a railing for a tansu stair cabinet

chris and i installed the railings today. all in, all done, as they say.  

i am happy to cross that one off the to do list.  we made some other stuff

 in the room there, like the mantle with burl and abalone detials, and the coffee table.  you can even see some of jims (aka mr. lucky) carved glass work from the 80s on the coffee table.  nice room.

back in 1989, when we had been at our craft full time for 9 years, we built this sweet tansu stair cabinet, based on a postcard my clients had picked up in a hotel in japan or china, i forget which.  anyway, id already made them a bunch of stuff, and in this spot, they had one of those slightly treacherous 60s era welded steel spiral stairways, and a desire for a place to hide the stereo.  the stereo went behind the double doors, and originally, i think, the speakers went behind the single doors.  that was fine for, oh, 24 years, until grandchildren came on the scene .. time for a railing ... click the photos to enlarge them.

we did a little photoshop work, talked about different combinations of wood and metal ..

and finally made a plan.

chris and i made some poplar temporary posts and took some cardboard to the house and made some rough templates and notes on fitting the posts to the treads and figured out how to attach them.  luckily, there were all those drawers we could remove and we just screwed into the half lapped posts from inside the casework .. a true no brainer.

we were able to translate that information into cad drawings from which we made the real cherry posts and rough templates on the cnc.  we took those back to the site and installed the cherry posts, took some more notes, and turned those notes into cad drawings and the templates below that sam could weld the actual railings together on.

we hand shaped the top caps to mimic the original handraill and fitted them to the railings in the shop.  today, it all fit and we bolted them in place to make a surprisingly rigid assembly up to code and ready for kids.

it all fit like a glove, and in the background you can see the end volute of the original hand carved handrail.  this was a satisfying project, and a nice visit with an old friend.  good job sam and chris !!!

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new claro walnut slabs for sale

 well, surprisingly, we had a little cash left over at the end of 2015, and an opportunity came 

along that was too good to pass up ... four interesting new coffee table/desk/countertop slabs ...

we are totally open to your input and ideas ...

 back side of #21 ... 5/4 (finish at +/- 1.25") thick

 another thinner slab

 8/4 i believe .. interesting crotch and crack pattern

would make a great anything

pretty rectangular, which is unusual around here ..

for inspiration, check out this slide show of other claro walnut projects we have done ...

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the cherry bedroom piece

so how did we get from the sketch above ..

 to the piece we installed last tuesday ?  well, ill tell you, it didnt happen overnight.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

we started with this photo that was actually taken, i am surprised to note, on the 5th of february, 2013.

from that photo i made the collage above in photoshop, and though i cant find them now, i sketched four different concepts, from which i made the four slightly different cad drawings below.

and the winner is ...

  this one .. that was all fine and good to go and we had a deposit and we ordered the wood, and then ... another more time sensitive opportunity presented itself to us

at that time, my bedroom clients were in the process of raising their coastal connecticutt house that had been flooded by hurricane sandy 7 feet and doing a total remodel of that property, so they allowed to do a quick painted kitchen at another local house, and before we knew it that quick painted kitchen became about 5 months work.  so, in late october, we finally got around to using the cherry we bought back in march and got this project underway.  the original intent was a kind of shaker piece with minimalist details, but as we went on we had some consultations and added some detailing based loosely on this sideboard and a some of the other pieces we had created for the clients in the past.

 so on we went, adding details to the verticals of the face frames, an edge inlay on the main counter, borders on the drawer faces, custom cast drawer pulls, and paneled case ends.  that all took a minute.

ready for finish below

 until we finally arrived at last monday, the photo below, and the day before the installation when all the finished parts had to be finally glued and applied to the cases, final assembled and then 

disassembled yet again, and loaded into the van and the truck and carried up a flight of steps 

to be installed at the clients home.

 we had done a preinstallation level check and the room was remarkably level plumb square and true and we were able to move through the installation and clean up in a remarkably short amount of time.  all in, all done ... great project ... incredibly patient clients ... glad to have our shop back ...

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handwork machine work does it matter

blow this one up and have a closer look at it ..we made these in 1997 ...

pretty classy, eh?

they are based on a half round federal card table in the clark art museum that we got permission to measure and flip upside down earlier that year.  we also used a copy of  the work of many hands: card tables in federal america 1790-1820, a weighty tome for sure.   these tables are also our very first cnc project.  each leg, if you count each separate little piece has 90 pieces, some of which we obviously glued up in blocks and sliced like baloney.  the ovals were custom made by dover inlay in maryland, but the little satinwood bell flower drops and the larger oval satinwood panels were cut on my friend richards cnc. the rest we did by hand.  there are 43 blog posts regarding cnc work in the category to the right,
trevors cnc projects

on the fine woodworking website today, there is a debate over the distinction between handmade and assembled from machine cut parts, digital manufacturing, friend or foe, a false debate in my humble opinion.  turn on the table saw and you are no longer handmade.  in the comments to the post, where i, in fact, left my own two cents, i particualrly enjoyed the opinion of belchior, from brazil:
 
 "Since its almost impossible to produce something from wood using bare hands and teeth, lets suppose that tools are considered acceptable, for the purpose of this discussion."  perfect !!  

so, onward.  we make stuff.  we use the tools we have to do the parts of the job we need to do, be they hand, electric or digital.  we go forward, exploring the process, which in the end is, hopefully, where the pleasure lies.  here i give you some before cnc; with cnc; and after cnc, but not using the cnc, images. 
you be the judge ...
friend or foe?  click the images to enlarge them ...

before cnc, about 1992  ... cherry lacewood, burl, rosewood, milk paint

  after cnc .. 2010 .. much technology here, both cnc and waterjet.. blog posts here
cad/photo design, cnc cut lathe duplicator templates; hand finished turnings; hand carved turnings, steel, copper, aluminum, and brass waterjet cut inlays; etc. etc.see end of this post ...

before cnc; about 1990

after cnc, but not using the cnc  blog post here  .. 

we did use our duplicator to turn the legs, a tool for sure, but not digital

way before we knew what a cnc was.. 1983 .. the cnc would have been  
extremely helpful on this project though.

all handwork ... 2012 .. blog post here  .. 
could have used a cnc but it was faster to do this by hand

1989 .. this table would be a lot easier with a cnc, but we did it all by hand ... slowly and carefully

with holman studios ... 9 x 26 , 88 radius on the edges. all parts, including templates for the granite and the base parts on the cnc.  design, veneer work and finishing by steve holman; call parts cut on the cnc by dcf ..

cant imagine doing this table by hand, though the guy who cut the radiuses on the granite cut them freehand with a handheld 4" angle grinder with a diamond saw blade ..

granite cut here .. no cnc

about 1990 .. all by hand ... a wonderful, fun project

all cnc  a room screen from 2006

with the table above 1992 .. all hand work ...
so, the question is: can we make furniture that appears handmade and combines handwork with digital fabrication?  yes is my answer.  is the digital process good?  is it bad?  does it matter? can we call a truce?

i hope so .. the digital part is not going away, and, in my humble opinion, it shouldnt.  imagine ... 

seedersinstruments.com

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