woodworking tools tips

it didnt take too long to go from the basket case above to the reenergized table below. good for another 100 years if my clients can keep the movers achoice from it. it was hard for us to imagine quite how it ended up in the shape above, but it looks good now. we cant figure out exactly how old it is either, not being experts on early factory ?? furniture. it did definitely have some obviously hand done joinery and a bricklaid veneered apron, which puts it on the early side, but it also ahd some factory like elements, including the little buttons over the screws holding the aprons on, some slotted brass machine made screws reinforcing the leg joints, yet the top veneer pattern had a hand done feeling to it. id peg it early 20th century, english. comments? click the photos to enlarge them ...

ta dahhhh .. striking piece with a decent, but probably not original shellac finish.

the breaks in the stretcher were mostly on the long grain and after will stuck them back together with glue and masking tape, i routed in some 3/16ths" maple bars over the repaired breaks to reinforce them.

i also cleaned and replaced the 4 dowel joints where the stretcher joined the legs. there were some earlier minor stretcher repairs so it wasnt the first tragedy that befell it ... i dont believe the previous mishaps were as serious as this one though. will also replaced some broken off pieces on the leg top yesterday and repaired the area where the aprons joined in the bridle joint. we swabbed on the hide glue today and wriggled the stretcher into place. no clamps necessary except on the bridle joint. (almost) good as new.

im on a quest to salvage some digital images from my many 4 x 5 transparencies that i had professionally captured by my friend cook neilson over the first 20 years of my business. im currently at the beginning of the process and it will take a while to get them all up here, but its certainly a nostalgic process. click the photos to enlarge them ...

im using a crude device of my own design along with a sunny day and my nikon d90 camera on a tripod to digitize these things. i have tried scanning (expensive and not hat good in the past) and scanning prints, also not that good. these images arent certainly as good as the transparencies, but unless i want to spend a ton of dough with a real professional scanner, i think, for now, they are good enough.

here we have a piece of our greene and greene influenced work. it is from the same era as the tapered piece above, the late 80s, early 90s. cherry and cherry, greene and greeney, without being a reproduction. in the style of, so to speak.

this design was influenced by a client supplied photo of a tall piece by c.r. ashbee ... an english architect. also in my interpretation of the arts and crafts style.

this piece, tapered on all four sides, in curly redwood and curly hard maple was part of a bedroom for a pennsylvania client. i am currently looking for an on site, high resolution photo of the bed that went with these two pieces. it was one of our more powerful and unusual beds.

the double bureau, in the same pallete

a variant of the above, for a different client. mother of pearl snowflake inlays

one of our early bureaus. the design was a collaboration with a client and actually, the others above are derivatives of this same structure. take an object; do something to it.

ok, i know these arent case pieces, but i had to build these two tables, strict reproductions of a federal card table in the clark art museum in williamstown, massachusetts, before i could get to the two case pieces below. these tables were, i would have to say, pretty challenging.

so, we strip the style down, use the same stained mahogany and light wood palette, and add a bunch of those little string inlays on the case frame. modern federal

mahogany, curly maple, rosewood, ebony, the works, in a traditional arrangement.

ok, crazy time ... this one could be with the sideboards, but, it was for the clients bedroom, to hold a tv and the related electronic stuff and display a few objects darte. what you cant see in this photo are the tapered turned legs that are covered with hammered sheet copper that match the shop made hammered copper door pulls. love the curly redwood veneer and the rosewood combined with the birdseye. where are those adventurous clients who are not afraid to commission a challenging piece these days. there were certainly a LOT more of them in the late 80s and 90s than there have been in the last 5 years. people in general, imho, are not taking the same chances that they were back in the old days.

and i marvel at this one. 1983. how did we do that ???? first, your friends at mother myricks have to trust you, and trust that you can pull it off, and pay you to figure it all out. as i recall, we had a snapshot of a candy store in the airport in chicago, a very rough section drawing by a local architect, and a couple days of air sketching that led to a full size mockup of the section drawing and some plywood templates. it was 46 around it, with 3 pairs of matching sections, a long straight section, the piece with the angled glass with a straight section attached to that, and the rounded ends with the step backed shelves. curves, brass, lights, glass, wires, mirrors, plumbing.... i wish i could find the progress photos, if there even ever were any.

mother myricks moved a few years ago and we cut the island as it was affectionately known, apart, changed the angles, and reassembled it in its new home. wow, is about all i can say.
going back through this old stuff is kind of interesting. more below ...

a pennsylvania dutch style kas cabinet, whose design was strongly influenced by a photo on the cover of a sothebys auction catalog. as i recall, it was about 60" wide and 7 tall, and knocked down in the traditional manner: base with feet, two side panels, back,two doors, and top cornice piece.

on site

stained cherry, reclaimed wavy glass, in the lobby of the dorset inn for about 15 years.

a very fun corner tv cabinet with lots of inlays and fine rosewood details

a quartered sycamore double dresser with hand forged hardware and paint

these pieces were all made at the same time for a new york apartment. hickory, wenge veneer plywood, and shop made steel bases.

there is a very early blog post with more photos at this link

an art deco style macassar ebony and mother of pearl cabinet by will (case) and trevor (inlay)

click the photos to enlarge them ... more images and process photos about this piece here.

Sabtu, 23 April 2016

some of our transitional side chairs

weve been making these transitonal, biedermeier inspired, side and arm chairs now for about 15 years, even after making literally, hundreds of them, they are still a challenge, start to finish. curves, compound angles, compound angled leg tops, angled mortises and tenons, you name it. they are, i must admit though, extremely comfortable, and work in both traditional and contemporary settings depending on the wood and finish choices. click the photos to enlarge them.

they look easy, at first glance, when they are finished. theyre not.

these eight bubinga and lacewood chairs will be leaving for england from westport connecticutt december 6th. they will accompany an expanding bubinga pedestal dining table we made about 10 years ago.

12/11/12 .. this just in. a photo of the chairs with the bubinga table we made a while back. the clients are moving themselves and their furniture back to england this week ...

by now, weve got most of the parts that can be cut on the cnc, programmed into the cnc. folks have commented that we would get more legs on the planks if we bandsawed them individually, which we used to do. yeah, it can be done, but i did enough of them to know that after you saw (and sand them for a few hours), getting the mortises in the right places after you cut them isnt worth the savings in wood. woods cheap compared to shop time.

there are a lot of cool visuals as these chairs are in the works

here trevor is cutting them on the cnc, adding the mortises in all the right places as he goes.

and here they are with the cherry tables we finished recently. the tables are made from a pair of 10 foot bookmatched cherry boards and can be assembled into one 10 foot table for large gatherings.

the arm chair version from a previous set

woodworking tools tips

Pages

Minggu, 18 September 2016

two cherry side tables

Selasa, 07 Juni 2016

an antique table repair

Minggu, 15 Mei 2016

a few case pieces

Sabtu, 23 April 2016

some of our transitional side chairs

Postingan Populer

Blog Archive