The other day, while mid-conversation with my wife, I had a sudden, terrible thought. No, I knew the oven was off. My fear was much worse; Had I glued MDF panels into the frames Id fabricated to fit OSB?
If youve been reading along on the beginnings of my bench construction, youll know that I fabricated the rabbets in my bench panel frames of different depths to accommodate their respective panels (MDF & OSB). Though both sheet goods are 3/4" nominal thickness, they are just a hair different in actual thickness. Using scrap boards and relative dimensioning I made sure that each rabbet was exactly the right depth. I went as far as to mark each frame with their respective panel type with purple chalk.
After many hours of worrying, I took a quick dive into the garage as soon as I got home. Luckily, the MDF panels I glued were set in their corresponding frames.
After that scary episode, I got to work and assembled the OSB panels in the OSB frames as intended. There concludes my bench construction for now.
"Why?" you may ask am I taking a break from the bench? Because its January! Time to build the Guild Winter Wall Cabinet.
As Ive said, I plan to bastardize the guild design and transform it into a tool cabinet. The image to the right is my first draft at the cross section of my design. I would go into detail about all the stubby little shelves and rear plenum, but suffice to say I drew it late Sunday night and after a good nights rest Im not particularly happy with it. Im working towards having the revised design ready for the pre-build chat on Wednesday at 10:00 pm Eastern. If I have time Ill throw the design up here first. Even if I cant, Ill see you at the chat. Don’t be late.
Have you ever rushed home to find the oven off?
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If youve been reading along on the beginnings of my bench construction, youll know that I fabricated the rabbets in my bench panel frames of different depths to accommodate their respective panels (MDF & OSB). Though both sheet goods are 3/4" nominal thickness, they are just a hair different in actual thickness. Using scrap boards and relative dimensioning I made sure that each rabbet was exactly the right depth. I went as far as to mark each frame with their respective panel type with purple chalk.
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| The stove was off and the OSB was in the OSB frames. |
After that scary episode, I got to work and assembled the OSB panels in the OSB frames as intended. There concludes my bench construction for now.
"Why?" you may ask am I taking a break from the bench? Because its January! Time to build the Guild Winter Wall Cabinet.
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| The first draft of the bastard wall cabinet. |
Have you ever rushed home to find the oven off?
weve got a good project coming up ... two recycled chestnut cabinets and a new mantle, built around an existing stone fireplace ... the clients were interested in having a large flat screen tv pull out from the cabinet on the right ... a 46", larger, in fact, than would fit in a traditional head on installation. my friend, and, coincidentally, the audio/visual man on the job, kem verner, told me it was no problem to do this as the tv could go back into the cabinet on an angle ... hmmm.. why not? ..
the clients were serious, so i picked up one of the sanus tv brackets we typically use .. i first tried putting the wall for the tv bracket on an angle, thinking that would give me the most flexibility, but, in the end ...
kem suggested mounting the bracket on a vertical partition 90 degrees to the face of the cabinet and as close to the front as possible ... click the photos to enlarge them ..
in the end, this location gave us the most extension and smoothest in/out operation for the tv and the clients ( and i too) were able to see it would work ...
the vertical mdf on the left represents the retractable door in the closed position.
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 ...
