odds and ends

ok ... thanksgiving weekend's almost over ... back to work tomorrow. and i'm sorting it all out (hopefully) today. from the looks of it, i've got a lot of balls in the air, but some of them are either out the door or are in their final throes of being figured out. in the background, not pictured in this post is another custom dining room that will later get its own post. in the meantime, here's what we'll be working on monday ... click the photos to enlarge them.

above, a 'practice' carving that will did recently for the corner of an upcoming dining table project. he'll be doing more of those samples this week as he finishes up the corner cupboard you can see below.

lorne and i have been wrestling with this, what we are calling the 'x table'. the concept came from one of our designer clients, and seemed pretty easy until i tried it .. i kind of had it, but lorne took the ball and ran with it and got it all figured out in the end. he got the angles figured out so they came off the saw perfect and precise and came up with the idea of assembling the two halves, one solid piece and one leg, and then gluing the half laps together last.

here you see the 1/4 scale, half scale and full size mdf mockup .. it was alm ost impossible to find the 12/4 white oak for the real thing, and we didn't have much extra so we were extra careful.

this is one of the halves. with the final concept we were able to reinforce the third leg tenonss with 4" timberlocks and glue, making the entire structure very rigid when it was glued up.

with the 3/4" glass with the 1" bevel. there will be a white pickled finish on the white oak.

and i stopped to see steve holman and he's coming along on the fancy reception desk that trevor helped him with ... that's going to be something ...

a walnut and steel coffee table is headed for the big city this week.

and will is finishing up another banjo project. this is an antique, complete pot and dowel stick, but the original mandolin style neck (banjolin) was missing. there were pictures available online so he could copy the original inlay style and once he adds the tuners, it will be headed for england i think.

the inlays with the original mandolin style, 8 string tailpiece in the jar.

and next up, a 'vermont' banjo. all vermont wood including a dramatic hornbeam fretboard that is covered by the rubber bands here ...
this table will be leaving next week with the x table ... distressed walnut with flip up leaves on the ends and twisted steel supports by sam ... the schedule's tight, but doable with a little luck and extra effort.

and in the background, we've got another custom dining room happening. a table, 8 chairs and a corner cupboard ... more on that project later in a separate post.

and we got the crazy little bobbin leg tables out the door last week. i missed that estimate by about 120% ... win some, lose some. can't say i wasn't warned ..
and lastly, below, i'm working with my chestnut cabinet client on a console table concept.
they like the 'bridges' bench and we're trying to see if it will adapt to console table shape.
looks promising to me. we'll see ... it looks like the last sunny and 50 degree day of this beautiful unusually warm vermont fall. wash the convertible and put it at the neighbor's for the winter .. take the pump out of the pond ... winter's coming ...

A 'Bethlehem Steel' Bureau

I'm sort of fascinated by the wood and steel elements of our newish 'Bethlehem Steel' line. We have been working on it for about a year now and this is the first case piece ... There just seem to be endless possibilities here ... This one started with the drawing above, but as we were building it, even though all the other tables in this style so far have had the legs pointing down, this piece definitely seemed to want it's legs inverted, pointing up. OK, we'll listen. We turned them over and the results are below. More anchored to the ground, but yet lighter feeling at the same time .... Sometimes you can figure things out in the drawings, but sometimes you have to let your instincts take over .... The piece, to us at least, seems to be stronger and more solid in this configuration ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...
The case with side shims and full extension undermount runners ... It's the first time we tried the Grass runners ... So far so good ... They seem to wobble a bit less when you open and close them , and close a little faster than the Blums ... Cheaper too from our supplier ... The high dolly was a brainstorm too ... Hate, hate, hate crawling around on the floor ...
Mocking up the bolts with masking tape .. three holes or four ?? Three it is ...
More bolts in the front center leg ... This is some of Irion's finest figured cherry .. I've had this log for several years waiting for the right project ... We had Just enough to make it ...

Wenge, Hickory and Steel Art Deco Style Pieces

These pieces all had their seperate design and execution complications, but in the end, they all came out well and all the complications were resolved. One of the nicest details is the angled tops of the wenge cases that are complemented by the recessed, round hickory moldings that set off the recessed again hickory doors and drawers. That stepping in feature led us on quite a hunt to find the proper hinges when we remembered that the client wanted mirrors on the insides of the doors.
The low piece is two sided and only 32" deep so the drawers had to be fairly shallow. We ended up making the door cabinet shallow which allowed half of the drawers on one side to be deeper. The top is faux painted mdf for the photo and the piece will have an onyx top when it gets to NYC.
The tall chest was the most straight forward of the three, but selecting the veneers for a pleasing light/dark pattern involved some trial and error.
The armoire was just like the others, only bigger, heavier, and hair raising to get the two big veneered doors to lie in a plane and close correctly given the lack of case frame structure. Most of the work on these pieecs was done by Mark Granfors before he moved South. Finishing by Jeremy Russell, steel bases by Sam Mosheim and Jim Parsons. Teamwork, teamwork.