Pieces and parts...

There isn't much to talk about here today, I'm just too busy with things to be done in the woodshop. Going out of town twice in the last month has put me behind on just about everything. But seeing my family was worth it. So here are a few random photos I've been saving up, stupidly thinking I'd have time to write something about them. This post will be a jumble of things I've been meaning to write about, but just never had the time to complete.

I try to work in the garden every Sunday, even if it's just for a few minutes. Imagine my surprise at finding these tucked under some leaves.


This might be the last chance for fresh baba ghanouj this season.


Still working on that chair repair - Thanksgiving is coming up fast and I'd promised the chairs would be ready by then. One of the chairs had a part that was too badly damaged to fix, so a replacement had to be made. You can see in the photo below that both ends of this chair back rail were split at the end. Poor design.


The piece was fairly complex, with compound angled tenons on each end, and an angled mortise in the middle.


By the time I left town, I'd only started the piece, but when I got back to the shop yesterday, my buddy Dan had finished making the part. You can't find a better friend than that.


Here is the piece (finally) in the chair.


Stella has become the official shop mascot,


and although she requires a bath every time she visits the shop, it's OK.


She's worth the trouble.


You can usually find her playing with a ball somewhere. Which usually means I have to rescue the balls from under the stacks of wood.


Finally, my Jet oscillating edge sander has been a little under the weather, blowing a bearing a while back. Danny owns the exact same sander, and had trouble with that exact same bearing. So he knew exactly how to repair it. He had it in pieces before I knew it.

I'm very suspicious of a tool in which the same bearing blows up for various tool owners. Doesn't that seem a little odd?

In this case, the bad bearing had disintegrated into various metal fragments. All I had to take to the motor repair store was the outer casing on the bearing, shown below. The new bearing is on the left.


The fellows at the repair shop are pros, they fixed me up in no time.


Here's the Jet sander back in shape, more or less. I buy a lot of tools; this isn't one of my favorites. It's temperamental, and if I had purchased this thing new (and paid full price) - I would be pissed.

Sure, it sands edges very efficiently, but it's poorly engineered, and needs a lot of tweaking to get it to work properly.

Anyone want to buy a sander (with new bearings)?

One of those yin/yang mornings

Just when I think life can't throw me any more lemons, I find myself juggling a few different things on my plate this morning.

An uncle of mine passed away two days ago; we were quite close. So I hopped on a flight back to Ohio for his funeral, which will start in about an hour. It's a very sad day for all of us. Seeing family is great, but not necessarily under these circumstances.


A little bit of family background - all four of my grandparents were off-the-boat Italians, coming through Ellis Island to become citizens here. My mom's family story is an amazing one - 14 children, two parents, in a three bedroom home. I have more cousins than I can count on all my fingers and toes, and I'm particularly proud of the diversity in our tribe.

Two of my mom's sisters married Jewish men and converted, so I've spent a lifetime celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah, Easter and Passover, and much more. My uncle was Jewish, so later today we be washing our hands before we enter his daughter's home, and later, we'll be sitting shiva, with mirrors covered in the house. Life is interesting.

Here is my rhetorical question for the day - why does it always seem like when things are going great, there is always some big ball of badness right around the bend?

Today, UNLV announced that the Spring 2011 UNLV Continuing Education courses have been posted online. I'm very excited about that, but it's tempered by the sadness we're all feeling today.

To Uncle Art: I hope you're enjoying your new journey. Until we meet again, keep your head down and your arm straight. (That's a golf thing, for you non-golfers.)

Peace

Those dreaded chair repairs

Repairing furniture isn't my favorite thing to do, although I get a lot of requests about it. I've always thought someone could have a helluva good business if they started a good repair/refinishing shop. It's just not my thing, but there is definitely a need for it.

About a month ago, a fellow stopped in to ask if I would repair some chairs. My usual response is - can I build you new ones, instead? These chairs weren't in horrible shape, and they were made of teak, so they were definitely worth saving. But one was wickedly broken. This back seat rail is split beyond repair. Luckily, only one chair was this bad.

Someone had tried to fix these chairs once before; there were at least two different types of glues in most of the joints. The first step was to remove the corner blocks. Whoever put those on wanted to make sure that they never came off! They were stapled, glued and screwed. With slotted screws, which are a PITA to remove. They were rusty and stripped, and made this part of the job pretty miserable.

The only way to remove the corner blocks was to cut them down the middle and break them apart.

The wood was pretty soft, so it wasn't that difficult.

But pulling out the staples was a little tougher. I use special pliers, made for removing screws. And channel locks for pulling out the staples.

This is the pile of debris from just one chair!

After everything is removed. there is quite a bit of scraping and clean-up to be done. If you don't scrape off the old glue and work with fresh wood, none of your repair work will hold.

You can see the sad state of these joints, each chair's corner joints were broken like this picture shows.

Once everything is apart, more cleaning is needed. This tenon went from this

to this.

The mortises were in very bad shape, which required quite a bit of work with a small chisel. Can you see why I don't like doing repairs?

After all of the parts are cleaned and dry-fitted back together, the chair can be re-assembled. To ensure that nothing is going to come apart again, I pinned each joint with small cross-dowels.

After each leg is pinned from both sides, new corner blocks are cut to size, and glued and screwed into place.

Once the glue in the pinned joints is dry, I carefully cut the pins with a flush cut saw. And then carefully sanded the area with with a flat sanding block. Here is a pinned joint on the front leg.

Here is the back leg joint.

And finally - the finished chair, reassembled and ready for Thanksgiving's company.

It's not that repairing chairs is that difficult, it's just that the repairs take a lot of time. Everything is tedious. And you really need to be well-versed in joinery and gluing techniques in order to make repairs that will last.

It doesn't make sense to be lazy when repairing a chair; take your time, remove all the old glue and clean up everything. Reassemble the piece using smart joinery techniques to ensure that your repairs will last a long time. Otherwise, what you've repaired might end up in my shop someday!

All plugged up

Last night was "cutting board" night - where everyone in the Basic Woodworking class an opportunity to dress up their current project with some inlaid plugs. It's funny; some classes go crazy with plugs, putting way too many on their boards.

But other students seem really bored with the idea. Last night, only one or two people decided to use plugs in their boards, but I thought I'd show you how I prepare for the class.

First, to speed things up a bit, I cut plugs before everyone arrives.


I've learned it's best to include both dark and light woods, so they can choose whatever they want to use. And I switch up the sizes - some small, most large. The big ones are usually more popular.

I use tenon cutters to make the plugs, not the traditional plug cutters that most people use. Why? Most importantly, they make a longer "tube" of wood, which is much easier to hold. But better yet - each "tube" of wood will yield 2-4 plugs. So it's way more efficient to cut them longer.

Here's how I make the plugs on the drill press.




Once the wood blanks are drilled, you cut the plugs from the blank using the table saw.



And here is what a board looks like when it's inlaid. On this board, Denny used three 1" maple plugs down the center.


Another cool board!


Sharon decided to add a different detail to her board - a glass cheese dome. We cut the circular groove for the dome with the router buddy. Here she is oiling the board


Wow. A very cool finished piece! She swears she's inviting me over for wine and cheese.... we'll see!


Does Linda look proud?


There is no better feeling than watching the faces of these students at the end of this second class, when they walk out with their finished board. Most considered themselves absolute rookies when they walked into the shop last week. Here it is, a week later and they have a gorgeous piece to brag about to their friends. Does it get any better than that!?!

Really?

Doesn't this sort of defeat the purpose?

I'm a big cereal person, so I had to buy a box. Still... whole grain and chocolate? WTF?

It occurred to me that the last three posts have been about breakfast cereal, shots of tequila, and bologna sandwiches. Wonder what the hidden message is behind that.

A little off topic - Happy Birthday, Christine!

Memorial shadow box

Did this ever happen to you - you get home at the end of your workday and you look back on everything that happened during the course of your day? A little reflection is all I'm talking about, not obsessing about the whole day.

Yesterday was busy for me - between going to a few homes to give some estimates on work, and running all over town to pick up materials, by the time I actually arrived at my woodshop to start working, I was pooped.

But one of the pieces I just finished was this memorial shadow box, for a young airman who died unexpectedly.



His fellow airmen decided to have this case built, with some memorabilia placed inside it, in his honor. He was 21.

So when I arrived home last night, Stella and I walked outside, where I noticed one of the last limes hanging from the little tree in the backyard. It probably should have been picked a few weeks ago, it was a little past it's prime.

When we came back in, I poured Troy and myself a shot.


Not sure if he was a tequila guy or not, but he was last night. Cheers Troy, RIP.

Another reason to celebrate October

October is my favorite month. It's filled with gorgeous colors, the weather is amazing, football is in full swing, and we celebrate my mom's birthday.

But I just learned of another reason to celebrate - October 24th is National Balogna Day. Here's a little tribute:

I might have to make fried balogna sandwiches for dinner this weekend!

Furniture critic

The last time I bought furniture, it was 1997. Seriously.

And the only reason I bought them (a couch and an oversized chair) was because they were upholstered, and I don't generally build upholstered pieces.

Before that, the last time I bought anything was 1989, when I splurged on some Thomas Moser barstools.


I have two of them, and they actually look better today than when they first arrived. The patina that has developed is amazing, and they've actually appreciated in value. Sweet.

So today is an exciting day, as I just splurged a bit and added a new piece to my home.

If you have a bad back, and you lift heavy things all day, you will appreciate the fact that this chair has three 15-minute full-body massage programs. I might not leave the house this week.

Ask any furniture maker about their furniture and they will probably tell you that they've built almost every piece that they have in their home. Sure, sometimes some family heirlooms sneak in, but generally, all my woodworking buddies have gone the route of "I don't want anyone else's stuff in my home!" (Except for maybe this massage chair.)

I'll let you know if it's worth it. Hey - maybe that's a new career - furniture critic. I know it would be a lot easier on my back!

Some people are SO creative

This is amazing!

On vacation

This has been a great week, I've been spending time with family and friends in Ohio. Even managed to squeeze in a round of golf - and one-putted three greens! (I won't tell you how many three-putts I had, however.)

It's been a long time since I've picked up a club, so I was pleased with my game. (Note to self: get out on the course more often.)

Tomorrow, I'll hop on a plane and head home. But for one more night, I'll have a nice meal with my family, and enjoy our time together.

I'll be back to blogging soon.

More random studio thoughts and shots...

Don't have much to say, things are hectic here and words aren't coming easy. So I thought I'd let my camera do most of the blogging today. Here are some random things around the shop.

That clock I started a couple of weeks ago went from this...

to this


to this.


My friend Maria's buxom chicken lady. Love her boots.


Two very old (body-builder) inlays that are still hanging around.

These pitchers still aren't bisqued!


I still have the page of the calendar from the day my aunt died. Is that odd?


No, this isn't as bizarre as it looks.

It's an old towel rack - I stupidly broke one side of this, and I couldn't bear to throw the other side away. Some day I will be at a flea market and find another half to this.


How NOT to glaze small tile. All of these leaves are overglazed and stuck to the shelf. That's what I get for listening to Linken Park while I'm glazing.


Perfect temperature, though.


Better job on these pieces.



Everyone needs a bottle of Zoloft hand soap in their shop, right?


Which brings me to my final thought - do other people have hands that are as messed up as mine are?

Mine look like they took a dip in the garbage disposal while it was running. They're cut and bruised and I think I have a broken bone, as well.

Off to work...