11/19/2012 ...  will is coming along now on the next pool table, our third this year.  so far, except for a little input from me on sorting and selecting the wood, hes pretty much done the whole thing himself.  this afternoon, after finishing the blinds, he started taking it apart to begin the finishing process.  click the photos to enlarge them.

this new table is roughly based on this one from about 2005  ... website link here

and this one from 2009 ... blog post link to that table here
we started the process with a pile of kiln dried, reclaimed hemlock timbers from  our friend jef harris at vintage log and lumber in alderson, west virginia.  weve been buying timbers and planks from jef for, i dont know, 6 or 7 years now?  he usually has what we need at a fair price, kiln dried and hardware free.  weve bought mostly chestnut, but also some reclaimed oak and miscellaneous other stuff, like this hemlock.

reclaimed lumber alchoices has its particular challenges, but this batch gave us what we needed without much of a fight.

we emailed jef our cad drawing and cut list, and he got the wood together and sent it on a truck, right to our door.

after two sets of broken slate for the previous table, we went with a new suppler, kurt schmidt, of a. e. schmidt company in st. louis, a long time manufacturer and supplier of quality pool room products.

here will secures the steel that holds the legs and rails together and assures that any seasonal shrinkage in the lumber takes place below the leveled surface of the slate support.

when the rough frame is assembled, the slate support frame is screwed to the base and the slate added to mark out the pocket cuts on the slate support.

about this time, we finalized the finish treatment with the client, and confirmed that the sights (decorative and functional inlays in the rails that divide the playing surface into 4 and 8 parts) would be green abalone diamonds.  in this case, the table is a standard 8 footer and the playing surface is 44 x 88, making the sights 11" on center from the centers of the long and short sides.  the clients house is a new post and beam structure, so he chose the lighter of the finishes on the left.

will cut the diamond shaped green abalone inlays on the cnc.  they are available commercially, but usually only in laminated abalone, so we prefer to cut our own from hand selected, solid green abalone blanks from stewart-macdonald, a luthier supply house.

 the rubber cushions are glued to the poplar subrails, and the rails themselves, in this case, natural cherry, are then ready to cut to length and drilled for the pocket ears.

we covered drilling for the pockets in several of our other pool table posts, including the most recent one here.   will is coming down the home stretch now.  the first coat of finish is on the bottoms of the cherry rails, and tomorrow he will take the table completely apart and sand and finish the rough beams ... felt the rails and rack em up ... more later ...
other pool table posts are here ...
august, 2012
november, 2012
december, 2008
pool tables and card tables on our website
12/6/2012 ... ready to go ... well be installing this one in stowe, vt next week ... onsite pictures then ...

 natural cherry rails with green abalone sights (diamonds)

camel simonis felt ...

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seeders instruments banjo 8

well, seeders instruments banjo #8 arrived in northern ireland on friday ... it was wills first international website order. the shipping was a concern at first, but the US Postal Service handled it flawlessly. it left tuesday afternoon ... 3, or 2? days ... reasonable cost considering ...
it sounds great, as you can hear on this one minute clip of will playing and singing. link to the video here ...
i didnt get a lot of progress pictures. it got itself together and out the door mostly on evenings and weekends and went without a hitch, so i only occasionally glimpsed the progress as it went along.
great saturn peg head inlay. that pot and drawing on the right is his next project
regular old hard oil finish ... 6 or seven coats i think ...
the whole deal
and the label
great combo of woods and restrained design collaboration. i liked the no fretboard inlays much more than i expected to ...
back viewstay tuned for more ... ha ha ...

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new camera !!

well, another 3 years, another camera. i think i got my first kodak 1 megapixel camera in 2001. what a novelty that was ... i used that for a couple of years, and then a friend who worked for field & stream sold me his e10 olympus. that was really the camera that got my attention. it took (and still takes) incredibly clear and detailed images, but it eats AA batteries and takes about 60-70 seconds from when you push the shutter to when you see the photo on the 1.75" screen. that one got me started though. click the photos to enlarge them ...
in 2006, i bought a nikon d70, which took some great pictures, and then in 2009, the d90 you see below with the scotch tape over the shutter release. it will take a minute to get comfortable with the canon, but im pretty impressed so far. these handheld, casual snapshot images are compressed from 6 MB to 200K and they are still incredibly sharp.
after briefly and unsuccessfully trying the nikon d7000, i went with the canon t2i, which as mr moore prophesied, more powerful (18 mega pixels) and less expensive, than its predecessors. this brand new t2i was less than either of my nikons.
it seems to do really well in high contrast situations. all photos here are handheld on the P for program setting which automatically selects the asa and exposure ...
our dining room at sunset
the kitchen, same sunset
my d90 ... i ran over it with the electric seat in my convertible, and after about 4 months at the repair shop, waiting for parts, it came back and the shutter button shot across the room two weeks later ... it still works though and will be fixed when the part comes in. it seems that nikon is shutting out its independent repair shops from receiving new parts, which is sad ...
the new one ... ive already dropped it once .. no problem !! havent tried the video feature yet ...
ill leave you with this one, a zoomed image, shot from the same seat on the couch as the shot of the dining room above, cropped and lightened ... its all there ...

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seeders instruments banjo 12

will wrapped up banjo #12 last week and his client/friend is coming to pick it up tomorrow afternoon.  jeremy is going to be one happy banjo picker.  his friend is a part time professional musician and you can here jeremys band, the flat top trio, at this link .  click the photos to enlarge them.

will used his newly learned engraving talents on this project.   he learned his new skills in west virginia this summer in a class taught by kevin enoch, a banjo maker and master engraver.  coincidentally, kevin lives in beltsville, maryland, and will and i were able to visit him when we were on our choice to deliver the pool table we took the virginia in august.  it was about 5 minutes out of our choice and it was a unique experience for me.

kevin enoch, of enoch banjos, is a master banjo builder and master engraver and he was kind enough to give us the tour of his studio. 

 he had a work in progress and i wish now i had taken a little more time to get a good photo of it.  amazing, artistic craftsmanship, and i know will was totally inspired by the course, and by the studio visit.  its not often we get to beltsville.

#12 has a 12" pot with a very mellow sound.  the pot is constructed from blackened claro walnut, of which we seem to have many scraps of lately, with a mahogany end cap and a wenge tone ring, an ebony fret board, and a figured mahogany neck.  a handsome combination for sure.

 vermont pride is strong here, and at the 5th string fret and a few frets below, will added new versions of his vermont touch.  these are the counties engraved on a miniature map of vermont.

 the little flowers are actually dots with engraved dividers that make them look like multi piece inlays.  clever.

 a little carving by the 5th string tuner

 the whole deal ... 

and on wills website, seeders intruments , there are a couple short videos so you can hear it as well as see more photos and a list of the banjos vital statistics.  this is the banjo will was working on when the made in vermont video was made for WCAX.  in case you missed that profile, you can see that short video here.

all for now ...

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