Woodworkers are never board!

neighbors casket

2012-02-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

A neighbor came to me and asked me to make a casket for him. Unfortunately, he has terminal cancer. His good wife is in remission for cancer and so I am sure that the money is on the slim side. He brought a drawing of a casket that was constructed from 2x4s and plywood. After looking at the situation, I asked him if I paid for the wood if I could make it a little nicer. He said ok. I just feel that we should go out in something other than a shipping crate. Three ladies from the church lined the inside and we used packing peanuts for the bottom.

mechanics tool bench top

2012-02-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine us a VW expert and he just purchased this massive tool cabinet. I would kill to have this in my shop just because it has such smooooth running drawers even with a huge amount of weight. However, it did not have a very nice top so he asked me to make a top for it. This thing was 32" wide and 72" long made of maple. This guy is a great guy and a pleasure to work for.

Tool cabinet side

2012-01-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

I am starting my personal plane cabinet. I have about 25 planes and I need a central place to store them. The case needs to be closed to the dust and the moisture of the shop but at the same time I want to readily see them and to show them. The cabinet exterior will be walnut. The writing is Japanese and means woodworking teacher. The writing is in Yew (I think). On the opposite side I plan on putting some line and berry inlay. I have about 3 hours into the inlay. The door will be glass. So far, the plan is to have the cabinet 4' tall and about 30" wide. We will see what the winds of change may dictate. Because this is a personal project, I will work on it as I can. I still need to work on a side board, Tansu cabinet, work bench top for a mechanic friend, and an office for a client. It may be awhile until it is finished.

2nd workbench for Ian

2012-01-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

I just finished the second workbench for my second son. It is pretty much identical to the first bench that I finished last month.You can see that one below.

I started by cutting the poplar to length. and selecting where the legs should go when looking at the front of the bench.

I then laid out construction triangles on all four legs to make sure that the dovetail cuts would not be made in the incorrect position.

I then use the controlled depth cut on the sliding compound to waste the dovetails.

I made a jig to make the dovetail flat and not take too long. I left the depth shallow and used a Stanley 190 to finesse the fit.

Final fitting was done with a chisel.

Here is the result with the assembled bench with the center section filled in solid.

Here is the bench with the center flipped over to the tray format.

This bench design is really usable with the clamping enabled from the center with the removal of the trays. I had a new end vise that I had purchased years ago but never used. I think that it will serve him well. He will have to buy and install the leg vise.

Thanks for looking.

Workbench

2011-12-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

I am building two new work benches for my two sons. I reclaimed the maple from an old metal shop bench. As you can see it was really ugly to start with.

I had hand surgery a week ago and was unable to finish the bottom shelf or put BLO on anything but the top itself.
This bench was patterned after the bench by Rob. Lang.

Two of the legs were timber off cuts from architectural beams.
The cross braces are soft maple.
I have one quick release vise, but I was unable to put it on with one hand.
The second bench will follow in a few weeks.
Thanks for looking.

Dragons for the kids

2011-12-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

I often build furniture for my children for Christmas but because some of them have limited room, I built each of them a Dragon. The dragon is made from Mahogany. I start with a pattern and cut the dragon on the scroll saw.

After the cut I sand each of the 20 pieces so that they have some texture. The pieces are then treated in a bath of sodium hydroxide.

This reacts with the tannins that are in the wood. This turns the mahogany to a deep beautiful red. The dragon is then sprayed with a pre-cat lacquer. Each dragon is numbered, the last being #16.

Arts and Crafts Couch

2011-12-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy the clean and unadorned look of A & C furniture. I like the sturdy nature of the draw bored tenons. I really like the look of quarter sawn white oak. (my favorite woods are still cherry and walnut). I made a bowed arm Morris chair a number of years ago and my plan was always to match that chair with a couch. I made the couch and it is now in the front room of our home.

The upholstery was done by a local shop. The material was a leather LIKE material. I can not afford real leather.
The little table to the left of the couch was a Limbert table that I built a year ago. The computer chair is the only thing left in this room that was not built by myself.

This is a picture of the draw bores holding the tenons.

This is a picture of my chair that I constructed totally by hand a few years ago. I used power tools to make the couch but hand tools to finesse the fit of the mortice and tenon joints.

This is a close up of the couch side. There are double tenons on the front rail. The draw bore is on the back side so as not to be visiable from the front.

On the back of the couch, is the cloud lift. In the picture above, you can also see a lift on the lower front rail.

The construction of the couch is pretty straight forward. There were 15 stub tenons on the back. The horizontal rails are the only tenons that are draw bored.

I hope that you like the work that I have done. It is a ball to work in this medium and have the support of such a good wife. I need to learn upholstery because it is so expensive. I gulped at the $1000 price tag for the cushions, but Karen and I both agree that the resulting furniture was worth the effort and cost.

This is a cut away of a draw bored tenon. A hole is drilled through the mortise. An offset hole is then drilled in the tenon. When the dowel is driven through the drilled hole, it draws the tenon in tight to the piece. The deformed dowel looks weak, but in reality, it is extremely strong.

Otori--(O toe ri)= Honorable gate

2011-09-14T19:00:00.004-06:00

This "Honorable Gate" cabinet is one that I finished last month. It is made of cherry and walnut. There is also some ebony on the top. The glass is "bamboo glass". There are low voltage lamps in the upper section. This client wanted a cabinet to house his satellite and stereo equipment. He had a space that was originally constructed for a fireplace. This built in has six drawers that will hold cds, dvds etc. The right side of the cabinet, at the present does not have a dedicated purpose.

The handles follow the arc of the top

This is the bamboo glass. This is fairly pricy, but well worth the cost

The doors and shelves all have the cloud lift design. Even the back of the shelves have a cloud lift to allow space for the wires.

2011-09-14T18:41:00.001-06:00

I just finished building four more clock frames for my sister. These frames are 43" in diameter and are made up of 24-25 segments. The segments are held together with loose tenons and hide glue. My sister will take these and make a center that is very creative. The clocks are very nice looking and she does a nice job. I built others last winter for her. The completed clocks can be seen down in one of the earlier blog entries.

One more step stool

2011-02-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Karen and I went to Twin to see Ty, Melissa and Josie. We hauled their Christmas gift up because they were not able to carry it at Christmas. I wanted to practice my hand cut dovetails so I built another step stool. I built this one for Josie. I inlaid the word "heiwa" (hay wha) in black ebony. The word means "peace, tranquility, etc." I felt that this word best fit this sweet little girls temperament.

2011-02-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

I took a class from Chris Gochner last week and we built this saw horse along with a shaker step stool. We used the saw horse to help prepare the cherry for the shaker step stool. This horse is finished with terra cotta, green and then black milk paint. The final coat was pre-cat-lacquer. The legs were cut down and finished with hand planes. The top was sized with hand planes. I used a draw knife to distress the edges to give it that "used" look. Brace and bit were used to drill the holes for the legs. A bung hole reamer was use to taper the hole and the leg was secured with a wedge.

This cherry step stool was dressed using hand planes. It was sawed to length on the saw horse above. The dovetails were all hand cut. The shakers generally had an arch at the bottom of the side. I do not care for the look, so I added what is an arts and crafts detail instead. It is called a cloud lift. If you look at older posts, you will see the cloud lift in a better view. The finish is natural cherry. It will take a few months to turn to a deep beautiful red. The cherry has numerous coats of pre-cat-lacquer for durability.

new nightstands

2011-01-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

I just finished these two nightstands for my youngest girl. They are my own design, at least as "my own" is even possible now days. I believe that there are really no original ideas left. I had these nearly completed when I was reading a book on Traditional Japanese Furniture. And there it was...a table with a very similar design from the Edo period. Ahh well, it was a riot to build. The legs and door panel are cherry. The box is walnut. The dovetails are all hand cut on the drawer as well as the carcass of the box. The top is stone. I hope that you enjoy.

new jig

2011-01-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a problem working in the shop because of back spasms. To help with this problem, I have considered raising my workbench, but then I would not be able to use it by the table saw. I have read a re-write of an early 1800s book describing workbenches and working at those benches. I do not always need to hand dovetail, but when I do, I suffer from the spasms. This jig is clamped to the table and raises the work 6". It has really helped the work situation.

Here is a not-yet-finished nightstand for Kelsey. It will still need to be clear coated. The cherry legs will "pop" when the finish is applied. The cabinet will have a drawer and a door. The drawers are built but the door will be completed tomorrow. The top is stone with an open space below the top. There are two of these, and they were built to match Kelsey and Steve's bed and dresser that was built for their wedding gift

Christmas projects

2010-12-26T07:20:00.005-07:00

I subscribe to a magazine called "American Bungalow". The mag. had a picture of similar tables from the early 1900s. I guessed at the sizes and constructed four of these "lamp tables". The bottom book area rotates on a lazy susan. The wood is beautiful quarter sawn white oak. The legs pierce the top and are pillowed. There are a few variations of these legs. I did not care for the triangular shape that some of the tables had so I pillowed the tops of the legs. Under the rotating book area the cross members are dressed with a "cloud lift". The cloud lift is common on many of the arts and crafts styled pieces.

This couch table was built using walnut for the legs and aprons and Sapele for the field. the bow front was laminated alder and a veneer of walnut on the front. The walnut veneer is highly figured with tiger stripes or fiddle back or what ever name you want to call it. Around the field is a black 1/8" strip of ebonized walnut. Walnut will turn very black if exposed to acetic acid (strong vinegar) and iron. Ebony itself is expensive, difficult to bend and difficult to get in lengths for the bow front.

This table was made the same way with the ebonized walnut but the legs and aprons were made of white oak. The front apron was a highly figured white oak and the center field was fiddle back maple. The legs of all of the cabinets were mortised into the legs. In the case of the lamp tables, the lower legs were through mortised. The bow front apron was attached using an angle drilled loose tenon system.

The youngest child got short changed this Christmas. I just barely got started on her night stand. The stands will have cherry legs and walnut casework. The top will be acid treated cement. Pictures will follow this next week after completion of the stand.

Retirement has been grand! I can honestly tell you that I have enjoyed the time in the shop and I do not miss the school.

lots of Christmas projects

2010-11-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

I built 6 of these clock frames for sister Karen. They are made of Alder. Each frame has 48 pieces that are double splined. I routed the inside and outside curves using a router and templates.

I also put the first of many coats of finish on wife Karen's Christmas table. This is called a Limbert table and is made of Quarter sawn white oak. The top is 27 inches wide and 37 inches long. My planer is only 15" wide so this meant that I had to flatten the top using hand planes. The square design and the legs were shaped with power tools, but everything else was shaped using hand tools. All of the fit was done with a hand saw.

I'm a slacker

2010-09-26T12:06:00.000-06:00

I have been very busy in the shop, but I just have not had the desire to post pictures of the projects that I have completed. I retired on May 28th of 2010. The last day of school, the Vice-Principal informed me that my parting gift to the school was to re-build the podium. This is the completed podium. The darker wood is walnut and the lighter wood is cherry. When I delivered the podium the secretaries were very complimentary. The administration was not at the school at the time. I wrongly assumed that they would at least call and thank me for my free labor. I should have known that they would not. Typical of poor administration is the hubris displayed by them.

I was also able to complete a "Safe" cabinet. My neighbor had a floor safe that he wanted to cover so that it was not as ugly as it is by itself.

I also have another cabinet that I am currently doing for another neighbor. This is an Asian styled gun cabinet. It will have a 12 long gun capacity, cleaning supplies and pistol storage. Pictures to follow.

Summer activities

2010-08-17T13:22:00.000-06:00

The summer has been very busy for Karen and I . As soon as school was out we drove to Twin Falls to see Ty and Melissa's new little girl Josie. (We spent a week with them in August at Lake Powell. Josie is such a good baby. I was able to hold her a few times, but McKaela, (my grand daughter), was always trying to hold her. She LOVES babies. ) When we got back from Twin in June we flew to Virginia to see our new grandson Marcus. It was really good to see all of the McCoys and all of us had a great time getting to know Marcus. Again, McKaela was just totally baby hungry and would hold Marcus 24/7 if we let her. (she flew back with us.) The McCoys will live with us here until they decide what to do with housing. It would be ok with Karen and I if they just stayed here the whole time that Beau is in school and saved their money. However, there is only two rooms for the 4 of them. We spent a good part of the summer painting, patching, re-painting and sheet rocking in order to even have two decent rooms for them to use. They need an entire house just for Makenzi's toys.

On the 7th of August, we were able to pick up Tiffany, Mike and our new grand daughter Quinn from the airport. Quinn is such a beautiful little girl. She is active and will fit into the family very nicely. It took nearly 5 years for the adoption to go through, but she is such a cutie, that she is well worth the wait.
This year, only Ty, Melissa, Cadin, McKaela, Kyler and a family friend Cam were able to go to Lake Powell. For the first part of the week, the weather was rather cool and it rained pretty good on us. Thursday was better and Friday was a day that was a typical Powell day. Warm, dry and the water great.

New babies coming out of the wood work

2010-06-30T20:58:00.000-06:00

We went to Ty's and Melissa's house to see Josie and enjoyed our time with her. She is a beautiful little thing and is really a good baby. That was in May. On the 7th of June, we flew out to Virginia to see Cassi, Beau, MaKenzi and the new baby Marcus. He is also healthy and is a good looker like his grandfather.

Don't let the picture fool you! He gets colic every day about 4 and keeps Cassi up till the wee hours.

This little one is just a total doll. She certainly has everyone wrapped around her fingers.

This is a picture of our latest granddaughter Quinn Ming Profsky. Tiffany and Mike will pick her up in China sometime in July or August. Quinn was born in Nov. 20th 2009. As you can see, Quinn is very cute and we are all very excited to add this little special child to our family.

Karen is not about to let my retirement let me get lazy. We have refinished one room in the basement and are well into fixing a second room. Ian used the room and ventilated the walls a number of times with rather large holes and a royal blue paint that would have taken 20 gallons of primer to cover. We decided to just re-sheet rock the entire room. I just finished the second coat of drywall mud today. Painting will begin next week.

In the shop I am building a podium for the high school that I no longer work for. I was informed by the vice principal that it would be my "going away gift" to the school. I am also started on a gun cabinet for my neighbor and a cabinet that covers a safe for another neighbor. I hope I get all of the projects done before I kick the bucket.

After 31 years

2010-06-06T12:43:00.000-06:00

After 31 years I have retired from teaching. Most of the time I had a ball. The last two years have not been good with the construction of the new high school going on all around me. The fumes of the construction equipment was really more than I could bear at times. The windows and lights would shake and the diesel fumes would make me sick. I was able to help design the new shop and it turned out really nice. I am just hoping that the new instructor can get it together enough to maintain the program at the school. I have serious doubts that he will be able to do so.

I have included a few pictures of what it looks like now.

The school's boilers and my compressors sat in this basement. The new school is in the fore ground. It is easy to see how close the construction was to my classroom during the last two years.

This is a view of the shop looking East in better times. The basement hole above is directly below the equipment that is seen in this picture.

Josie Lynn

2010-06-06T11:47:00.000-06:00

The past week we were able to go see our beautiful new granddaughter Josie Lynn Sleight. Grandma was, of course, beside herself with joy with the coming of this little one. She is SOOOOOO cute. I held her but was worried that I would break her. I had forgotten how small babies are. Mom and baby are doing well. Grandma felt bad that we had to return home without her. But then we had 6 of our own.

spring break 2010

2010-04-09T12:34:00.000-06:00

We left on Tuesday the 6th for a few days of spring break. We decided to go to St. George for a few days. We went to the St. George temple on Tuesday afternoon. It was really nice. The rooms are very beautiful. The furniture in the Celestial room was really beautiful. Much nicer than the painted stuff that you see at Timpanogoes.
On Wed. we went to Brigham Young's winter home. It was nice to see. There were a few older pieces of furniture that were interesting but somewhat course. (not what I expected) After the BY home, we went to the tabernacle. The tabernacle was interesting and very nicely restored. It amazes me that the saints lived in wagons, tents and whatever but when the Prophet asked them to build a temple and meeting place they made these beautiful buildings.
After the tabernacle, we went and viewed the Jacob Hamblin home. This also was interesting, but the original methods of construction were not followed when the home was restored. (saw cuts on the boards) (Karen is laughing at me about this, but if you are going to depict something as restored, then it should be restored correctly.)

After this home we went to Snow Canyon. This is a state park and is really something to see. We hiked all over the place. Karen tried to abuse me as you can see. These little cacti are REALLY sharp. We crawled to the top of a number of rock mountains. This was really beautiful. The temperature was perfect for hiking.

We found some lava tubes and of course, Karen had to go down inside of the tubes mouth. You can just see her in the center right of the picture. I took the picture and then went inside. The cavern goes back a long ways. We did not have flashlights but some kids that did have flashlights said that the tube went in another 100+ feet.

At this point we were both tired so we went back to St. George and took in a movie. The next day we decided to hike to what is called the WhiteRocks. Mountain goat Karen decided that following the trail was not fun so we hiked up what looks like Elephant skin. (If you look real close, you will see Karen near the center of the picture. ) We hiked to the top of these white rocks and the scenery was really something.

The picture to the left is Karen showing the peak where we hiked. It may not look like much, but it was.

After WhiteRock we traveled on highway 18 and ended up at Mountain Meadow. This is the location where a fairly large number of the Baker wagon train were murdered by local people. (Mostly from the Cedar City area.) Everyone that was old enough to bring witness against the murderers, were killed at the time. Very young children were adopted out to area families. I believe that eventually all of these kidnapped children were eventually returned to relatives. Why were they murdered? Many books have been written about the subject. Very sad day. If you research this subject, be sure and read unbiased accounts. There have been many accounts written that's sole purpose is to smear the people of the area and the Mormon church.

2010-02-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

Hello all. I have completed the Christmas projects and am now working on the dresser that Kelsey and Steve asked me to build. I saw a small cabinet in the background of a picture and I asked Karen if she thought that it would be ok to build for the kid's Christmas. Although small, the darn thing has a shelf to hold the cement top, a shelf for the writing board, a shelf for the drawer, a shelf shelf, and a bottom shelf that is fixed. I used 180deg. hinges to make fitting the flush door more manageable.

Kathy and Randy's Kitchen

2009-11-26T22:18:00.005-07:00

I built this kitchen for my nephew and his wife. They built a beautiful home and wanted to have a cherry kitchen. It was a lot of fun to build for them. I also built a mantle from walnut to hold Kathy's bear collection.

This is what the room looked like before the install.

Knotty cherry was used. The cabinets were staggered front to back and up and down. This was determined by the position of the microwave, stove and fridge. There were glass doors above the dishwasher.

Here is the bear mantle. It is difficult from this picture to get the scale of this thing. The fireplace is HUGE!. The mantle is about at the six foot level. At least this way, Kathy can "bear all". For a kitchen, this was a fun job. I swore that Randy and Kathy were going to be the last ones that I would do a kitchen for. But......sister Linda called and I ended up doing hers.

Installing Linda's kitchen

2009-08-30T08:49:00.002-06:00

On Friday the 28th I picked up Cadin, my grandson, Karen, my sweetie and went to Idaho to install the kitchen that I built for sister, Linda. On the way Ty called and said that he was coming to help. Ty really knows what he is doing and so his help was invaluable. After reaching Blackfoot, I built the toe kicks for the install the next day. Ty arrived at about 8am and we had most of the uppers in by 10:30. The lowers went in well with the exception that there were NO wall studs on the sink wall. I have no idea how this home was ever inspected and passed framing by the city of Blackfoot. Ty helped move the phone and some other electrical stuff. He was a fantastic help. Because of his work, we were packed up and finished by 4 pm. I installed almost all of the crown. I only shot a pin through my finger once.