sketchbooks the essential tool

ive got a couple projects going on, and one of them is going to go on for a lot longer.  the cleaning the cellar in the shop project i should be able to finish up in another 10 or 12 hours of effort, but the digitizing the sketchbooks project will likely go on for another couple years.  so far i have scanned and saved the highlights to this album from three fairly recent ones. 

 you can scroll through the slideshow at this link.

this is maybe a third of it ...

ive been sketching sporadically since 1980 when i bought betty edwards book drawing on the right side of the brain to learn how to communicate with my clients.  while cleaning the cellar last sunday, i found a fresh box of sketchbooks, likely packed when we moved to dorset from arlington in 1996 containing some drawings from 1988.  the one above is sams, and he would have been 5 and a half in january 88, the date of one of wills first drawings i found below in the same sketchbook.  will would have been 3 and a half then.  fun ...

i wish i could draw like that now .. i have written on this subject before, and i think its an important one.  the hand often is a link to the subconscious.  we sometimes dont know what we will draw until we start, and every sketch is not a winner.  some are though, and it is hard to come up with them if you sit down with the intent to come up with something new.  set that pen or pencil free .. see where it goes ..

click the photos to enlarge them ..

this series of sketches and photos below are just a few highlights from the slideshow

trout desk

duck bed

sometimes new ideas come from existing pieces.  the sideboard and mirror combo are from 1987.  the sketches below from a proposal for a client are from 1988.  

take an object. do something to it.  do something else to it. .... jasper johns

 i leave you with a couple more from sam from 1988 ..

yeah, real fun ...

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a round cherry expanding pedestal table

well, here we go again ... always one of my favorite designs, and were happy to do it again and again.  the one above is from 2003, and it had three 18" leaves.  the one we are making now will be the same, only with just one leaf.  click the photos to enlarge them ...

we started with a cad drawing testing the water for 52 vs 54".  in the end, i sent them a cardboard template via ups and after putting it in the room, they decided on the 54".  ive blogged about a similar table before in this post back in 2013, and a smaller version in mahogany, way back in 2008.  

but here it is again anyway ..

get yourself a nice matched set of curly cherry boards and glue them up ..

and then cut and stack your plywood propeller pieces and veneer the edges and top.  glue up your column pieces with the angles on the top and bottom then too.  

i have a taper jig photo somewhere ... 

and get yourself some equalized table slides from moin hardware

then, if youve got one, cut the half round sections on the cnc, and cut the inlay pockets at the same time .. let me say here that we did not have a cnc in 2003, and we made many, many tables with central inlays without it.  faster now with it though.

start with the borders;  in this case end grain walnut, burl and end grain vertical grain fir, glued up in a log and sliced like baloney ... put some glue on it, drive a headed brad in next to it 

and bend it to press it tightly against the edge of the pocket.

check your fits with some mdf templates

and cut your burl pieces  ... still need to add the edge inlay and do the finishing.  more photos to
follow

home stretch ... in the finishing room now

all in, all done .. couple views below

with the 20" leaf in

 other sizes and variations on the form ... "take an object; do something to it"

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a built in cherry desk

well, long time no blog ... 3 weeks at least ... lots going on here at the end of summer, or should i say the beginning of fall.  i turned the heat on in the shop when i left today.  some in the area had a frost on their windshield this morning.  the light is changing, and the foliage is beautiful.  life is good. particularly since we installed this built in cherry desk this afternoon.  chris has been working on it for a few weeks now, and im glad to see it in place in its new home.

click the photos to enlarge them ... 

we started with a drawing and then moved on to the full size mockup below

it is in a bedroom, and the space, while not exactly tight, wanted to not be confining.  hard to tell that on paper so we built the mdf and notched luan mockup, which the clients actually used while we worked on the desk. 

great sun .. great view out the windows ...

the construction was a mix of table joinery and case joinery ...

drawers everywhere .. 10 in total, and chris got a real dovetail workout. 

      

ash boxes with cherry ply bottoms ...

more photos tomorrow when the installation is complete ...

its a short drive, but a beauty of a drive ..

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Honest Abe Didnt Cut Down This Cherry Tree

This project started when I was gathering hickory about a month ago at a relatives house.  While pillaging the fallen trees on his property that had fallen victim to heavy rain, he mentioned a cherry tree that had also fallen about two months prior.  My knees went weak. I started to drool a little at the thought of a cherry tree that was ripe for the taking.

Once I located the tree, my knees lost that weak feeling and the lust for a truck load of cherry vanished like a clay pigeon getting shot from station 8.  The tree was severely rotted and under heavy insect attack.  I was able to pull a few usable pieces from the tree.  The following details the rough turning of a cherry bowl.

It will never cease to amaze me what can be created from a rough and seemingly lifeless piece of wood.  Im glad I took lots of progress pictures of this piece so that you can see the amazing transformation from nearly scrap to a beautiful piece of art.

My spur drive hasnt arrived yet, so Im still stuck to using the worm screw in the scroll chuck to start off this piece.  I used two tools for this piece.  The main tool used is my 5/8 bowl gouge by P&N, I also used my hollowing tool for the inside of the piece.

I had initially thought to make a lid and base for this turning.  After getting the piece round and seeing the grain structure, it "told" me "no lid" in a faint voice.



I honed in the shape by bringing in the opening size until I was happy with the bark contrast on the rim at the top. Generally, when a piece has the bark on it, the rough surface of the bark is left.  This is called a natural edge turning.  I tried something unconventional and shaped the bark layer.  As you can see, this gives an interesting contrast to the rim of the bowl.



With the outside shape finalized, I moved on to hollowing out the inside.  I used the scorpion hollowing tool made by Don Pencil.  This is a great tool for hollowing open forms and closed forms alike.



Here are a slew of photos of the piece fresh off the lathe.  I used a new-to-me method to dry the bowl.  I soaked it in a bath of Denatured Alcohol for two days, after which I wrapped the outside in heavy paper.  

Maybe this will be the first piece for sale...That is if my wife doesnt hide it from me when its finished.

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