Look back a couple of posts and you'll see my original design for this mantel. This is what it evolved into, less of they Arts & Crafts style and more in tune with the rest of the house. It's all Genuine Mahogany, note how the curve of the apron matches the curve of the fireplace insert, that is not by accident. It's finished with boiled linseed oil and then poly and wax. The transition from the hearth to the wood floor is made to match and I think it frames the fireplace tile well.
Here I am waxing a chair. I did five of them and each one took a hour. They're for Tony, the guy next door, he built a dozen of them for a client. I also built all the seat frames out of Ash. It was a good learning experience and I like working with Tony, he's a easy boss who doesn't mind helping you when you get stuck. Of course the frames are now covered in material and you can't see them...but I did a kick ass job of it.
Here's the first of the things that I've built for MY house. It's not the first thing I've brought home, but it's the first piece that I'd call "furniture." It's Genuine Mahogany, with Anigre and stained glass panels in the doors. Finished with shellac, aka French Polished, and wax. It's approx, 62" Tall x 36" Wide x 12" Deep. I'll throw up some more information when I have some more time, but you've got the basics now.
Here's a quick picture of a mantel that I'm designing for a couple in Alameda. I'm actually posting this so that they can look at the design, hello Jeff and Michelle. So with that in mind here's a quick description...
The mantel will be Genuine Mahogany, it has a simple molding on the front and some faux beam supports. On the sides are another simple piece to hide the brick and the sides of the tile that will be put on the face of the fireplace. There will also be a transition piece from the wood floor to the tile of the hearth...but that's not in the drawing since A. it wouldn't really show up and B. until the tile is installed I'm not sure what shape it will need to be. I think it's a great touch though to have the Mahogany go down the sides of the fireplace and then frame the hearth, to separate it from the Oak flooring.
Ok that's it...I hope everyone likes it...
So now I've kept my promise. Here is the sink stand all installed and finished. As you can see, although I cropped most of it, the clients are already using the bathroom. Thanks to Violette for taking the photos. As to my lack of posting, and I think I've had to apologize before for this, sometimes I just forget about the blog when I'm anywhere near a computer where I could do an update. I ALWAYS remember to update when I'm at the shop, which has NO Internet access. Well I make no promises this time...I'll update when I can. I do have material, pictures and such so all that really needs to get done is to sit down and write it. Perhaps I can at least get the pictures up and then come back and post the information later? At least the people who read this blog would get some "eye candy" and I'm sure they'd BOTH appreciate it.
Yet another sink stand. The last one was built for my landlord, this one I built for one of the owners of the building where my shop is located. The stand is all Genuine Mahogany, the aprons and shelf are all made from 2 book matched pieces of six quarter, so they're a full one inch thick. The Mahogany that I found for this, is figured beautifully with the classic ribbon grain. The legs being from a different piece since they needed to be two and a half inches square. I was lucky enough to find boards wide enough for the apron so I only had to glue up the bottom shelf. The shelf is where the book matching comes in, as you can see from the picture. There's also a mirror frame coming out of the same board as the apron and shelf. I should have that finished this week. All the joints in the stand are mortise and tenon with tapered legs.
The tricky part being that the legs are tapered on two sides for the entire length of the leg. Normally, you have the leg be a square and the taper goes from the bottom of the apron to the floor. So for this I had to figure out a way to cut all the tenons at an angle equal to the taper of the leg. To do this I made a jig to taper the legs on the table saw, normally I would cut them close with a band saw and then use a hand plane to get the taper to the correct size. After making the jig and cutting the tapers, I saved the off cuts and then used them, since they are the same angle as the taper, to cut the tenons on the apron pieces. This worked extremely well and the apron fit into the legs with minimal fussing with my shoulder plane. I think that I should have extended the through tenons so they extended about a quarter of an inch and then chamfered them, but by the time I though of it I had already trimmed them flush.
It was a long process, as I had to cut the legs, then the mortises, then the tapers, the cut the apron pieces and fit them, then cut the lower rails and fit them, then cut and fit the shelf. The whole thing is finished with a coat of linseed oil, to darken the Mahogany and bring out the figure, then three coats of oil based polyurethane. I would have preferred shellac, as that's still my favorite finish, but this is going in a bathroom and shellac just doesn't stand up to water.
All in all this piece came out really well, nice tight joints, solid and square construction. I'm really happy with it. I'm going to try to get some pictures of it once it's installed, so check back for those.
Here's another project that I finished awhile ago. It's a valet key box for the Lafayette Park Hotel and Spa. I've been out there a bunch of times and can say that it's a good looking hotel, and the manager is friendly. The box they had was made from plywood and was falling apart, so I built them this one. It hangs on a pillar that is under a overhang where the cars drive up for valet parking. So it's outside but under a roof so to speak. Since it's almost outside I made it from marine plywood with White Oak doors, the panels in the doors are also marine plywood with White Oak veneers, all with Titebond III waterproof glue. As you can see from the picture of the inside it has 121 brass hooks for all the keys, and yes I had to screw each one in by hand. The whole thing is stained, to match the valet podium that also sits outside. I refinished the podium as well, I have pictures somewhere, but they both match. The podium was just sanding and refinishing and replacing some hardware, hinges and drawer slides, so not that interesting. Of course the best part of this job was that the hotel has a maintenance staff who actually installed the thing on the wall.
Recent Comments