This is a nice shot of a cabinet I built to store some china. The original is at the Pleasant Hill, KY Shaker Village. The Shaker communities, as they moved further west, got a little bolder in their design. This one has a crown molding and turned legs. The original had solid ( blind ) door, put I put in divided glass doors. It's made from Cherry with pine back boards.
This is Little Blackie, well, sort of. It's my shaving horse, and it's use to shape the spindles and other parts of the chairs. Once you use one, you'll wonder how you got along without it. It's quite comfortable, and it really speeds up the process. The pedal at the bottom is pushed with your foot, which pivots the head and locks the piece in place.
The ramp just above the stick rule actually ratchets up and down to accommodate different size pieces, from rough pieces that look like firewood all the way down to the finished spindle. It works really well and makes the whole process faster and easier, which is good. I'm all about easier and faster. And yeah, the seat is padded!
This shows a closeup of the horse in action (giddy-up). It holds the piece very securely and yet allows the pieces to be quickly and easily moved and rotated. Subsequent blog entries will better explain the process of making a spindle, but this is the shave horse I use to do almost all my spindle and rail work. If it were more comfortable, I would fall asleep. My daughter Erinn loves it too, she helps me sometimes, not with a draw knife though!
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