Early 2008 - A Coffee Table

In the summer of 2007 we took a raft trip down the East Fork of the Chulitna with our Talkeetna friends and spent a night at a place that has the most amazing collection of river-washed rocks. In the midst of carousing I had the idea of using some of those rocks in a coffee table so I brought back a whole mess of them (which incidentally and for the record pales in comparison to the volume & weight of what most of of our friends brought out). Then in January/February 2008 we had a most enjoyable vacation in California and Arizona - and while in California we stayed at my sister Mary's house in LA. Two things while we were there - we went to the Gamble House in Pasadena, regarded as THE outstanding example of Greeene and Greene archtecture/design (they being Charles and Henry - leading lights of the early 20th century Arts and Crafts movement), and we spent several mornings and evenings in my sister's living room which featured a coffee table custom built for them that was derived from more or less the same style as what we had just seen in Pasadena. Suddenly it all came into focus... and shortly after we returned to Alaska my design was more or less complete.
The size and dimensions are pretty close to what is in my sister's living room, the "cloud lifts" (the offsets in the horizontal spreaders) are stolen from both Greene and Greene and the guy who built my sister's table, the square plugs are both a Greene and Greene touch and what I previously explored in my dining room table, and the choice of materials - mahogany and walnut - I've used on several other pieces. AND I used the Chulitna River Rocks....
This little detail roughly doubled the time I spent on the project, but it was a really interesting exercise, allowed me to stay true to my goal of stretching my boundaries with each project, and I think added greatly to the aesthetics of the finished piece. It's certainly unique....
I've been getting more and more comfortable with chisels, and wanted to incorporate a classic Arts and Crafts detail, the butterfly splice, into my table. Even in as close a detail as shown above, it actually looks okay! The butterfly itself is lacewood.

With this project I really think I've elevated my hobby to a new level. Every joint on this piece fit perfectly and honestly, I think it would have been almost as stable if I hadn't used any glue at all! Most rewarding...

The finish is oil with two coats of rub-on polyurethane on the table and shelf tops, and wax.

Late 2007 - Jewelry Boxes

I don't now recall what made me decide to try my hand at boxes. I do know that of late I've been very interested in detail, and a box affords the opportunity to showcase one's attention to detail. At the library I found a fascinating book called "400 Boxes" that is, as the title suggests, a book featuring 400 hand-made boxes. There are some truly wonderous creations there - and it makes me realize how much farther one could take this (if one had all the time in the world, of course).
The boxes were made primarily of padouk and canarywood, with accents of maple, purpleheart, bloodwood, walnut, zebrawood, and ipe.

This project was my first use of dovetails - the classic woodworking joint. They're a time consuming and exacting process (and that's saying something coming from a guy building furniture in his spare time). These were rough-cut with a table saw and finished with chisels. If I made them on a regular basis I would buy a jig for use with a router - and who knows? maybe someday I will.With each project I seem to be using hand tools more and more, which is gratifying. What one can do with a couple of sharp chisels can't be duplicated by machine, and chisels, files, and a block plane are perfect for ensuring proper fitting of the myriad parts and pieces that go into my projects these days. AND there's less dust. AND I get to listen to music and maybe even sip on a beer while I work - luxuries not afforded with power tools.

2005 - 2008 - Lamps

A Lantern Table
I'd read an article in Fine Woodworking about "bent wood lamination" and wanted to try my hand at it. I'd also wanted to get away from the standard rectilinear style of almost everything I'd built to date. And then I saw a picture of an occasional table that used a large river rock as the base - the wheels in my head started turning, and the result was this table.I don't think I've ever struggled so much with a project - either before or since. Some of it was the complicated geometry, some of it was my first serious try at inlays, but I think alot of it was just trying to get the piece to meet my ideas of good form and lines.

Of course now that I think about it some more, there really are alot of complicated details - not least the lantern. I've always been fascinated by japanese and chinese lanterns as well as the unique roof lines of alot of traditional oriental architecture, and in this project I tried to explore this in some detail. Great fun - but alot of thought, alot of drafting, and alot of rework. I went through several iterations of paper for the shades in the lantern before I discovered a source of handmade "art" paper right here in Anchorage. The piece sat uncompleted in my shop for the better part of a year before I finally got up the gumption to complete it - but even then it wasn't finished.....


A Craftsman Table Lamp

After completing (or so I'd assumed) the lamp table, I moved right into another lamp, albeit in a completely different style.We'd gone to visit my in-laws in upstate New York for Thanksgiving 2006, and while there I got the opportunity to tour the Stickley furniture factory in Manlius. Gustav Stickley was one of the leading proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement in the early part of the 20th century, and his brothers Leopold and John George founded the furniture factory that is still the leading manufacturer of mission-style furniture. Not sure a tour like that would be everyone's cup of tea - but I was fascinated. Anyway, the tour as well as subsequent reading into the Stickleys and the Arts and Craft movement led me to the inspiration for this table lamp. The shade is a takeoff of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Tree of Life" motif that he used in much of his early stained glass. The base, although imbued with a vaguely Arts and Crafts feel, is pretty much my own invention.

This was a great project to work on my fussy detailing skills. The wood is predominately cherry and walnut, with accents of beech, bloodwood, and mango, and finished with oil and wax. I used handmade paper from the same source as above for the shade.

The Lantern Table Revisited

I was never happy with the way the table top of my lantern table turned out. There were a few dips in the surface from overeager sanding, the mango used in round disk in the middle was punky, and I'd managed to sand through the walnut veneer in a few places. I stared at the thing and let it bug me for over a year before deciding that since I hope that most of my best pieces will outlive me by at least several generations, I didn't want someone 100 years from now impugning my craftmanship. So after completing my coffee table (see separate entry) I swallowed hard, took the lantern table down to the shop, and broke off the table top.

I constructed a new top of two book-matched mahogany boards, and tried my hand at inlay again - this time using padouk, canarywood, and walnut left over from earlier projects. This time - success! Vastly improved. The new top was finished with oil, two coats of rub-on polyurethane, and paste wax buffed to a spit shine. I am finally pleased with the piece.

Other Work

A Cream and Sugar Serving Tray

I made two of these little trays from ohia and mango - both brought back from the big island of Hawaii.

A Set of Picture Frames

I made these picture frames for a set of prints I bought while in the Everglades. The wood is maple, lacewood, and bloodwood with walnut splines. My first fun with exotic hardwoods.

Cutting Boards

Two cutting boards to commemorate our two most important fish here in Alaska - the halibut and the salmon. The woods used are beech (for the bodies), lacewood, bloodwood, and zebrawood. This was the first time I tried joining freehand cuts. The secret - double-stick carpet tape! Overlay the two boards with the tape between them and one (very nervous) cut on the bandsaw!

Yard Art - Lanterns
Much of early/mid 20th century american and european furniture has been heavily influenced by classic japanese design. However dilute, these values also inform my work. Going way back before my interest in furniture, I 've always been fascinated by traditional japanese gardens and especially the stone lanterns that are often times present there. I have no skill or experience whatsoever in masonry (not that I wouldn't like to try it some day), so I decided to try to adapt the style to wood. While hardly on the level of "fine furniture", I thoroughly enjoyed putting these two lanterns together - and they definitely add something to the yard.

Let's Talk Shop

Welcome to my inner sanctum - my "man cave" if you will..... This may sound a little silly, but one of the reasons we bought the house we did is because it had a room in the basement right off the garage that I could use as a shop. It's not big enough (they never are), has no windows, and isn't hermetically sealed from the rest of the house, but all in all even after almost 10 years I get along just fine down there. Got speakers in the shop and the stereo in an adjoining room - and there is almost nothing I like better than going down there, putting on a some weirdo music with a big dumb beat that is generally banned in the rest of the house, and building things.

In terms of tools, I know there are lots of folks out there who are incredibily picky about tools. Not me. I have reached a certain station in life that allowed me to some time ago declare a strict moratorium on cheap tools, but for the most part if it gets the job done I'm happy with it.

I got a generous head start in both this hobby and my tool collection through my grandfather (and in some cases his father before him). He'd worked in construction when much younger, and always had an abiding interest in carpentry even into my adult life. I remember being thoroughly entertained as a young child taking his tools and the scraps of wood he'd give me and trying to bang something together. The odd thing was that nothing was off limits - anything I wanted to mess around with he'd be happy to let me mess around with - and when I think back on what I did to his chisels, planes, etc. I cringe. What a doting and generous granddad! (I'd have smacked me into next week myself) When he died none of his heirs expressed much interest in any of his tools, so I pretty much inherited the whole mess. Over the years I've added substantially to what he left me, and replaced a great deal of what he had - but still, many of the tools I use today were his. He was one of my favorite relatives, and a real gem of a human being, so I derive no small amount of pleasure from putting his tools to good use. I like to think he'd be happy too.

The most important tool in my shop has got to be my rather mature Craftsman table saw. Many thanks to my childhood neighbor Margot Fowles for bequeathing it to my family, and many thanks to my father for schlepping it all the way from New Jersey to Colorado for me. Next most important is my radial arm saw, followed closely in recent years by the band saw and both the thickness planer and the jointer.

The introduction of random orbital sanders about a decade ago revolutionized the way wood is finished - and I love mine. But in recent years as the quality of my joinery has improved (and the fussyness of the pieces has expanded), I find myself relying less on the wholesale reduction of wood fiber to dust that a power sander represents, and much more on a simple sanding block and varying degrees of fine grade sandpaper.

Other power tools that see lots of use are a router, drill press, and belt sander. I also have a lathe, but that's a whole 'nuther skill set that I have yet to really explore. To my way of thinking, that sort of thing is what retirement is for. Actually, I can't wait.

I can't speak highly enough of what one can accomplish with a set of sharp chisels. Other hand tools that see lots of use are an ancient combination square (always, always at hand), an equally ancient compass, those same hand planes I beat the hell out of all those years ago, various smaller squares and triangles, a vernier caliper, and of course, reams of paper, lots of sharp pencils, and a calculator.

Winter 2004-2005 - A Dining Room Table

This was a major project for me - and a huge step forward in both joinery and the use of hand tools - specifically chisels.

I first checked out about a dozen books from the library and learned all about proper table design - height, size for each setting, and most important, a leg layout that would afford each setting ample leg room. I have dined at too many tables where I've clobbered my knees.

This was my first time working with mahogany, and I now understand why it is the wood of choice for so much furniture. It has a remarkably high degree of workability and of course takes a finish beautifully. So too does walnut, the accent wood used for the spindles, edging, and square plugs.

We bought a set of chairs from JC Penney first, so I had to try to match the color of the wood of the chairs. This involved having a stain custom-mixed which I then used for everything but the center boards of the table top. It actually worked - the match is pretty close to perfect.

This was also my first experience with breadboard ends - and the hidden joinery that allows the wood to expand without blowing the joint apart. Almost cut two fingers off in the process..... Needless to say I now have ALOT more respect (read fear) for the table saw.

I wanted a table with leaves that could be expanded to accomodate the few times a year that we have more than six people over for dinner, but I didn't want a seam in the middle of the tabletop to look at the rest of the time. After much research I found the solution - as illustrated below. Ended up with two pages of quadratic equations trying to calculate an exact 3/4" rise in the length of travel of each leaf.

After the staining of all but the center of the tabletop, I applied oil to everything, then rub-on polyurethane on the top, and finished with wax. The top is my first experience with a properly buffed out wax finish - in the right light it positively glows.

There are a few things I wish I could do over (and maybe some day will) - but for the most part it turned out very well. Still learning tho.....

Winter 2003-2004 - A Mission Style Bed

This design is a combination of classic mission style and some details I saw in book of Frank Lloyd Wright's furniture. I started this years prior when I lived in Colorado. At that point I had only been serious about woodworking for a few years and soon realized that I was in way over my head. I actually moved all the lumber to Anchorage and finally completed the project.

The bed is predominately cherry with walnut veneer in the pediments at the tops of the head and foot. Finished with oil and wax.

1999 - 2003 - Early Efforts with Solid Wood

I started on these two dressers shortly after we moved to Anchorage. I wanted to work with local material, so I bought several rough-milled boards of Alaska Spruce. That turnned out to be a mistake as unfortunately they were not kiln dried, and even after months acclimating in my shop, the boards warped horribly once they were assembled into the furniture. Live and learn, I suppose... So the warped wood coupled with the fact that my joinery skills were at this point fairly primitive led to furniture that was a long shot shy of any display of mastery. But, almost 10 years later they still work, they still look pretty good (if you don't look too closely), and taught me alot that I was able to apply on my later endeavors.

A year later I built two of these bedside tables to go in the same room. This time I used kiln-dried pine boards and lo and behold, no warping! My joinery was vastly improved - though still pretty rough. If I had it to do over again the tables would have been an inch or two taller, but aside from that I am happy with how they turned out - even all these many years and projects later. Note the cherry legs on both this piece and the dressers above: They have a peculiar torpedo profile that I saw in a store and liked - so I tried my hand at it. On every project I consciously try to include something I have never done before in an effort to expand my skills.