More of the SAPFM at the CHS

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Anton Chekhov

Here are some more attic pieces at the CHS (Conneticut Historical Museum).  Here is a beautiful bowfront dresser.  When I go to pick up my chair in September, I want to get measures of this dresser and the two C-arm chairs in my last blog.  I like high boys and all the veneering but have no place for that furniture in my house.

A couple of Heart Back chairs below, amazing work.  Below are two more, one an antique and one the reproduction from that piece.  I'm not sure who the modern builder is, nice chair though.

A beautiful pie crust tea table.  I could not imagine doing this without a router to hog out the waste in the middle.

In the lecture hall, they had a very nice display of antique tavern signs.  

Here are more current pieces that were selected for the show.  

The two aforementioned heart back chairs.  I think this one was in Fine Woodworking not too long ago.  Speaking of which, I met Mark Schofield at the show and he took a picture of me with my chair. 
And like an idiot I didn't get a picture of my chair.

This museum trip was like the first lesson I received on the way to my English Degree.....show-- don't tell (what's the other lesson Wilson?).   By going to this fantastic museum ( or any museum for that matter) you are shown the pieces of furniture or art or whatever, not told about them thru books or another's idea of them.  Go to the places and see them with your own eyes and feel with your own heart what others will try to tell you.  

SAPFM Gallery Show at CHS

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

Johannes Brahms 

As some of you may be aware I had a chair selected for a gallery show at the Connecticut Historical Society  in Hartford.  The show was sponsored and presented by the SAPFM.  Needless to say, I was surprised and honored and very excited to go.

The museum is housed at the Veeder Mansion in Hartford, at the edge of the University of Hartford.  The house/museum is spectacular, built in the 1920's and finished mostly in Mission Style, above you can see the quarter-sawn white oak panels in what was the library.  Mr. Veeder invented the mechanical counter and had a factory not too far from the house, where it remains to this day.

Here you can see the counter he invented,  that's where the money came from.  At my old work, we used this to tally the lumber, so this was really cool for me.  Below you can see the linen fold carvings on the molding if you look closely.

Here is a beautiful painting of the Hartford area.  This whole painting was on one wide pine board.

Rich Mallay, the head of collections, was nice enough to let me tag along when they went to the attic to get a piece for a show and I was blown away.  There were racks and racks of Windsor chairs and high boys and tea tables and dressers and anything else you could think of.

The Windsor below was made by Ebenezer Tracey, a fairly well-known and very prodigious chair maker from Bristol, Conn.  He built a lot of chairs, and I was thrilled to see a writing arm of his. 

Another view, note the leg cut-outs.

Above you can see the trademark Tracey leg.  Note how the bulb above the birds-beak forms a vase, not the straight you see today, and he also did not have a fillet and birds-beak at the top, he simply ran the vase up in what I think is a very graceful sweep, amazing.   The stretcher is a little different, with a squarish swelling and nodes at the ends.  I'm not sure if this is a typical Tracey feature or not.

A couple of gorgeous,  stunning Continuous Arms.  Look at the turning on the arm posts.  

 I will be doing another post ( or more) on this trip.  Thanks to Rich Malley, and Kyle Sprague and Ben Gammel who work at this wonderful museum.  And another thanks to Mickey Callahan from the SAPFM for putting the show together.  More to come. 

 If you are in the area, or looking for a great trip to take, check out the museum and the show that runs through the summer.

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.

Big Slick

If not for the sea, we would have to carry our boats about.

Norwegian saying

For those who have followed my blog for awhile, you have seen this boat before.  I started it a couple years ago, and after a brief, well, a year long break, I am getting back into the boat shop ( garage) to finish it up this summer, come hell or high water.  When I was building it, I wanted to have a big slick but 1. I wasn't really sure how much I'd use one and 2. they are pretty spendy on Ebay, so when I saw an article on building one, I decided to.

The article called for a blade made from a leaf spring, so I got one from a friend and cut to length and then drilled and tapped the holes.  I've had a fair bit of experience tapping metal when I used to weld, but tapping this was tricky.  The steel is hard, not super hard but harder than most metals, so you have to drill a bigger hole and use lots of oil.  Even so, I broke one tap.  Below you can see the size of the tool.

The blade is held in place by screws, so I guess you could change out the blade to a straight one for timber framing work, but for my purposes, the sweep on the leaf spring works great because it clears the handle and allows  me to pare easily.

Here you can see how much sweep it has.

 I have yet to harden the blade,  but I am thinking at about 25º on the primary bevel will be about right.  Despite it's impressive size, it's a paring tool...the knob end rests in your shoulder and you push with whole body.  The handle is white ash but about any hardwood would work.  After syrup is over, I'm getting the boat back out, maybe three more weeks. 
 I am really looking forward to getting the boat in the water, should be a lot of fun.  I've read that the time spent in a boat is inversely proportional to the size of the boat...I hope this one is the perfect size. 

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.