summer 2013

well, ok,  this is gonna take a minute ... loyal readers might think that since i haven't posted many new projects lately, that not much has been happening.  they would be wrong.  it's summer, and there is more going on at dorset custom furniture now than there has been for, literally, years.   lots of projects in the works, on the board and committed, and in the design stage.  i'm thinking that maybe this time it's for real, that the economy is finally rebounding, though i have been fooled several times in the last few years.  cautious optimism creeps in ... click the photos to enlarge them ... 

 the kitchen we started back in may is slowly getting finished ... we're on the home stretch, and the painters have taken over now .. here are a few progress shots, the last being from wednesday, the third.

 

we've got a little cornice work, and some pantry pullouts to construct and then we put it all back together when the paint is done and the appliances arrive ... 

 it's starting to look like the model ..

 next up on that project is a nice 8' x 8' master bath vanity, again painted.  this is an early elevation that has since been revised.

this is the inspiration photo, with notes  ...

we made the round corners and the main drawer box on tuesday and we'll be assembling the rest of the boxes later next week.

saw it, plane it, sand it ...

 lots of parts to this project .. two other interesting vanities ...

 this one in reclaimed barnboards, with their original, exterior texture intact ...

and some unusual corner shelves involving a hand hewn beam salvaged from the restoration process and some 3" thick torsion box shelves to fill the notches in the beam that were formerly occupied by the floor joists ..

 plan view

 above is the cardboard mockup, with some assorted door frames ... it's a busy site

and for the same builder, on a different project, we're going to get to do a slightly smaller, 8' version of this 10' cherry shaker style wall piece we did back in 2006, in the same house .. it'll be old home days .. 

 and sam's busy in the metal shop .. working on some new railings for the dorset church ..

  there will be a nice handrail and some forged scrolly things .. more on that later ..

 he is finishing up a couple more steel lounge chairs for a landgrove client, and we've got 3 or 4 more steel and wood furniture pieces on the board ... coffee tables, two dining tables ... i just noticed a couple sections of recently completed railings in the background of this photo ..  and so it goes ...

and will's off to west virginia for next week to take an instrument repair course with bob smakula ... in the near future, he's intending to really focus on his banjo business and see where that goes.  banjo, i think, #17, above.  cocobolo and brass, fretless .. cherry and walnut neck and pot ... more info on will's banjos at seedersinstruments.com

 and, weather permitting, which lately we certainly can't guarantee around here, we'll be having some walls for the new metal shop.  drawings are finalized, windows are ordered, used slate has been purchased ... it's all good.  but did i mention the tropical  monsoons we have been having here in vermont?  like clockwork, most afternoons we're getting an inch or so of fresh rain daily and it's supposed to be 90+ degrees again today.  sam's backyard trout stream is running at 10 times its typical cubic feet per minute for this time of year.  ten times its typical july flow, i said.  blown out, is, i believe, the term.

walls monday ...

The Bureau Is Finished

Well, all is not mdf here even though it may look like it in my most recent post ... Will finished up the double bureau yesterday and as I suspected, the cherry is spectacular ... This is my first photo session with my new lights and I think I can do better. The cherry seems kind of 'cool' compared to the real thing ... It's still set up so I've got all weekend ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
this was a hard piece to photograph with all the 'action' in the wood grain ... i took the one above recently and it looks like we could call it 'bee's wing cherry'.
It's interesting to see how the design evolved as we progressed. If you check the cad drawing in the previous post (linked above) you'll see we started out with the legs pointing in the opposite direction, which is the way we've always used them as table legs. in this case, when we were waving them around before they were attached, inverting them seemed to give the bureau more connection and a 'better' feeling .... The cherry was soooooo nice, we debated the hardware choice until the very last minute ... In the end, we didn't want to 'clutter' the look of the piece and Sam is in the middle of a big railing project anyway ... So, brainstorm, imho ... continue the bolt theme with lag bolt pulls ... There was some concern about getting them installed exactly perpendicular, so we made the jig below. First we drilled the guide holes on the drill press, marked out the centers, stuck the brad point drill through into the center mark, pushed the wood guide firmly against the drawer face and drilled the pilot hole. Next we put a longer lag through the wood guide block and screwed it home. That created the perpendicular threading for the actual, shorter pulls which we installed by hand in the precut threads ... there are four 1/8" thick carpet glides on the back of the jig to protect the finished drawer face while in use ...
Below is a close up of the metal finish on the legs ... The angle iron was dynabraded (rotary air sander) with 80 grit and 120 grit. next it was treated with a chemical called ‘ready brown’ from Sur-Fin Chemicals that works on brass and steel to quickly darken it to a brown black color. After treatment it was neutralized with a solution of baking soda and water, sanded again to add highlights, and top coated with ben moore ‘high gloss, low lustre’ metal finish … sounds complicated, but isn’t …
Great job Will and Sam ....