Credenza with Composites
Here's a new project. This credenza, designed by Tony Kramer is to fit into a niche. This will be the first time I am using composition appliqués or "onlays" manufactured by Decorator's Supply (video here). Cheesy? I don't know, this type of decoration has been going on for at least 100 years and longer if one considers the plaster medallions of Renaissance ceilings. These particular onlays are made of sawdust and hide glue, to apply them you steam them over a steam table which activates the glue and then...
read moreLadders
They say that the best thing to do when you fall off a horse is to get back on one. In that spirit, and because I somehow need to get up to my mezzanines, I built a pair of ladders that will not do what the aluminum extension ladder that I'd been using for 12 years did, namely, evaporate from underneath me as I made the transition from ladder to deck. After googling wood ladders I was surprised to find that many fire departments use wood ladders, some of them over 100 years old (see San Francisco Fire Department). Fir is used for...
read moreWhite Pine Shelves
Well, I should catch up a bit. The white shelves; Mara had to do most of the work, but I did provide a running commentary. Many thanks to Mara, Marilyn, and Andrew Immer of More Than A Carpenter (FB link here). For pine shelves this job came out rather well, and the time spent milling 1-½ yellow pine down to 1-1/8 sure makes it look a step above the typical ¾ inch thickness. During installation we almost got away with making this an installation without moldings but a uneven ceiling nixed that. Still, it looks very clean and...
read moreI’ve never once considered the chair’s feelings.
I was only pretending that a broken wrist wouldn't slow me down, what an optimist! While it has not stopped the Painted Shelf job it has slowed things down, way down. Also, Mara has had to take care of other commitments like our state mandated wildlife management reports, her own work, and since it was decided on the 3rd week that the fracture needed surgery a lot of time was needed to find doctors, price services, schedule appointments etc. Eternal thanks to my customer, Andrew, for his patience. I've often compared chair...
read morePainted Shelves
Here is another CustomMade project, thankfully this one is local and it's not swamped from a Christmas rush so I don't have to deal with missing mail orders, parts deliveries to the wrong address and an ever escalating deadline, not to mention the shipping fees. I gave the customer different options, from veneer core white oak ply and solids to painted 'clear and better' pine. This is to be painted pine. Two variants of this design were offered, one with the base unit deeper than the shelves, but we decided to go flush, the...
read moreHey Look… Again
The folks at CustomMade have published an interview with me about the coffee dripper. Check it out here.
read moreSmall Job via CustomMade.
I did manage to score a small job via CustomMade. I have to say that didn't go as smoothly as anticipated for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the company that I ordered the stainless drip tray sat on the order for 5 days before shipping it, then when tracking said it had been delivered to my location it hadn't. It was lost. Phone calls, emails, driving around the neighborhood ensued but it didn't show up until later that evening when people returned for work and discovered the package. Not such a big deal, except this was a rush job...
read moreCustomMade.com
I thought I'd try out CustomMade, so far no luck, but it certainly has helped in brushing up my bids. And I'm slowly putting up bits of my portfolio on their site. This is odd looking device is a drip coffee holder, the cones fit on top and the cups below and here it uses a commercial drip tray, aluminum, stainless, and sipo. Below, a rough sketch for a 5' X 5' painted table that I decided not to pursue. The buyer wanted the tops to lift up like a school desk and to have 12" of depth to the space...
read moreJust in time for Thanksgiving!
This design is about as simple as it gets, but I think the proportions came out very well. Something most people don't consider is that once a table is surrounded by an army of chairs any fancy legwork, pedestals, stretchers, etc are often hidden, but don't let that stop you! This was my first experience with Sipo, (Entandrophragma utile), a mahogany look alike and it behaves like a good quality African Mahogany with the quarter sawn parts going very ribbony, other parts had a bit of pomelle figure. Here's a shot of the...
read moreBirdseye
This little table, "Reta's Oval", turned out to be not so diminutive in terms of construction. It's been a while since I've done any curved work, and it was on a project where time and money were not the objective, still, it's surprising to have to re-learn what you've known. Here's a couple of photos of some of the jigs and fixtures used to make the table. The X-Y axis oval cutting device didn't work because the difference between the major an minor axis of the oval was too small to allow the blocks to...
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