Growing a gallery

One of the long term goals I have for my woodshop/school is to grow the gallery -including more artists and possibly hosting exhibitions on a regular basis. I just added work from four new artists - quilts by Kathy Daugherty, ceramic work by Gigi Marquart, handmade journals by Becki Kollat, and a lovely painting by Sara Shawger.

When I first saw the video below, I knew I had to have one of Sara's pieces in the gallery. Her work is amazing; the next time you stop in, you MUST check out her piece. If you're like me, your eyes will be glued to it for ten minutes, examining every little brush stroke.

(Double click on this video to bring it up full-frame on your computer.)

Some of my future plans include adding a couple of woodworkers to the growing list of artists - and possibly hosting a student show. If anyone has any ideas or an artist suggestion - please let me know!

My morning exercise

This is about as close to exercise as I get.

September 11th in my neighborhood

Just a couple of blocks west of my woodshop, there is an amazing sculpture in someone's backyard. The first time I noticed it, I thought I hadn't seen it correctly - twin towers in North Las Vegas?

They appear to be made of metal, with holes punched in them, and at night - they're illuminated from within. It makes both of the structures appear as if they're office buildings, bustling with activity.

I've been meaning to drop a postcard in the mail to tell the homeowner how cool these are, but never have. When I was there today, shooting these images, there were cars pulling off to the side of the road, looking up at the towers.

What a surprising little treasure in my neighborhood!

My next crazy-awesome project...

Do you have any idea how lucky I feel to work on cool projects? I'm not religious, but if I was - I would say I'm blessed.

Seriously, I get to build the most interesting stuff in town!

You know what makes it even more exciting? When someone includes you into their passion about something - in this case, a client wandered into my shop with an Olympic torch. A real one.

AWESOME!!

After some discussion and sketching, I came up with this rendering. Way cool.

I measured the torch, but didn't want her to leave it in my shop. Everything gets so dirty in there! Building a actual sized model of it seemed to be the best idea, so I cut some cardboard to size

and "built" a torch.

Did you know the top of the torch measures around 5 inches?

This is pretty close to the actual dimensions - but to make it thoroughly authentic,

I had to add one more thing.

Full sized mock-ups always help me. Once I had the proper diameter, I cut a few small blocks of wood to simulate the four corners of the case. My biggest concern was crowding the torch inside the case.

With a few dimensions jotted down, I started building the back of the case,

using some bookmatched walnut for main panel.

Of course the corner posts had to be chosen carefully, you don't want some wild figure in the grain taking away from the overall effect.

Here's the torch in the case, just to check the fit. This cabinet will eventually hang on a wall, so it won't be sitting in this orientation.

Here's a better idea of what it will look like - but I still need to make the bottom and the top lid.

Classes start back up tomorrow and I'm going to be muy ocupado, so I'll have to put this aside for a couple of days. That's fine with me - I need work out a couple of details about this cabinet in my head - such as how the lid will be attached, and how the cabinet will hang from the wall.

Meanwhile - this song keeps running through my head...

Need a good laugh? Hazard Fraught Tools

My buddy Jay sent this tool sale flyer to me this morning, and I'll tell ya - it's a good thing I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I read it!

If you receive Harbor Freight's sales fliers in the mail, you'll totally understand the humor here.

Who doesn't need a 16 ton hydraulic nail unbender?

Or an 18 volt cordless hammer?

I do love the 12 HP / 4500 Watt Noise and Fume Generator.

I have two of these floating around in some drawer in my shop. I still don't know what they're for, but they were on sale.

This saw didn't work so well for me, but I do have three dozen spare blades for it.

Yup. Almost everyone I know has bought one of these. Me included.

I never knew half of the cool things this tool could do!

Thanks for the laughs, Jay!

The bed is finally done!

You may want to sit down, I don't want you to faint when I announce that the bed I was making is finally finished!

I think I blogged about it around a dozen times - from the leg lamination to the tapering to the carving to .... well.... everything along the way and in between.

One of the great things about this blog is that I'll run into someone at the lumberyard or in a restaurant and they'll ask how one of my projects is progressing. When I get a puzzled look on my face, they'll explain that they've been following the progress on this blog. How cool is that?

These pictures aren't as nice as they could be, but at least you have the opportunity to see everything put together.

Don't you thinking people fall into one of two categories - either you make your bed each morning, or you don't.

Which category do you fall into?

Gotta love the saltillo tile - it gives the room a rosy glow.

Thanks to everyone who offered opinions and comments along the way - especially my classmates in Dennis Patchett's carving class. They gave me valuable feedback while I was choosing a design to carve on the headboard.

I've made two beds in the last year or so, and I have to say - I really enjoyed designing and building them. Makes me wish I had another bedroom in my home that needs a bed! Maybe I should offer a bed making class?

Thanks to everyone for your support and feedback. I truly learn as much from you guys as (hopefully) you do from reading this blog.

Autumn is just around the corner

There's a chill in the air when I head outside in the morning with Stella. You can just feel the difference, autumn is coming. My favorite season.

There isn't much to write about right now, I'm preparing for classes that start in a week, and getting ready to start two new commissions that I'll blog about shortly.

Meanwhile, it's Labor Day weekend - enjoy this sweet video.

It takes two nuts!

Not too long ago, I was contacted by someone from Waddell Manufacturing with an interesting offer. Waddell is a wood component manufacturer, making things like moldings, turnings, and carvings, but they've spread out into other areas. Like furniture kits, which is what their offer involved.

I agreed to assemble one of their furniture kits, and share my thoughts about it. Want a full disclaimer? Yes, they sent it to me free-of-charge.

So what?

It arrived in two boxes - well packed and in good shape, once the components were unpacked.

The kit was make of pine, and the top was laminated from several boards, planed and then cut into a circle.

They even routed a simple profile in the top, which was a nice touch.

The hardware that came with it includes some corner connectors with hanger bolts, as well as some skirt fasteners for attaching the top to the base.

And then there were the legs - very nicely made. They called these their country pine legs.

To be honest, I had some thoughts as I was unpacking everything. I don't really build anything out of pine, but I was somewhat impressed with the quality of the legs. They were beefy, and if you know anything about the furniture I build, you know I like beef.

The first thing I had to do was cut a small slot in each apron, or skirt, as they call it. This is very simple to do on the tablesaw, but I wondered how easy it would be for the average homeowner to accomplish without any tools. (Note to Waddell - cut the slots in the aprons for your customers. If they can't build this table from scratch, they probably can't cut this slot very accurately.)

The corner bracket slips into these slots, and then bolts into place with a hanger bolt. Which brought me to step #2 - drilling the hanger bolt hole into the leg.

I measured to see how far from the top of the leg the hole had to be located,

and then set up one of my WoodPecker corner clamps to hold the leg while I drilled it.

Again - I wondered if the average person (i.e. - not a woodworker) would have a good way of accurately drilling these holes.

The very first time that I tried to install a hanger bolt (way back when, as we say) - I was stumped. If you've done this before, then you'll get the title of this post. If not, read this.

Here it is, after all the slotting and drilling.

Do this on all four corners...

and you'll wind up with a table base.

There are so many ways of attaching a table top to a base that I could write a whole blog post about that. And bore you to tears while doing so. (Especially you, mom.)

Waddell includes some beefy corner brackets with this kit, for attaching the top to the base. While these wouldn't be my first choice for table top attachment, they fit in fine with everything else included with this kit.

So - what's the truth here? Is this kit a smart purchase for the average woodworker or homeowner?

First - I will give you the good news, and this is really good news - this kit is worth every penny they charge for it. It is a screaming value.

You receive every single thing you need - the wood components, all the hardware, screws, everything. If you went to one of the big box stores, you would probably pay double the cost of this kit for everything they send you, so this is a real bargain. The legs alone, which are very nicely made, would probably cost what this whole kit cost.

Additionally, the average woodworker wouldn't have any trouble assembling this kit. With a few tools (a drill and some sort of miter box or power saw) - anyone could assemble this in an afternoon.

But here's the bigger question - if someone had a decent set-up of tools in their workshop, wouldn't they want to build something a little more challenging?

Or wouldn't they simply want to make the whole table in their workshop?

Waddell has taken a step in the right direction - offering quality components are a very reasonable price. That's to be commended. But - and here, I may be a woodworking snob - but this kit doesn't really appeal to me sense of aesthetics.

And let's face it - that's why we put a piece of furniture into our homes, right? We like the way it looks, we like the function that it serves, and (in this case) - we like being able to say we built it. That we saved some money and "made" the piece with our own two hands.

At the risk of losing any woodworking credibility I might have, I will make this recommendation - if you're new to woodworking and want to get some hands-on experience, then buy this kit. It's not going to break the bank, and it will teach you something. Especially about installing table hardware.

In the end, you'll have a decent little table that you can brag about. The bigger lesson here is that you'll see how the components work together, and - in the future - have a better idea about designing and building your own small tables.

And isn't that what it's really about?

Time permitting, I am going to finish this table using MilkPaint, to get some color on it. This article that I found will give you a ton of info on using MilkPaint, and is definitely worth the read. Take a look at it now, because after I apply some color to this piece, you won't even recognize it.

Meanwhile, thanks to the people at Waddell for offering this kit to me - I enjoyed assembling it and writing this review.

Here's their video on assembling the table.

There, I fixed it!

Can you tell I've been on a bit of a break this week?

Classes don't start for another week, and I've had a chance to get caught up with a few things around the shop. I've been working on a few blog posts, but right now, nothing is finished enough to post, so I thought I'd share some pure silliness - some pictures from one of my favorite waste-of-time websites - There, I fixed it!

You've gotta love the resourcefulness of some of these repairs!

Like this headlight repair - wouldn't it be cheaper (and easier) to just buy a new headlight, instead of having to turn on each one of these flashlights?

Maybe they couldnt' find one of those Waterpik shower heads?

Speaking of shower heads...

If your oven door won't stay shut, a 2x4 oughta fix it!

I've heard of police budgets being cut, but this is crazy!

Whoever came up with the idea of using cheap plastic lawn furniture for their kid's swingset is an absolute moron.

I'm not sure which guy is in a worse position - the one on the ladder, or the one at the bottom of the ladder. At any point - did either of these guys think this was a bad way to move this couch?

Based on the thickness of those chain links, something tells me that a plastic cable tie isn't going to do the trick here.

I'd rather not wash my hands at all.

The caption says it all.

I don't even know what to say about this car door repair.

Or this tail gate repair. At least they added some artwork!

WTF?

And finally - my favorite....

I'll be back soon!