Some Ideas For Wood working

More than you ever needed to know about the ladder flipper! Bob Rhoads made the ladder and supplies these actual dimensions:

• Rungs are 8.5mm each
• Rungs are 61 MM apart at center
• Ladder uprights are 36MM s apart on insides
• Toy hole is 9mm
• Hole is centered 15.5 mm down from each end
• Toy is 28 mm wide and 66mm long

When the toy rests on a rung, you should have a 6mm gap in between it and the edge of the rung above it.


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The "Toy-Making Dad" has detailed instructions on his web site. I really should have put a few minutes of research into this project before I started!


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Lane Steinsultz clued me in on this site that has an actual diagram.

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And Finally, Rance Rupp, over on LumberJocks, shot this video:

Have you ever tried creating mosaic designs over mirrors or small tabletops? With several ceramic tiles and grout, you can already create beautiful designs. You can also use tile mosaics in concrete, glass, and metal.

Before you start any mosaic project, you should get all the things you need so that they are within easy reach. Here are the things you’ll need – acrylic sheets, palette knives, tile grout, grout brushes, soft rugs, gloves, sponges, newspaper, plastic bags, pencils, notebook papers, hammer, safety glasses, and pottery chips or tiles.

Using colored markers or pencils, draw the design on a paper. Get the appropriate tile for your drawing. Make sure that you have all the colors you need for a particular project. Carefully lay out the tiles over your drawing. This is one choice to ensure that the tile pieces are complete. Remove the tiles when you’re satisfied with the results. Put acrylic over the drawing.

Using your palette knife, put a small amount of adhesive on the tile’s backside and place it correctly on the drawing. Keep the spaces in between tiles at about 1/8 inch. Leave the mosaic to try.

Mix the grout. Make sure that the grout’s color is much darker than the tiles. Avoid purchasing grout of the same color as the tiles. When the tiles have dried, you can now apply the grout on the spaces. The grout should be leveled with the tile’s height.

After applying the grout, get a damp sponge. Wipe the surface of the mosaic using the damp sponge. Make sure that all the excess grout is removed. Do this immediately after applying the grout; don’t wait until it cures. If you’re working with mirrors, clean the mirror at once to prevent the grout from sticking to other parts of the mirror.

The grout will cure as days pass by. You can polish the tiles using a damp cloth. If you’ve made small designs, you can use it in coaster and trivet but stick felt pads first.

In most mosaic works, the tiles are square-shaped. You can also try using other shapes of tiles. If you have big ceramic tiles, you can put it inside a plastic bag and smack it using a hammer. However, if you have nippers at home, you can also cut the tiles to your desired shape. When cutting tiles, wear your goggle or any eye protector to ensure eye safety.

Whenever you’re doing a mosaic project, don’t forget to wear protective gloves. Some tiles have shard edges which can slice your fingers. The gloves will also protect your skin when you’re applying the grout.

When you’re purchasing the mosaic materials, make a list of everything so that you will not forget anything. This will save you time and money. Get latex grout because it does not shrink and spreads well.

Tile mosaics are not as expensive as you think. You can use excess tiles available at home if you want to create an inexpensive mosaic. Start with small mosaics in mirrors or in your tabletops. Once you’ve mastered the procedure, you can now try more complicated projects. Later on, you might even want to try wall or floor mosaic. With this art, there are endless opportunities to show your creativity and imagination.

Follow the procedure above and in no time, you will see the end product.

When it comes to home improvement, fabric designing, and the likes, stenciling is something that you should consider. As an arts and crafts technique, this has come into vogue. The more popular that it has become because of the numerous television shows that feature it these days. Overall, it is really fun and productive to do this. Much more, anybody can do this without any hassle at all.

Stenciling is a method that requires patience and of course, practice. But then again, you dont have to panic even if you are still a beginner. There are several types of materials that you can actually put to use. Online stores as well as the specialty arts and crafts shops have them available. Nevertheless, choosing your materials is not that daunting. If you are all set to do stenciling, then, now is the perfect time to learn more about it. Buckle up and read on so you can start your project in no time!

Stenciling for Your Project

The stencil can actually be placed on almost any type of object. You can do stenciling on a cloth, a glass, or on the walls of your home. Of course, different objects require different materials too. The same thing goes with the kind of paint that you need to use. There are stencil designs that you may choose from but it doesnt mean that you will restrain your own imagination. There is no limit when it comes to the use of your own sense of creativity. You can create any style and design that you wish to. In fact, stenciling also allows you to transfer your design towards another form of media. As a result, the ink will move it to your chosen media so that the design can be replicated onto the other object placed underneath. The basic paints to use for your project are the fabric paints and acrylic paints.

Transferring your stencil design onto a glass may prove to be a bit complicated. There are usually a few kinds of paints or inks that suit the glass. Therefore, be sure to choose the appropriate one because you cant wash off any ink or paint from the glass material should you make the wrong choice.

Meanwhile, stenciling on any rough fabric is another challenge. If you plan to put a stencil onto your jacket, you should make use of the special stencil material and jacket fabric. Also, be certain that you flatten the jacket. As a tip, it is best to hand draw some smaller edges of your stencil design so as to achieve the emphasis that you are yearning for.

When it comes to home decorating, stenciling is another thing to consider. Childrens bedrooms and playrooms are best designed by using this technique. You can stencil their names on the headboards of their beds or create a couple of designs on the walls. Your home walls will be turned into a wallpaper-looking design if only you will apply the same technique. Mix and match the colors of your choice and let a different feel of your abode surface through this work of art.

Stencil lets you create the most wonderful designs that you want. In fact, you can alchoices experiment depending on your mood or the season. This activity is also fun to do especially when you have your other family members involved in this work of art.

Im back.

Ive just finished gluing the red birch box up and Ive got some photos:

This is another laminated box made out of a short section of a red birch board.  Here is a photo of the unglued layers along with the lid made out of Brazilian cherry.  The last layer will be the foot of the box and its also made from Brazilian cherry, and it will be glued on separately later today.

The next photo looks like some medieval torture device. These are the clamps that compress the layers while the glue dries. I think the layers of wood are crying, "Let us out of here!! This hurts!!"



Lastly, here is a photo of the bottom layer. This will be glued on separately because it has a smaller diameter than the larger red birch layers. I will have to move the clamps inward on the block and right next to the outer edge of the red block to ensure that the red layer is glued on properly and so that will happen later today.

I have began the process of rebuilding the hand saws in my shop, replacing the crap plastic handles with wooden ones. The process did not begin so smoothly though, it started with a few fits and at least one loud outburst of cursing. The only good size power tool I retained when moving into the new shop was my bench top bandsaw. I had my wider 1/2 inch blade in there for re-sawing some pine for a few Christmas projects, and I wanted to change it to the 1/8 inch blade to do the tight corner cutting the handle templates required. Today the bandsaw and I just could not get along, getting the blade aligned on the tires and tensioned...well it only lead to the swearing I alluded to earlier. After a breath, I rethought my process; really my recent reasoning has been to try and do more hand tool work, but as long as I let it, the bandsaw was going to let me continue the power tool habits Ive developed. I pushed the saw to the back corner of the bench top and reached for the coping saw.

I started by tracing the patterns onto the poplar board. Why poplar??? Because it is the only hard wood board of enough width in the shop... so use what youve got I guess. Well see how it holds up and if it fails then well consider this a test run. You can see from the changing pencil lines in the pic that I took the original templates and modified them a bit to fit the size of my meat hook hands. I chopped off the larger blank chunks in the board with the backsaw, split between the two handle blanks with the coping saw and then systematically went to work working the shapes from the blanks. One based on an open handle Lie Nielsen dovetail saw and a the other based on a early 1900s Henry Disston & Sons "D" handle tenon saw. Thank god for the internet that helped me find several usable templates

To cut out the opening in the "D" handle, I clamped the piece to the bench and pulled out the brace and bits to keep with the hand tool mojo. The you disassemble the coping saw, string the blade through the drilled hole and reassemble the saw. That was it for the evening. I decided to stop there with the blanks and continue to work on the shaping and setting tomorrow.

In the end the bandsaw did turn out to be some help. It worked great to set both pieces on to catch the final pic.

I have planed down, squared, and scribed the white oak for the opposite side of the door, and have glued and clamped it in place. I want to make sure this has plenty of dry time, so this will sit for at least a day, if not more, before I trim it.
After trimming, I will begin the sanding/staining/finishing process.

 sam finished the new manchester, vt chamber of commerce/welcome center railings yesterday by adding the handicap access railings.  they needed to be simple and uncluttered, yet strong and light.  he used 1.25" square tubing with center supports and side braces to the wood posts.  there are little plant hangers on the side supports to hang plants on in the summer.
 nice little detail on the ends of the rails and a tricky connection to the stone and concrete work.  the support sytem will be paved over soon.


a fine job on the building renovations by bill drunsic, the owner, teresa findeisin, architecture, along with dan scarlotta of vermont traditional builders, wells, vermont, who headed up the construction.

Finished the table Thursday on the way out the door for the weekend ... It leaves for Connecticutt, Wednesday morning ...

7/1/09 update

Will and Jim sanding the second coat of stain .. The client decided to go with all stained chestnut, no paint on the base ... Its going to look sharp

Ready for the seal coat tomorrow
6/26/09
Were in the finishing process ... still work with the clients on the possible colors ( or not) on the base. the top color has been decided and thats set to go now ... Were debating a wash coat of paint, with more or less stain showing through .... click the pictures to enlarge them ....

Proposed paint samples for the legs and aprons

2nd coat of stain .. Lockwood aniline dye

The first coat of understain is sanded and ready to go ...
6/21/09
By the end of the day Friday, we had most of the construction and joinery completed .... Tomorrow we will cut the center legs and fit them up and then disassemble the whole thing for final sanding and glue up. Click the pictures to enlarge them ,,,,

Table top glue up

Handscraped and sanded ... Breadboard end stub tenon detail

Gluing up the two tenoned half rings ...

All together now .. 4:00 pm, Friday ... Trevor, doing his best Stayin Alive imitation before heading out for the weekend ...

Original post below

Close up of the original table base ...

Were making more and more pieces using recycled chestnut. Its a green material, being thats its timber recycled from old buildings, and, though I sometimes wonder about all the trucking that has to happen to get it to me from West Virginia, still, I feel good about it, people like it, I like using it, and it makes wonderful furniture. This table is more or less a copy of one we made in 2003 for my friends Susan Sargent and Tom Peters. Its a little wider than theirs, same length, and I think it will be all chestnut, no paint. Its an interesting table to build. Luckily, we have some handwritten notes from Ethan Verner, the last guy to carve legs like this in the shop. We dont do them often, but weve got it figured out now so it goes along pretty good when we do. Wills carving these and hes really got the hang of it now. More later as we progress.... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

Laying out the spiral carving divisions using string and nails

First leg carved

Most of them done; top roughed out in the background ...

First page of notes from mahogany carved leg table 2004 ... I think Will used the saw on the first one, but then switched to carving directly with a freshly sharpened 1/2" veiner (V shaped chisel) (chizzle) ...

Page 2

(Almost) Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the ducks are back ... They arrived last Friday, as usual, almost to the day that the stream first cuts a channel across the ice. They were tired from their trip and were napping when we got to work on Friday, but Monday, whoa, below, we had an intruder ... a single female and they did not like here. We watched off and on for the morning while they chased her back and forth across the pond, and finally, she left ... Things were back to normal today but it was fun while it lasted ... Kits got the redwing blackbirds at the feeder too ... Big Tom turkey yesterday morning and the she also saw the bobcat briefly one morning last week, probably stalking the squirrels. Spring is coming ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Back and forth ... when she got to the edge, she would fly back over their heads and the chase would continue, til finally she left ... havent seen her since ...
A little earlier than usual ... but Sam said this afternoon the leeks are up ... global warming I guess ...

ok, claro wlanut, i love this wood ... fancy, warm, vibrantly figured most of the time, stable, flat; its all good ... and we have made a lot of stuff with it. lately, as we get more requests for custom pieces, i have come to feel the need to have some photos of our different items in one place ... a sort of, here, this about sums it up link, so i dont have to get a picture here, get another picture there, find a picture of that specific table base .... etc, etc. if you make custom stuff for other people, and have been doing it for a while, youll know what i mean ... anyway; here goes ... please click the photos to enlarge them ...
first up, cause i like the warm and fuzzy photo at the top, is this coffee table we made for a client in the boston area, who actually had the luxury of keeping it on her covered porch along with a collection of our outdoor lounge chairs ... for more info on this project, check out this blog post ...
sometimes, at the end of a project we even get letters like the one above .. my home has been trumped by the table ... hmmmm, i doubt it, cause ive seen photos of the house, but its a nice compliment, regardless. it goes with the table on the crossbuck base below, and the original blog post from 2008 is here. i think that one may be the one that started it all for us ... but heres another early one, and the first table we did with the solid steel base, what we refer to as our shaker style legs ... learning process on that one ... but, we got er done, and have done many others with that style legs in both bright and blackened steel the original blog post is here ...
we made a little model first on the cnc and sprayed it with the krylon metalllic paint. looks like the real thing, only a tenth as big ...
the finished table, cut from its backgroundbirds eye view of the grain in the top ...
sometimes we have to assist mother nature in getting the shape exactly right
but alls well that ends well .... this was a big one ... about 4 wide and 11 long ... original blog post here ...
and above is another letter from a happy desk client ... some drawers and secret compartments made for a really special desk ... this was a recent one from late last year ... more info here


we start with slabs like this one; in fact we bought four from goodhope, from the same log and used them for the desk above, the table below, the table we have in our current show at the southern vermont arts center, and we still have one more available on out wall that you can see a couple photos down ...
this was a fantastic piece of wood when it was all polished up, and its now happy in its new home in the hamptons ... california to goodhope hardwoods in pennsylvania to vermont, to east hampton .... lots of miles on most of these. we have two to montana, about a 6000 mile trip !!


 above are thee versions of our trapezoid bases, a desk, a dining table and a coffee table.  these bases are all also available in natural, rainbow, and blackened finishes.

several tables have our ladderback chairs in one form or another ... these above sport nice bomber jacket leather seats.
the raw material ... often, not perfect, though with lots and lots of potential ...
this one heads off to england next week in a pair of crates via ocean freight. even more miles on that one ... this has a new base design based on our designer clients input ... again, a model was helpful in determining the final proportions ... more info here ...
the leg assemblies are drilled tapped and bolted together and can be easily shipped flat, in pieces.and we often add butterflies to both decorate and stabilize the cracks.
this one is in our current show at the southern vermont arts center in nearby manchester.great figure and grain character in this one ... and this is the last slab from the spectacular log you have seen in some of the previous pictures. its from closest to the center of the log and probably has, actually, the best figure yet. it was completely cracked into two pieces when it arrived, and we intend, in the end, to probably use it as two pieces, connected by butterflies, but separated as above by a 1/4 inch or so. even without finish the color is amazing ... call now to discuss your options ...
sometimes a client will select a slab from the goodhope specials or coffee table slab page and we add just simple wooden or polished steel pipe bases. keep it simple stupid ... and now were at the sawbuck base table that goes with the letter at the top ... solid, twist and reverse twisted 1.25" steel crosspiece by sam in the metal shop ...
or we can weld other steel base designs from structural stock ... these pieces were fabricated by sam in the metal shop from 3/4" stock and some round, 1.5" solid bar stock

more info on this project here ... again with the models ... love em ...
some polished or black pipe legs .. instant coffee table
this bed and side table assembly went to florida and is made from a pair of american, not claro walnut, but spectacular nonetheless. i post it with the claro pieces because the design could easily be made using a claro slab as well ...
and sometimes we get to make a little bench for a new york city apartment entrance hall ... this one is 36" x 15". small, but i love the form and it opens up the possibility for others like it as well as new dining table base designs.
specs and shapes of our available leg designs, all of which can be customized and made heavier, lighter, wider, or shorter, as you wish. our most popular is the one above, in 1.5" thick steel.

and pretty much any welded shape you can come up with can be fabricated by sam in our in house custom metal shop
and here, ill talk VERY GENERALLY AND UNSPECIFICALLY about prices ...these prices of these tables are directly related to what we have to pay for the wood slab, delivered to our shop. a rule of thumb seems to be, or could be about $1000. to $1400. per lineal foot of table ... anyway, thats a place to start, but the final price could be more or less than that, if, for example, you select an extra wide, extra long, or figured slab, or one with some extra character from the specials page. each project is priced individually with the cost of the wood being the main factor ...

we sell the leg assemblies separately. the solid, waterjetted, 1.5" thick sets start at $3500. as drawn and pictured in the natural finish.  for the black or rainbow patina, add $400. there is a separate upcharge for custom shapes and 1.75" thick stock.  for each design that upcharge is different. custom shape and thickness quotes on request.  shipping for the bases in the northeast would be +/- 250-350.  nationwide quotes are available with your shipping address.

so, here, this about sums it up for claro walnut for now ... but i also feel like we have just scratched the surface ...

other walnut blogs posts at the links below:
a dozen big ones
how much does a claro walnut slab table cost?
one for sale right now