So this happened

Here's an interview the Bangor Daily did about me. I tried to talk about not only chairs but also the nature of art and craftsmanship. 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1103360949739817&id=100001977660888

Steam Bending Kiln Dried Cherry

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska


 

 Well, as you can see, less than stellar results.  I kinda sorta thought this would happen, or maybe at least I wasn't totally surprised.  I think a few things made this happen.  One, and most obviously, using kiln dried wood.  Usually I use split green ash, and it bends beautifully.  Second, I think I placed the clamps in the wrong place, on the ends.  I should have started on one end and worked my way up.  And lastly, I left the door of my steam box open in an attempt to keep the tenons out of the steam.  I stuffed a towel around gaps, but there was a fair but of leakage, so I think the temp never really got high enough.  The piece seemed "dry" when I took it out, and not really all that hot.  If you can't hold it in your bare hands, it's about right.  

I should back up and say that I am building a cherry rocker and the only cherry I have is kiln dried.  If I can't get these posts bent, I may have to see if Matt can get me some green stock, or at least air dried.  When wood is kiln dried ( and a lot depends on how it is dried, the temps of the schedule etc.) sometimes the lignin can become set, meaning it can't be bent.  This is why kiln dried wood is stiff, whereas air dried is more flexible.  

Because there is no cherry growing around here, if I can't get these bent this chair is dead in the water, so I have to come up with something.  I remember reading an article years ago where Russ Philbeck, a chair maker in So. Cal. used k.d. wood but he soaks it in water with a little fabric softener in it ( it allows the water to soak in better by reducing the surface tension).    So I filled up a PVC pipe with some water and am soaking the new posts til maybe Sunday, then I'm gonna steam them for at least 1.5 hrs with the door closed, and be very careful, and quick, with the clamping....pretty much everything I didn't do the first time around.  We'll see, hope it works, cause if not this chair is done.

It amazes me how few parts it takes to build a chair.  These are all the parts, save for the the spindles and the rockers.  The spindles are already drying after steam bending.

The other problem of the day.  I had the second coat of a multi-layered paint job, and I noticed a timber break that I somehow missed in the assembly of this chair.  A timber break is when a tree is felled over another tree and breaks, but not in two, rather it creates internal breaks that rear their ugly heads later in the assembly.

As upset as I was, better to find it now than later, believe me.  So I flooded a little epoxy in the back break and some super glue on the front, a couple hours later and some sanding, good as new.  It does set the painting back but like I said, better now than years later in a clients house.  So, a good bad day, I guess.

Here are  the two chairs, before the painting.  One is gonna be a brownish, and the other, the one with the break, is gonna be more black.

This shows the importance of using green, riven wood to steam bend.  It makes everything else easier. 
Easy to the point where it's easy to get complacent about bending, and then you try to bend kiln dried, and, well, see above.

Finishing Pine

"He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez,  Love in the Time of Cholera

Back when I started woodworking, I was fresh out of college and working at my father's planer mill, where we processed about 10 million feet of Eastern White Pine, so guess what wood I used for my first few, at the time, part time years as a budding woodworker.

I learned how to work with wood that was slightly warped, because when I got it it was already surfaced to 3/4".  Another thing I learned was how to finish pine so it looked pretty good.  Paint it!  Seriously, I paint most of my pine projects but sometimes I want something different and here are two examples of finishing processes.

The Shaker wood box above is stained with steel wool dissolved in vinegar.  It takes at least a couple weeks and then I run it through a coffee filter.  Then I just use a plant mister to spray it on and then wipe it off.  A couple coats of linseed and thinner and done.  It's amazing how over the years, this pine looks just like walnut.  It really does. 

Here is a jelly cupboard that I stained with a gel stain.  It's a fairly involved process that has seven different steps; not that any step is hard but it does take time.  But the results are worth it.  I sand it out to 180, then hand sand and vacuum.  Then a spit coat of shellac, gel stain, shellac, glaze, shellac, then oil varnish, couple coats, and then dark wax.  One key to finishing pine is to use oil based product.  Otherwise, it never gets to be a rich orange color.

This piece above it finished the same way, and is based on a Shaker dry sink from the Handburg books.  This one is perfect as a changing table.  The large knobs hold plastic bags for the diapers, the door hides extras and wipes, the drawers hold more extras, the height is right as is the length.  It is just perfect as a changing table. 

As far as the boat, I am going to try a new thing on the floorboards.  The bottom of the boat is pine and I have read that a painted bottom is a whole different kind of maintenance headache, so I want something that is no work and very traditional and I found "boat soup" online.  It is real Pine Tar,  Tung Oil, real Turpentine, and some Japan Dryer.  I guess you just warm it up and slather it on, then wipe in off.  Six coats should about do it.  Sounds really salty, can't wait.

Vineyard Table Part 6

One's art goes as deep and as far as one's love.

Andrew Wyeth

The Vineyard Table is done and I could not be happier with the results.  The fumed oak looks fantastic...it's a rich chocolate brown.  This is a color you can't get with dyes or stains.  One thing I try to do is what I call minimalist finishing, which is to say there are colors that only time can give, so by putting on an oil finish and letting nature work, you will be rewarded. This table has a simple oil finish.

In the third picture up. you can see the slightly different color from the maple pivot dowel and a small red oak patch.  It's weird how fuming works on some woods and not on others.


Note:  I have been putting more pieces on my Etsy shop so check it out.

Vineyard Table Part 5

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! 

 ~William Shakespeare, Othello

 I decided to drawbore the legs into the feet.  I will touch briefly on drawboring; magazines recently have gotten a lot of mileage out of this technique so there is plenty of info out there.  Essentially, you cut a mortise and tenon and then drill a hole thru the mortise (not the tenon) and then mark the exact center of the hole onto the tenon.

Then you offset the hole 1/16" or so towards the shoulder of the tenon.  Below you can see how I have drilled the holes, note how the inner hole, the hole thru the tenon, is offset to the shoulder.

Then you ream the hole with a drawbore pin to allow the dowel to more easily start.  I made this pin from a drift pin set into an octagonal ash handle. You can now buy there at Lie Nielsen, among others. 

Then I sharpen the end of the dowel in a pencil sharpener and drive it thru.  Above you can see the tension that pushes the dowel up, even after it is seated.  Old post and beam barns were constructed using this technique; now they just build ugly steel huts.  That sadly is a time gone that we will never see again.

 Above you can see the mortise has been chopped out and below is the tenon, with the wedge slots cut to receive the wedges.  I cut the slots wide to have wide wedges so they would be noticeable from casually looking at the table.  I think that says "handmade".

Here are the wedges driven in and cut flush.  You can see the walnut wedges that should be a nice contrast to the white oak.

Here is the table ready for the fume tent.  I cleaned up the garage and left a window open.  I'll go into the fuming next post but suffice it to say I used much stronger ammonia and significantly cut down the fume time.  And it looks amazing.  I'll post the pics as soon as I get them back from Connie.

A Few Neat Tricks

 I found this the other day on the Internet.  Not the empty potato chip container, a thread on how to sharpen rasps and files.  I use these a lot when I carve the knuckles on my chairs and over time they get dull.  I suspect they actually get clogged with shavings, but cleaning them is next to impossible.   I found this about using battery acid for 5 to 10 minutes and being very careful, all that.  But then I found one that said you could use vinegar overnight and it would do the same thing, and was a lot less risky.  So I filled a container with vinegar, left overnight, and it really did make a difference.

Here you can see the bubbles as the wood jammed into the crevices is eaten away.  This is actually a regular double cut file.  These files are pretty easy to clean with a card file, a small stiff brush.  This file was really dull, so it was a good test for this.

 I cleaned the file and rasps the next day with a stiff brush and baking soda, which neutralizes the acid and provides a bit of grit to clean the file or rasp.  Then I dried them with a heat gun and checked them to see if it made any difference.  With the rasps, they felt sharper but it's hard to tell if they are truly sharper or if they are just cleaner.  Either way they cut better, but I have a hunch that they are sharper, that the acid eats away the dull edge and leave a sharper edge.  But on the file, which was free of debris going in, it really is sharper.  It cuts better and faster, so I guess the process works.


 Here are a couple shots of the files and rasps I use to carve knuckles.  Nicholson #49 and #50, and a cheap one I think from Lee Valley, which actually works really well.  And the file I finish the surfaces with.  I do wish I could carve better, but until that day comes, I use rasps and files. 

 You can see here they are cleaner.  I was gonna order new rasps, that's how slowly these were cutting, but a simple ( and cheap ) fix and they are good as new.  Saves money and resources, which is also good.  One thing I do want to note is when you buy a file, try to find one with a safe edge (no cutting teeth on the edges), that way you can finish right up to an adjacent surface without marring it.  You can see that the rasp below does not have safe edges.

This is where this all leads.  Some people are better at carving and don't have to use rasps and files and I envy they're ability.  But these tools get me where I want to go, so I will continue.  I also think that some look down their noses at this technique, which is fine.  More power to them. 

   





  

And in the spirit of recycling, here are a couple pics of a small piece trimmed off a leg I was turning.  I split the pieces from a dead green log, split and then turn the rough pieces in to 2 1/4" rounds, then I let them dry for a few days and then turn them.  Anyway, one problem is end checking.  Usually this isn't a big deal, but by painting the ends with old shellac, the ends don't check at all.  Anchorseal works great too, but then I gotta order it, and pay for shipping   The shellac I had laying around anyway, so again, I save money and resources.  And the shellac works great.  I get the shellac based primer, Zinser.  Plus, when you get Anchorseal on a smooth concrete floor, it's a whole different kind of slippery.  So with shellac you avoid the whole clean up mess.  And, because it's alcohol based,  it won't freeze so I can use it most of the winter.

Below you can see the untreated end and the treated end after a few days in the furnace room, so you can see it really does work.  Wood dries quickest out the ends, which cause stress as the rest of the piece dries, and the result is end checks.  That's one reason why you never check moisture content on the ends of boards.

Unpainted

Painted

 Last trick---take a piece of sandpaper about 4" by 4".  Rip a slot in the center and fold one piece down

Fold that half, now a quarter sheet, over the other half.  Then fold the top single sheet over...

The trick here is that at no point does the sandpaper rub on sandpaper, see below.  It also makes the piece easier to hold and use.   I picked this up from an old painter who worked off and on for my family when I was growing up.