more new projects

 following up on some stuff from the previous post, and getting some other new projects underway.  happy to clear the decks a bit and make room for some new stuff.  we hung the big mirror yesterday, all 13 5" of it.  it was interesting as the building is old, the floor and ceiling or both out of level and when we hung it up level, it was just so obviously wrong that we had to move it around until it looked right with everything else that is going on there.  as it hangs now, the right end is about 7/8ths higher than the left end but it totally looks right given the other stuff that is going on .. havent had to do that for a while.  click the pictures to enlarge them ...

 

 and the cherry bookcase clients will be in town this weekend ... that piece will be 

joining its friends that we made previously ...

 and the dart cabinet is happening now ... it can be fun working with crooked old barn boards.

 you certainly cant be fussy, and you definitely have to go with the flow.

 and its been a good excuse to have a dartboard next to the chop saw for a while.

recipe for a railng .. cut a bunch of steel up into very specific lengths, and weld it all together,  

then take it to the clients house and bolt it to the posts you put there last week ..

 looks easy when its done ...  

 

and sams got a couple other table bases in the works.  the one above will have a danby marble top.  thats 1" rebar .. polished .. its a nice look and the rebar is becoming popular with our customers .. 

 

 and another nakashima style base 
hes just making the base.  the client is making his own top.

and theres a new claro walnut table happening too ...  4 x 8 x 2.75" thick, with a 

beefed up steel base to go with the beefier slab.  its gonna look good.  weve done a 

heavier base before in 1.75" steel, but this looks fine in our regular 1.5" steel.

the price of steel has increased so much lately that its hard to justify working in the thicker stuff.

 

 the slab had a few surface, non structural, cracks that we filled with our usual advantech tintable epoxy.

  

chris finished the chest of drawers for the shaker piece .. we may install that tomorrow.

and trevors underway on a new 60" round walnut table with a 22" crotch walnut inlay in the center of it.

 

more on that as we progress ... all for now ... dan
update: ill do a complete blogpost when were finished

 

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i can see clearly now

 im a firm believer in getting all the light you can into a house in vermont.  

the upside of that is you get to see out good too.

 this client called me back in october with a problem

 he loved the view from his living room through the front door

when it was open, but he felt closed in and like he was missing something 

when the door was closed, and i agreed.  our first plan was to make a new door

to match the glass layout in the sidelights, and you can see that concept in 

the drawing below.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

 but then, after i made a simple photoshop mockup of what it would look like

if the glass went all the way down, like my front door below,

the clients decided that that was the way to go for them too.

photoshop is your friend

this is our front door at home, and you can see the full height glass

 back door through the left sidelight.  so, ground floor on our house,

there are three full height glass doors and two full height all glass sidelights.

we did a little practice run at the shop, routing the door panels out on the cnc.

  will has now turned my old office closet into his dust free banjo finishing area.  the glass in

the doors made it so i didnt lose the light from the closet window when will was finishing.

we did this panel to glass thing a few years back for another client and trevor has

definitely dialed in the technique on the cnc.  first test pass above.

final pass ... where there were formerly rails and interior stiles, there is no paint.  

where there was just a molding, he left the paint .. that is just amazing to me.

pretty close in the corners too

easy to square up though .. the view through our back door below .. after a quick mental count, i realize between the wood shop, the finish room, the new metal shop, the house, and the old metal shop, 

there are 15 doors with full height glass.  i really like light.

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bob and the aarp

i was surprised to see one of my favorite musicians on the cover of my recent aarp magazine .. good for you bob .. it was a good read and i wish i had read it before i tried to carry a 14 white oak 2 x 10 down the garage stairs by myself a few weeks ago ... about half way down, i got kind of stuck and twisted and i definitely tweaked something in the muscle that picks up your leg to go up the stairs.  but, it was friday and i had a paddle tennis game, and that one was so good, we played again saturday, and then i have(had) a regular sunday morning game.  by monday i was almost a total cripple .. could hardly get in or out of the car .. it will be a month this friday since my stair incident, and im just starting to be able to put my pants and socks on standing up, and sit at my computer without tears coming to my eyes.  im learning bob, but slowly i admit ... thanks for the tip ...

get help or leave that stuff to the young guys ..

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stuff you can do with a cnc router

in conjunction with my exploration of the possibilities/virtues of machine work vs handwork that i wrote about in a blog post last month, i have put together a slide show entitled stuff you can do with a cnc router  ... heres a link to that slideshow...  within those photos there are links to my website or blog where further information is available .. there are also many post in the category trevors cnc projects.  that link would be for the diehard curious, as there are over 40 blog posts there.  weve had access to this technology since 1997, and have had our own full size, 50" x 100" multicam since 2005.  prospective clients almost always stop to ask when they see it on the way to my office, what do you do with that?  ive decided that it is easier to show than to tell them .. 230 example photos .. most with blog links in the caption .. 

it might take 15 minutes or less to scroll through them all ..

our standard technology quote is:
"technology ... it almost works" . 

we often use that quote when things dont go perfectly, but, in general, with the right operators and proper attention to drawing details and machine maintenance, this technology is incredibly efficient and reliable.

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