Projects In The Works

I heard from a friend the other day wondering if I was still blogging about my chair making and woodworking.  Yes I am, but obviously I am not doing a very good job of it.  I get so involved in the project at hand that I totally space out on making posts about it.  So this is to catch-up on what I have been doing.

My wife and I agreed we wanted to try a different color milk paint on the Continuous Arm Windsor.  This also afforded me the opportunity to try General Finishes Milk Paint for the first time.  I am doing a two color painting, still going for a mottled look, similar to the black over red I have used on my other chairs.  The first coat, pictured above, is Federal Blue.  This will be covered with a darker Coastal Blue wash coat.  Because I am using two shades of blue, I doubt the mottled appearance will be as dramatic as the black over red.  I will post more pictures in my next post (it won't be in a month I promise) along with my thoughts on the GF milk paint. 

One of the projects on my "Honey-Do-List" is a proper bed frame for our new Sleep Number Bed.  The material is from an Ash tree that had been blown over when a tropical storm had come through our area a few years back.  The tree yielded just shy of 1000 bd. ft. of beautiful material.  This tree has provided the material for my bench, shave horse, a Welsh Stick Chair and now the king size bed and two night stands, yet to be started.  It will be interesting to see just how much furniture I will be able to make from just this one tree.

The two pictures above are the dry fitting and glue-up of the head and foot board.  I did not have material wide enough for the panels so I re-sawed the material then did the glue up.  I wanted to have an interesting, but not overwhelming, flow of the grain pattern from one panel to the next.

The glue up is almost complete.  All that is left to do is install the top boards and prep the side boards for hardware.  Then I will do one last dry fit/assembly to ensure everything is copacetic before applying the finish.  By the way Ash is a heavy wood and it is going to be an adventure getting this headboard upstairs.  Ready the ibuprofen! 

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Chairmaker's Mecca

For many of us who make Windsor chairs, Jonesborough Tennessee is a Mecca. Not because there is a treasure trove of antique Windsors, but because there is a treasure in Curtis Buchanan. This very unassuming and humble man has drawn many a Chairmaker, novice and experienced, to this beautiful little hamlet in the mountains of East Tennessee.

Down the gravel path, past his garden, is where the magic happens. This is where I am spending my week, learning from the man I consider to be the best. I will be writing more detailed posts on the class and my experiences during my time with Curtis, so stay tuned.

Happy St. Sharpening Day

Yes it is sharpening day in the shop, in preparation for class next week.  While no one likes to sharpen, it is an evil necessity.  While I was trudging along I began to wonder how others sharpen and what systems they might use.

 

I recently checked where the blog is being read and it amazed me that so many people from all over the world have been giving it a look, Vietnam, really?  So what sharpening system/s do you use?  If you would be so kind as to leave a brief comment, here on the blog, about the system/s you use and why it works best for you, I would be curious to see the different opinions.

~ Ray Schwanenberger

The Leather Attache' And A Road Trip

Lets talk leather first.  Yes I was able to snap a shot of the Jedi Leather Master (JLM) Ty Black, who brought by the prototype of the Leather Attache'  and I must say it is sweet!  This is not your ordinary run of the mill leather tool roll.  Ty really put some thought into the design of this piece. 

When the flap is folded back and the Attache' is draped over a board as pictured below, accessing the tools is extremely easy.  As you can see it is very easy to determine what tool is where with this design.  When the Attache' is laid flat the blades of the tools are completely concealed between the alternating pockets on the opposite side, providing maximum protection.

This Crazy Horse leather is so very nice.  Ty crafted the 12 pockets to nicely fit my chisels,carving tools, and even my new Galbert 6 degree reamer.  This will make traveling with these essential tools easy and worry free.

Now for the latest road trip.  On Monday I made the four hour trek to the shop of Tennessee Windsor Chairmaker Greg Pennington.  I left my northern Kentucky home, in the Eastern Time Zone, at 5:00 AM to arrive at Greg's shop in Hendersonville, by 9:00 AM.  About half way to Louisville I remembered that Greg lives in the Central Time Zone, insert V8 head slap!  I traveled the four hours, each way, to learn some new turning skills and how to turn the all so sexy Baluster leg and arm post, the way Greg turns them.

I was once told if you want to know how to do something, ask a person that does what you want to do.  In adherence to that sage advice I try to take at least one or two classes a year to learn from the experts.  Greg is one of these experts.  Greg received the majority of his training from two people I consider to be the best in the business; Curtis Buchanan and Pete Galbert.  Besides teaching classes in his own shop, Greg assists Pete with his teaching at The Marc Adams School of Woodworking and The Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking.

I have to say that Greg meets all of the qualifications of "All Around Nice Guy".  Like Curtis and Pete, Greg is very giving of his knowledge and information to help his students succeed.  I will be making the trip back to Hendersonville again for another class with Greg.  If you have never seen Greg's work stop by his web site and or his blog and take a look.

 

During the day Greg's friend Bill showed up at the shop.  Bill is the gentleman that milled all the timbers and more for Greg's magnificent shop.

 
As for my class with Greg, there were a few skew catches, read soiling my britches, and  a gouge corkscrewing or two.  However, I felt like I was starting to get the feel for it when I had to start thinking about heading home.  After working with Greg until almost 6:00 EST/5:00 CST I headed north.  The 4 hour trek home seemed to go by quickly.  My thoughts were consumed by the images of the warm and welcoming shop and all the great things I had learned.  Thank you Greg and Bill for making this a wonderful experience.


~ Ray Schwanenberger

Oh Sweet Leather

Last week Ty Black stopped by the shop to bring by some leather goods and to play with Matilda.  Being a chair maker the scorp is a tool that I can not do without.  Protecting the edge, and my fingers, of a sharp scorp is difficult to do, unless one knows a person that is proficient in making such devices.  This is where Ty comes in.  Besides being a woodworker, Ty is an excellent leather-smith.

Above is the scorp sheath entirely hand stitched.  I witnessed this process while Ty was making an adaptation, lets just say I think I will stick to working wood.  He also went the extra mile and made me a scraper wallet and a block plane holster.

I am looking forward to getting the finished Tool Attache' made of Crazy Horse Leather.  If you need some leather tool protection, drop Ty an email, you won't be disappointed.

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Missing In Action

It has been a month to the day since I last made a post, WOW how time flies.  I was released by the doctor to return to the shop and have been busy ever since.  So this is what has been going on.

I went back to work on the bed I'm making for Carol and me and after the long lay off I had to bring the parts back into true.  Deciding on the finish has taken quite some time.  Finishing not being a strong point of mine, I decided to dive into Bob Flexner's book "Understanding Wood Finishing" and rectify that situation, at least partially.  Some of the quarter sawn ash, I had been air drying for 2 years, had some spalting and needed to be covered by the stain and or dye.  So began the experimentation.

It took a total of 22 recipes before we were able to find one that we could agree on and that covered the spalting.  I will make a post later on recipes.  I will say this, the good folks at General Finishes are a great source of information and an absolute joy to work with.  When I called I expected to get "For this department press....", instead a real live human answered, and she was able to answer all my questions and offered some really great suggestions.

I used the badly spalted ash, pictured below, for my test pieces.  I figured if this could be covered the very minor spalting on the bed components would cover with no problem. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. 

I promise my next post will be sooner than a month and it will include "Leather"!


~ Ray Schwanenberger

Physical Therapy: Dovetails & Practice

I have been getting a wee bit antsy about getting back to the bench.  So yesterday I thought I would do a little physical therapy to take off the edge.  This came in the form of dovetails and practice.  I surmised what better therapy for a recovering shoulder than a little light sawing.  It has been close to nine months since I last cut dovetails and I figured I needed to knock the rust off of that skill.

In keeping with my goal for this blog, I thought I would share some of my thoughts, no matter how psycho-pathetic they may be, on practicing woodworking skills.  Sounds odd I know but stick with me for a moment!  Think about this; a guitarist doesn’t learn to play a song like Hotel California without first practicing and learning some basic skills.  First they must learn and practice chords and chord changes while keeping time.  It is only after the basic skills are learned that the musician can move forward with learning songs.  So why do we as woodworkers attempt to build things without first practicing and learning the basics?

Quality shop time is hard to come by for many of us, so why not make the most of the little time you have.  Practicing basic skills can help greatly in this area.  It has been my experience that a little time spent practicing a basic skill prior to building a project pays off in many ways.  I rarely ruin material anymore and the time it takes to complete a project is dramatically decreased.  By taking time to correctly practice these basic skills they have become second nature allowing me to concentrate solely on the project at hand.

Sawing is a critical and basic skill required to properly cut dovetails.  When I first started cutting dovetails by hand I took 10 – 15 minutes a day for a week and practiced rip sawing to a line perpendicular to the board and angled while stopping on a scribed line.  In the same practice session I practiced rip sawing perpendicular and a vertically while stopping on a scribed line.  These are the basic sawing skills needed to accurately saw pins and tails.

If it has been awhile since you last performed a specific skill, like it was for me in cutting dovetails, do some warm-up practice before jumping straight into your project and risking ruining your material.  I took my own advice and practiced the two exercises as pictured above.  As a result the dovetails I cut were pretty good.  It wasn’t great because I need to sharpen my chisels, but that is another post.

So if you only have 15 – 20 minutes don’t blow off going into the shop.  Grab some cutoffs, your saw and marking implements and practice these sawing skills or whatever basic skills are required for the project currently on your bench.  I guarantee it is worth the effort and you will be amazed at the results.  I know I was!

~ Ray Schwanenberger