New Product - Cane/Walking Stick

And here is the cane talked about in my previous post.  It can also be used as a walking stick - the black rubber tip screws off revealing a spike.

It's Christmas Eve and...

It just doesn't seem like the year is almost over.  I do minimal celebrating at this time of year so I haven't had to endure all of the hustle and bustle that maybe you have.   The days, for me, seem like almost any other day of the year so the end of 2009 is coming at somewhat of a surprise for me.

I did make one gift this year.  My dad had a stroke earlier this year and now, at the age of 90, has to use a cane to keep him steady.  He bought a $10 aluminum cane at the local pharmacy and it's working great.  But I couldn't resist and so sneaked a measurement of it's length and I made a wooden cane for him with beautiful brass hardware.  I made it with tiger maple stained a light brown.  I also put high gloss polyurethane on it so it would really stand out.  I'll be taking some photos of it tomorrow morning and will post one here.  I hope it helps him to walk proud.  I think the biggest gift my family has this year is that my dad is here to celebrate with us.

Merry Christmas,
Sue

Another Fine Hardwood Furniture Job Done

If you've been following my previous posts, you know that I've been busy building a custom bedroom set.  Well, today the bedroom set left my shop and is on  its journey from  here in  Vermont to its excited owner  in New Mexico.

Shown below is the fully constructed bed.  It's made of some beautiful cherry wood harvested in Pennsylvania and purchased from my local wholesaler.  I hadn't bought such clear, flat lumber in a long time, if ever.  This is my own contemporary-designed arched bed.

Although my camera likes to throw in a little distortion, here is my own design of a contemporary dresser.  My customer wanted a very sleek, simple look and didn't want any drawer pull hardware.  The drawers have a hand-hold routed out of the bottom front edge for easy grasping and operation.

And finally, my custom-designed night table which matches the dresser and compliments the bed.  I made two of these for my customer.

The shipping company did a fabulous job blanket wrapping all of these pieces of furniture and I am very confident that they will make it safely to the western part of the country.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Time Moves Forward

The bedroom set I've been working on for almost the past couple of months is almost done.  I'm proceeding with the finishing this week and the shipping company will pick it up next week.  It'll then begin it's journey to New Mexico to it's excited owner.  I'll be taking some photographs within the next couple of days and post them here and on my website.  It's always exciting to end one project and move on to another.

How I build the custom Contemporary Arched Bed - Part 3

Making the headboard and footboard panels -

After gluing up the the headboard and footboard panels, cutting them to their length and width, I proceed to mill the tenon which will fit the mortise I created in the leg.  The next thing that I did was to lay out and cut the arch on the top of the panel followed by rounding over all the edges of the panel with a 1/4" roundover bit in my router.

Before I can glue the panel to the legs I mill the panel to accept the bed hardware.  The area shown below will house the hardware that accepts the hooks on the ends of the bed rails.  Although the panels are just 3/4" thick, the backside of this area butts into the leg which will allow me to use longer screws to go through the panel and into the leg, providing extra strength in the construction.

Here is the panel all ready to be glued to the legs:

And here is a shot of the panel next to the leg, oriented in the way in which they will be glued together:

Here are photos of the headboard and the footboard in clamps after gluing:

Soon I'll post the final, assembled bed.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

How I build the Custom Contemporary Arched Bed – Part 2

It's time to cut the mortises in the bed legs before I glue them up into squares suitable for turning.  I do this with my plunge router.  I'm making my mortises 1/2" wide.  I don't have a good 1/2" router bit so I used a 5/16" bit, made my first cuts on all of the legs, reset the fence and made a second pass resulting in a 1/2" wide by 1" deep mortise.

Ok, now I can begin to glue up the leg parts to make my turning blank.  I'm first going to glue on the piece that will be the permanent 3rd quarter of the leg.  I want to protect the areas that will ultimately be exposed from glue squeeze out.  So I turn to one of my best friends - packing tape!  I simply put a strip of tape on what will be the inside surfaces of the leg.

Now I'm ready to glue the 3rd quarter to the wide piece of the leg.  I am extremely careful to line up the edge of the 3rd quarter precisely down the line I struck on the wider board where the inside edges meet.  Below are the headboard legs in clamps.  (The fourth piece, which will be the final glue-up, is simply sitting on top at this point, paired with its mate.)

 After the clamps come off I'm ready to glue in the final piece which, again, is temporary and will be removed after turning.  Remember from part 1 I penciled in what will be the final top and bottom of the leg.  It is very important to transfer those lines to the outside of the boards - I need to keep track of those because they'll tell me where to make my cuts when the leg comes off the lathe.  Remember too that all of these boards are about 5" too long and I am only going to glue the last couple of inches on each end.  In order to get a nice tight glue joint I clamp corner to corner.

Now it's off to the lathe.  First I trimmed the ends flush so the blank will properly mount to the lathe:

Below is the leg all turned and sanded.  Prior to turning away my pencil line indicating the final top and bottom of the leg, I used my parting tool to cut a shallow groove which will act as my guide at the chop saw.

 After going to the chop saw, holding the leg tight against the fence and making slow, careful cuts the scrap piece of wood simply falls out and here's what I end up with:

The only thing left to do to this leg is to cut the top at an angle which will match the arch in the panel.

Next up in Part 3 - Making the headboard and footboard panels.

Thanks for reading,

Sue

How I build the Custom Contemporary Arched Bed – Part 1

Let’s start with the legs.  As I said in a previous post, the legs of the headboard and footboard are ¾ round “posts”.  The top of the leg will be curved to match the arch in the panel running from leg to leg.  This picture shows a SketchUp rendition of one of the headboard legs and panels:

Here is the lumber for the four legs.  In order for me to be able to turn these legs round on a lathe, they need to be a solid square.  Three boards are grouped together for each leg.  The board on the bottom of the stacks is a little more than half the thickness of the finished leg and its width is a little more than the full thickness of the finished leg.  The remainder of each leg consists of two more square pieces.

One of the two square pieces will be permanently glued to the wide board, becoming part of the final leg, and the other will be temporarily glued in place, making up a full square ready for turning.  After turning the leg round I will remove that piece.  At this point I’ve been careful to orient all of my boards to give me the best looking leg possible in terms of grain and color.

Ok, so how am I going to “temporarily” glue a piece in place and then remove it leaving me a nice, clean, inside square area for my panels?  My method is this – all of these pieces of wood are cut longer than the finished leg; about 5 inches.  So for the temporary piece of wood, I am going to put glue on its last 2” of each end only.  It is the ends that are important for attaching the square to the lathe.  Once I finish turning the leg I will cut off each end past the glue area and the temporary piece will just fall out leaving me a clean interior square area.  The picture below illustrates how the boards will be glued together. (Click on the picture for a larger version.)

Before I can do any of the gluing I have one more thing to do.  The headboard and footboard panels ultimately need to be securely attached to these legs.  The strongest method is to use a mortise and tenon joint.  If I were to glue even the permanent boards together now I wouldn’t have access for my router to cut the mortise.  This is where some very precise layout occurs.  Remember that these boards are extra long.  The first thing I need to do is determine where the final top and bottom of the leg are going to be and mark that on my wood.  The next thing is to strike a line down the length of the wider board where the inside edge of the permanent square will be glued.  Now that I have those marks I can determine where the panel will be positioned and then mark out the mortise.  This result is shown below.  (Click on the picture for a larger version.)

Coming soon in Part 2 - Cutting the mortise, gluing up the pieces, mounting on the lathe and turning.

Thanks for viewing,

Sue

Stay Tuned...

As you might see in a previous post, I am currently working on building a custom designed bedroom set.  The bed is actually one that I originally designed oh, about a year and a half ago for a different client.  I'll be posting some informational photos and text of how I actually build that bed.  The legs are 3/4 round "posts" with the headboard and footboard panels tenoned into those legs.  It's all about planning and layout (as is true with all woodworking).  Doing steps in a certain order is important in order for it all to fit together.  So stay tuned for watching me put all of the steps together!

See a photo of the original bed I built.

Sue

New Products Added to Website

Today I just uploaded some of my newest products to my website.  Just click on What's New from the home page to see a mission style sideboard, lap desks, a media center, a demilune table and a very hefty walnut cutting board.

Here's a sneak peak at the sideboard -

Bedroom set designed in SketchUp

I'm finally learning SketchUp.  My newest customer wanted a contemporary bedroom set and this is what I came up with.  Customer approval has been granted, so this is what I'll be working on in the shop in the near future.

Like what you see and want some custom furniture of your own?  Please visit my website to see many examples of pieces that I've built and be sure to get in touch!