the door Friday afternoon ...
9/16
Were making progress on the big Claro walnut slab table I described in the two most recent posts below. We should have it upright on the base tomorrow and ready for the finish next week. It looks like it will be a beautiful piece ... The slab has some pretty interesting and incredible color and grain variations and we like the new base design that the customers encouraged us to create ... It is going to be a heavy one though ... Hope they have a good floor system ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
The top is butterflied and scraped relatively smooth. Well assemble the base and complete work on the bottom of the table and hopefully have it upright for the weekend ...
The chairs will be leaving in the morning to get their Danish cord seats at Sandy Sherman Chair Caning in Brookline, Vermont ... Its our first effort with the Danish cord and Im looking forward to seeing how it works how ...
We started the day with a couple hours of drilling and tapping ...
and a test assembly before we finish sanding and varnishing on the bottom tomorrow... all for now ...
well, you probably know what this is ... another banjo by will ... #4. curly maple, ebony, and brass this time ... half fretless. kind of a neat concept that allows the player to slide notes on the upper part of the fretboard where the frets are further apart, but yet play accurately up high on the neck. click the photos to enlarge them ...
heres a link to a 40 second you tube concert here ... a short improv of mole in the ground ...im told #4 has a nice sustain compared to the others. ok ... i can hear that.
being the fourth banjo, it required new new techniques and new and more accurate jigs and processes like the ebony backstrap and the adjustable 3 degree compound angle drilling jig for the dowel stick hole that was based on this jig we made for drilling long turnings on the lathe .... slick
next time, he says hell add a push block to the back of the jig so he can drill the hole using the tail stock crank, but this time he just pushed it slowly against the bit.
will cut the stopped fretboard slots (a nice clean feeling edge, but without the fussy banding on banjo #2 )(scroll down) on the cnc using a mini mini .026 diameter router bit. for the decimally challenged out there, that is 2/3rds of a 32nd of an inch. a pretty small router bit ... get em from mcmaster carr or stew mac i think. ...
the fretboard binding on banjo 2 .. getting that fifth string tuner curve was a trial as i recall
and then, to secure the brass, he used a variation of a nifty trick we read about on a greene and greene details forum where the hall brothers applied ebony edge details with slotted brass screws and then filed off the slotted parts, leaving tapered smooth tipped pins ... i think he also used a little epoxy or something for insurance .. its a very cool detail in person ..
the whole deal
close up of the fretless part with the stainless steel pins
pot shot ... ha ha
and the back view with the ebony details
nice curly cherry and nice detail on the hardware and dowel stick ... i particularly like the brass wire armrest ... the ebony split line is a cool detail ... and i think the finish is 6 or 7 coats of tru-oil, a gun stock finish ... seeders instruments, wills new website has recently received two orders for complete banjos and one for a reproduction neck for an existing older pot ... the boy is off and running ...
will took this picture at frog hollow yesterday when he dropped off the bench ... they decided to display it with the frame that will be buried in the ground under the installed bench ... i guarantee, no one will be walking off with it once its installed ... other entries are in the frames above ...
5/1/11 ready for the show that opens at frog hollow in burlington next week ... it will be there for a month and then installed at the museum ... the openings next friday evening ... come by if you are in the area ... it should be fun ...
were coming down the home stretch on the montshire museum bench. the top half of this post i wrote back in early february and now were wrapping up the actual construction .. if you missed the post back then, its a really nice project and a nice collaboration with the museum and frog hollow to get artists work in the public domain. we are flattered to be included ... scroll down to see the bench in process ... well be finishing it up later this week .. 
2/1/11 We were flattered to get a letter in the mail Saturday from The Montshire Museum of Science. They announced a competition last fall for the purchase of 5 benches, made by Vermont artists and furniture makers, for their outdoor garden walk project. Thank you Dave Hurwitz for reminding me (several times) to enter. they selected a new version of our Bridges bench that we made for the State of Craft ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont show at the Bennington Museum last spring ... Were flattered and honored and I located the chestnut planks well use for the wood part earlier today .... ready to go ... All five benches will be displayed at Frog Hollow in Burlington for a brief time before being installed in their permanent location at the museum in May ... Looking forward to it ... Click the photos and specs to enlarge them ...
step one ... roll the 3/8ths by 2 steel into two identical arcs and weld on the top rails and the bridge struts ...
prime and paint the steel
make the wood base and lay it out for the bolt holes ...
here will is drilling for the rivets that will go in the edge of the seat ... he made a jig with the layout holes on the drill press and then drilled the holes in the seat edge freehand using the jig as a guide
we collaborated on the installation base design with the museum installation experts and we will install this base on the bottom of the base after the show ... all stainless and pressure treated ..
well be finishing the chestnut using a penofin verde color .. weve used penofin products in the past and they are excellent, except for the smell when you first apply it ... it dissipates pretty quickly though and leaves a nice water resistant finish ..
and we got a nice photo of our original bench in the recent montshire news letter ... thanks ! ill post more photos when were finished ...
