Moving in and moving on

Seems I haven't had much to say since the Art Show but I've been waiting to tell everyone that I'm moving to Waha, Idaho to live with my partner Mary on her horse ranch south of Lewiston. I'll be building a new shop there (my last) and I'll keep you all up to date on the going's on till the new Mastro Woodworking opens it's door.

By the way the Ranch is no longer for sale....

Sold!

Well I am pleased to tell everyone my box sold. It was purchased by the Wallowa Arts Council for their Artists of the Wallowas Collection. It's the first piece of wood work they have included in their collection.

A box for the art show

I needed to make something art show and I did a box for my granddaughter last year and I made one for my partner Mary out of some spalted elm I got from my friend Michael Davidson over at Cherry Ridge Silver. I wanted to build another box similar in some ways and and use the same wood again so I needed to go back to Michael's and see what he had.
So this is what I had to work with after my first re sawing. Next after looking for defects I would re saw it again to get 1/2" thick boards to start with.


So I glued up this for the top. I liked the slit so I left it. The slit then determined where I placed the handle in the end.



This is the bottom I'm planing with a high angle plane I made last year in a class I taught. Came in real handy for cleaning up after the glue up.



So I set up the compound miter saw and made a test run.



I had planed to dovetail the ends together like I did on Mary's box but because of time constraints I'm going to save this joint for the next box. It's sort of a hybrid mitered dovetail. Don't know that I've ever seen one before. The lines on the side go away so only the end grain of the pins show.



So I cut the miters and put a grove for the bottom finished and installed the bottom and glued her up. Oh yea I opted for a wax only finish, also because of time constraints.


So next thing is to cut the top to size and rabbet the top to fit the box and figure how to shape edges of the lid. Once I decided how I wanted it to look I rounded the under side using a block plane to form the round and then finish it with saw paper to 600.



The bottom rounded.



Next I first band saw the bevel then clean it up with my block plane and sand paper on a flat block of wood.





Only the handle left to do. I start by looking for the piece and how the grain of the wood will help shape the handle but I think I let the wood direct me here.



Remember me saying the slit determined where I would put the handle. Well it just seemed to me that the handle should relate the the top and to the overall shape of the grain so it looked to me that the handle should go right there.



I think of this box as "following the grain".



Here's a shot of the boxes together.

Table shelves

These pictures are from last week as I have had to start on the boxes I'm going to make for the local art show. So I start showing you my work on that next but on to the shelves.

Actually there are two shelves. When I got this ribbon mahogany it was one 9 ft board and I had to figure how to make it work for the shelf I needed for the bottom of the table. Well this was my solution to try to match the grain as best I could after cutting the board in half. Sometime your design decisions are made for you by your choice of materials and what you have to work with so this is how I did it.



I like how the shelves float on the stretchers and are contained within the bottom of the table.

Sam Maloof (1916-2009)

On the day of my last post May 21, we lost one of the finest men I ever had the pleasure to meet. To be sure Sam Maloof was one of the finest woodworkers of this century, but he was far more than that. But I'd just like to tell you about my first meeting him in Seattle in 1982 at a workshop The Northwest Guild of Fine Woodworkers put on. It's been so long I wasn't even sure what year it was but an article that Bill Farnsworth wrote for Pacific Woodworker brought it all back to me. If you'd like to read simply one of the best interviews ever with Sam then look it up. Bill really captures Sam as he is and was. I know because I was there at that lunch with Sam that day and no one could have captured it better.

Bill was there for the workshop we put on that ended up being 2 two day workshops over a couple of months interval. The reason there were two is because Sam started making a chair in the first and there simply wasn't enough time to finish the whole chair so he agreed to come back a second time. At least mostly finished. He left it with the tool marks from the rasps and files he had used to shape it. Just like the arm in the picture above that I have from that same workshop. Sam later told me that after that he only made one side of a chair so he could do it over a two day workshop. When the second workshop was over we asked Sam if he would sign the chair but (I think) to keep it from becoming mistaken for a true finished "Maloof" he said "We'll all sign it" and we did.

That chair stayed in front window of "The Woodjoint" for several years as our shop was also the meeting space for the NWGFW. I sat in that chair a lot over those years and I'm glad we left it just as Sam had left it.

When we closed the Woodjoint I lost track of the chair but I think each new president became custodian of it. So when I learned of Sam's death I thought of that chair and of the times I sat in it and thought about him and what I'd learned from him.

I sure would like to know where that chair is today?

And what about those 1/2 chairs?

Thanks Sam

Let's play pin the tenon

Finished the table today. Want to see how I pin the tenons and put the square plugs in?



This is how I make square holes out of round ones. First I drill 1/4" holes for the dowel pins and then take a piece of 1/4" dowel and turned it down so it fits in the hollow chisel then center it in the hole and mark the four corners. I then take the dowel center out and drive the chisel in a 1/4 of an inch.



After squaring up the 1/4" hole I push the dowel material into the hole and mark the depth so I can then cut it to length on the saw hook.



This is the saw hook I use to cut the dowels and plugs to length. After marking the depth of the dowel I cut 1/4" off here. Noticed the end is already rounded over so it will go into the hole easily.



I take a q-tip and strip off most of the cotton and get the glue inside of the hole but not on the outside where the plug will go.



Inserting the dowel, then tapping it in till it bottoms out. Then on to the plug.



After inserting the dowel I round over the 4 sides to make the pillow affect and then cut the plug to length on the same saw hook that I've marked at 9mm



After cutting the plugs to length I cut the corners off with a chisel so they will fit in the slightly smaller hole.



Here is the table on the ground for the first time. I still need to put the shelf on the stretcher but don't have the wood for them yet. I say them because I see there being two boards that are spaced and inch or so apart as it will have sheets stored here.

All glued up!

Today went well, so well in fact I didn't get ant photos during the glue up, oh well....

So I'll just let the pictures do the talking...

Back to the table

Starting gluing up today. Almost always a little tension in the air so I try to do a dry run and see if I have any fitting or clamping problems to deal with. After a run through I figure how I'll apply the glue so in the case of the through tenons in this table so as not to get any on the ends of the pre-finished tenons.



I glued the stretcher together and then pinned the tenons with 1/4" dowel and plug the visible end with a square hole and 1/4" square stock.


After driving the square stock into the square pin holes.


I lay a sheet of paper on the finished wood with a hole for the stock to stick through. I lay the saw on the paper which keeps me from scratching the finished surface.

After sawing the square stock off I clean up the saw cut with a chisel.

The square stock plugs that cover the end of the pinned tenon.

This is the finished end of the tenon.

Sign is finished

Two hours today cleaning up the letters and repairing one boo boo on the first sign.But first this is from yesterday when I was doing the routing. Safety first...

The view out the garage door. Just wish it was sunny.


This is how the letters looked after cleaning them up.


First part of the repair was to make a dovetail so the shape will help hold the repair in place. Then I needed to get a piece of wood from another slab from the same tree to match as well as I could. Then I needed to leave a band sawn surface to match the sawn surface on the sign. The piece was wet so to be able to use it I put it in the micro-wave for a couple of minutes to dry it out some.


Thius is the final repair.

Making a sign

I wasn't working on the table today so I thought I'd take you along with me today while I was working on the second of two signs for the Buckhorn Ranch. Walter Brennan's ranch when he lived here. I've been working on this over at Jay Zee Lumber who is providing the slabs of blue pine.

First I found the center of each end of the slab and marked off 6 inches on each side and then set a string line to line up the bottoms of the letters. Then I figure the spacing and glue the stencil down. My friend Karl Juve printed the letters on his 11x17 printer as I couldn't print them big enough.

Next I cut out the letters with a marking knife.
Then I marked the scored lines with a carpentry pencil so I could see them when I was routing out the letters.

I used two routers, one with a 1" straight bit and one with a 5/16" straight bit to cut the narrow parts of the letters.

All that's left to do is square up the corners and make sure all the lines are straight and it's done.