more pedestal work

All the mortises have been made. It's really less tiring and quicker work when using woods that don't blunt your end-mill bits after a couple passes... huh ;)


Looking out to the blinding snow, or cold gray days I really don't feel bad about staying inside all day to work. If that's a "pro" for living here, it's a twisted one.


Next I went to overall leg cutting and shaping. I don't want to spend the time fitting joints if I'm just going to find some random fatal flaw in a leg. Not that I'm anticipating any, but just to make sure.
Also this is what happens when you don't have any dust collection. And don't mind the Grizzly... it will be one of the first things to be replaced, some day, but for now it's WAY better than nothing.


I've only had this shop space for a few months but already my simple sharpening station has seen some good use. I would like to find a better manual grinder but it's just another thing on the list.


Freshly sharpened irons go to work on the leg profiles. These legs are about 35.5" tall and the amplitude of the curve is somewhere around 5/16". The pile of shavings on the floor is quite welcome to hang out for a while.
Note the space heater ha. There are no heat vents entering this room. I'm not overly excited about using the heater which can further dry out the already dry air but I only turn it on when I'm working and it is set low so the room maintains about 60-62 degrees F. It's gets difficult to do sensitive work with cold hands.


Tenon stock made and cross cut, fitting begins. This time around I made the stock a little closer to final dimension. They are pretty close but not quite. Do a little fine tuning and they get that snug but not jammed fit, and a good "POP!"

The tables seem to be moving along pretty well (now that I say that something bad is going to happen). Maybe it's because I just did the same operations, maybe it's the wood, or the fact that I'm doing 3 pieces instead of 4. I wonder how the coffee tables will go?

Wider Angle

Greetings again. Last post I mentioned the redundancy of the projects I'm working on. I thought maybe it could be neat if I took a slightly different direction in some of these posts.
One of the major goals for many modern craftspeople is to put or maintain humanity in the objects they make. I share the same goal. Another side of the human story I have for a long time been interested in is the craftsperson's environment. What is their workspace like? How do they work? Does their work reflect their environment (or other way around for that matter). What other inspirations, attributes, quirks, etc does this person have that makes the thing they are making uniquely their own? Not just names but who are these people? I've always been a sucker for some romance :)
Well that's a lot to tackle but I thought I might try taking a step back (somewhat literal with camera in hand ha) and show a little wider angle for at least myself and the work that I'm doing.
We'll see...

The Minnesota Winter. Not a pleasant place to be if you ask me. I hate snow and I hate the "extreme" cold. I've been longing to escape it for some time now. Last year in the Northwest I was quite happy to "deal" with a lot of rain.
Yesterday the HIGH was -5 F (-20 C).


In the basement shop there is a thermometer that reads somewhere between 58-60 F but it feels much colder when I get down there in the morning.
Making leg mortises for apron and stretcher tenons with the old Davis and Wells boring machine I got from outside Seattle, WA. It cost a bit to get it here but any time I use it I'm happy to have it. I intend to get a "real" x-y table for it but the plywood will have to work for now.
The motor is fairly old and doesn't even have ball bearings. The motor housing has holes for lubricating the bearings. I put a little oil in every time I use it just to be sure (it did seize up on me once before I knew exactly what was on the inside of that motor). There's something about the smell of an old machine. The heated oil in the motor, the friction from the belt, some grease stains on the old cast iron that fine dust sticks to. Sure it sounds dirty but I find it charming.


Pulling out the shop-made router table for some rebate work.
A number of people look at finished products, read the price tags and think that we live like rich designers. In most cases this is no where near the truth. Most of us are not extremely well equipped let alone own dream shops. There isn't enough space, the machines don't have large enough capacity, there isn't enough light, it would be nice to have one of this or that, it's too cold or hot, too dry or damp... There is, however, a lot dust and making do.



Rebates have been made. Time to clean them up and do more prep work for more mortises.

Side Table "Teasers"

I finished the side tables a little while ago but finally took a couple quick crappy shots of them for your viewing non-pleasure heh. I will be trying more "serious" photography when all the tables are done.
I'm pretty happy with the end product. I might tweak some of the reveals a little bit but nothing major. Also the thing about making furniture to go with furniture is that there are often no absolute standards to go by. These will be a bit tall for low sitting sofas but will fit the taller ones fine and in my opinion the side table is just about perfect to match a "proper" chair. By the way I did NOT make that chair. It belongs to the dinning set in the house.


Shedua and White Oak. I see this one fitting into a more "executive" setting possible with lower lighting.


Kwila and Narra. This one I like to think of a more casual and brighter setting. I do hope that the Kwila darkens more than the Narra as it was my intention to have a bit stronger contrast. Though when the sun hits the Narra panel it really pops and ads to the contrast.


Finishing up getting new stock to size, cross cut, square and all to start some mortising on 3 Pedestals. I decided to not build a fourth which would have been Narra, because it requires so much sanding. Also I would like to get this whole table family done sooner than later as I have said I'm waiting to finish to head out to the galleries. So none of this really has a chance to get sold or grab any public's attention until all the planed tables are done. In addition I have a wall hung cabinet in mind I would love to finish before Summer as there is a show or two I might like to enter.
Anyway fewer tables to build = finishing sooner. If anyone wants a table of Narra I would gladly do it, but I will hold off for now.

I may not be making as many updates as the Pedestals go on because they are really "exactly" the same as the side tables with different dimensions. We'll see ;)

Wrapping tables up

So many glue ups! It took some time but the bases and the frames are all glued up.
I glued the frames first so that while I was waiting for the base glue ups to set I could...


Fit the panels in the frames. I have been waiting for this for a long time ha. Logistically it's the trickiest joint of the piece as it is loaded from the top and I want to get a tight fit all the way around the panels. They went pretty well though.
After the bases were set I planed off the last remaining "breath" of the aprons over the tops of the legs.


Then moved on to finishing the panels and the parts of the frames that hadn't been finished yet.
For the for the frames I used some Clapman's wax on top of Shellac, the same as the base. For the panels I wanted to add more protection because this is the main surface that will be used. I tried some floor wax but didn't like the out come... it was too shiny. I opted for a paste wax from Liberon which seemed to produce the finish I was looking for.
The bottoms of the panels are taped off for the glue up to come.


This is just that. It would be easier with a vacuum press or something. I think that went I get to the coffee table I'll try to borrow one.
In between some of these steps I also cleaned up the brass brackets and did the drilling for all the little #4 screws. Basically I'm just waiting on these panel glue ups, one at a time. Then I'll have some side tables yay... I certainly hope all goes according to plan!

Sanding & details

Alright, I'm back. I took a couple days off to visit friends in Milwaukee and catch a "concert" outside of Chicago. I have still been working mainly sanding though. Not too exciting to talk about or show. The Kwila I could plane then just hit with 1000 grit, the Shedua I needed to scrape then start at 400 grit on up to 1000.
After these sets of tables I don't think I'm going to do any "speculative production" in feature woods I can't plane. Sanding takes so long, around 3 times longer! It's not just the surfaces that need to be sanded. I had to scrape and sand all the edge treatments (except end grain with files). There are a lot of edges on these tables!
If some one asks for a couple tables in, lets say Orange Doussie, sure awesome! As long as they understand it takes extra labor hours and are will to pay for them, that's great.


After sanding all the surfaces I was finally able to work on some edge details like these. These connection points of the frames really float my boat heh. I think they are interesting while being simple.


It's been a long time coming, pre-finishing. I'm using orange shellac on the Kwila and for the Shedua I have used orange for the first coat to help the brown out a bit and the rest will be bleached shellac as I don't want it to get too dark.
There is still work to do after I get these pieces assembled but I'm over the hill.

Aprons

Ok things are coming along. I've done most of the surface prep on all sides of all the components. Now I've come back to that bit of breathing room I've mentioned before. The aprons sit a little high of the legs. This hasn't been touch besides a little flattening before the mortises were made a long time ago. I'd rather plane down the apron tops than trying to work the end grain of the legs while maintaining a "perfectly" square and level top.


Here is the set up. I gave my jointer plane a fresh modification for comfort... that Jatoba really changes color over time! Anyway... clamped the side with both apron and stretcher and put in in the front vise. The pieces of tape are there for two reasons. To protect the top of the leg and to leave a final breath of room. I will finish the job after the base is all glued up. As it is said "glue changes everything". Glue will sometimes magically alter positions of things slightly so I'm plaing is safe.


The long aprons is where the brackets will be attached. I'm using a trim router with an 1/8" bit to do most of the cutting for these mortises. The MDF guide there is made slightly under sized of the brackets. I just measured lines corresponding to the guide on the aprons to let me know where to clamp the work piece.


The mortises are cut to fit and cleaned up with chisels. After which I started some edge treatment. I felt with its relatively porous grain the Kwila pieces might do well with greater softening of the edges. I think the Shedua will get less.
Although these are meant to be "production" type pieces some aspects I just don't write down. Mainly the details. I like the idea that these details may change from piece to piece to correspond with different species or my mood at the time. Things like the amount of pillowing in the legs, the size of steps in the frame, edge treatments and so on can be personal to each piece. They can also be the different between a quite refined piece and a more casual one, both of which I could see working in the "design" I've come to. Though I don't see the details changing a lot, some questions marks are good and interesting to have.

Veneer and Hardware

So many little pieces of veneer to edge joint! Out of the 6" wide veneers I cut I only used pieces that around 3" wide due to the color gradation I mentioned earlier. I don't think it's ideal but I'm doing what I see fit with what I have.
Oh tape! I don't know how I got along without it before. Before going to IP the many uses of tape in the shop hardly even crossed my mind. I mean this is real work we were doing right? We don't use tape! Ha well The right tape for the right job makes things easier. I've used painter's tape for "clamping" the veneer edge joints. It works quite well. The tape has a medium tack... enough to hold on well but not enough to warrant thick sticky adhesives. The tape also is relatively elastic and this is the key. You put the tape on one side of the joint then stretch it over to the other, the "spring-back" in the tape "clamps" the joint! You HAVE to tape both sides for it to work properly... or use weights on one side... but I've found tape on both more to my liking this time around.


I don't have a vacuum press nor a veneer press yet. but this little clamp up seemed to work well.
Some 8/4 Ash cut, jointed, and planed 3/4" Baltic Birch, framing backer board, and wax paper. You may also notice the blue tape again. Because I don't have a set up where I can get clamps in the center of the "press" I need to compensate. Any wood clamped as such is going to bend so you build up the middle to even it out. There's one layer of blue tape then the wax paper is strategically overlapped to "fare out" the added arc. That doesn't sound like much, well it's the same on top and bottom so each layer is actually two. As the results suggest, it doesn't take much :)


While waiting for the veneering to be done I turned my attention to some hardware as I need to put some mortise in the aprons for them before moving on with the bases.
Hardware is yet another thing that is lacking "these days" (ha I'm not old enough to experience the "old days" but this is what I'm told). Nice simple hardware is hard to come by. Luckily there are nice little knife hinges being made by a couple makers, namely Sanderson Hardware and Brusso. Robert Sanderson is a graduate of CR and makes very nice hardware that can't be found just any where. His hinges are a little more spendy than Brusso's but they are made on a small scale and now Brusso has been stamping their name into the show side of the hinge... I can understand wanting some credit for your work but I really don't want to see branding placed about my work.
I had thought about getting some L/90 degree/corner brackets to simplify and speed things up, alas I don't know if nice little one exist anywhere. Instead of using glue/screw blocks, or buttons I decided to bite the bullet and continue the path of "all out" and make my own brackets.


I say bite the bullet because as I've found I'm not the biggest fan of working with metal in this way. However I'm a bigger fan of making what I want then paying for something I don't like ha.
I went to a local metal supply; they were out of brass bar (sigh shouldn't be a surprise by now) but they had a very small amount of 1/8" brass sheet. They cut me a couple 1" strips free of cut charge though. I knew I didn't want 1" wide brackets but didn't know exactly what size I wanted, also it's probably an odd size which no one carries in bar stock anyway. As is the case I felt 7/8" would be nice and ripped the brass on the band saw with a 6 tpi blade... I would like a finer blade next time. Cross cut on the table saw, then clean up the edges and faces. As long as the metal is non-ferrous you can use many of your wood working machines, though you may want dedicated blades.


Here they are cut, drilled, counter sunk for #4 screws and cleaned to a 400 grit sanding. They aren't completely finished but will only take a couple of minutes to get them where I can work with them. They wont get a final sanding until they are ready to be installed.
These little guys are quite nice in use. Very simple looking, non-obtrusive, a nice matte finish makes the brass relatively warm looking, and they have a nice weight to them physically and visually.


Back to wood yay!
So after trying to cut up the Oak and organize it to steer clear of conflicting prismatics I wasn't completely happy with what I was getting. I decided to go ahead and book match it, well I think I used flipped book matching. The Oak doesn't seem to have an overly strong prismatic difference. I'm sure I'll spot it but I have a feeling it's the "lesser of two evils". It also has some naturally ocurring darker lines which I think people will guess is where the joints are, but they aren't!
Well since I've been working with some moderately less friendly woods I was looking forward to the surface prep on these Oak tops. To my chagrin nasty tear out! Short in length maybe 3/8 or 1/2" long but a good 64th-32nd" deep! In BOTH directions on the same cut of veneer! GAH! While I was working it earlier I thought that this Oak seemed a bit brittle for Oak. It is a darker color that I normally see it, maybe it's an odd plank but it also gives me the impression that it was dried too much... I don't know know, it just feels dry under my tools.
So I'm left scraping the White Oak, it doesn't even scrape that well! So I have to start sanding with 320 grit (hopefully not 220). I knew I was going to have to scrape that Narra, but Oak? come on! Well like I said, next batch is going to include some walnut, cherry, and maple. Hopefully there will be less surprises heh.