Descending Ashtray

I have been working on a couple of cabinets to help organize my art supplies a little better.

The painting cart was made entirely out of scrap plywood and particle board. With the casters it is very functional. It is also a good place to hide paints and thinners from children.

This cabinet is still in the early stages of construction. When it is done, it will have five or six drawers to store paper, matboard and anything else large and flat. The drawer is 35″ X 45”. The reason I want to show it at this stage is because it has some interesting drawers slides.

I dadoed out side rails just big enough to fit a 3/8″ steel ball. There is also a groove on the bottom of each side of the drawer that corresponds with the balls and the slides. That way the drawer stays in line when you pull it in and out. There are six balls on each side.

But when the drawer is pulled out past the midpoint, a stopper keeps the balls in back from rolling any farther. Then it is only supported by the balls in front. Even though it is not a perfectly friction free system, the drawer moves in and out with surprising ease!

After a refreshing weekend at the coast, I got back this afternoon and went out to the shop with a mission: get my sister’s wedding present done. It’s only been since March 2006, so what’s the hurry, right?

There wasn’t much left to do - finish mortising for the lid’s brass hinges, a final sanding, and the first coat of oil. My sister and her husband Jeff live in Boston, right around the corner from the North Bennett Street Woodworking School, and in the general vicinity of one of the great woodworking traditions of America: Shaker furniture. I decided to do something more Shaker-inspired for the two of them, something that felt a little more Boston, and a little less west coast contemporary. Here it is.

It’s a little smaller than the traditional Shaker chest, but not much, a nod to the small-ness of their current apartment. In case you were wondering, apartments in Boston are really, really expensive.

The chest is all made of cherry, although the bottom trim seems to be quite a bit lighter in color than the rest of the chest. I think it will even out in time, as cherry gets darker with exposure to sunlight, but I may try some artificial means of evening it up and/or adding some age (stain) to some of the recesses for contrast. Post a comment if you have any ideas; the base coat is General Finishes Seal-A-Cell Clear.

I’m also thinking about lining the sides with aromatic cedar inside after I get the oil finish complete.

Finally I can post again! I have been having technical difficulties with Wordpress and my computer but luckily we solved the problem last night. Thanks Dave!

The following pictures are the progression of the stone patio that I worked on over the summer.

Our back yard last winter.

This was a trench that I dug by hand for the draining tile. There are also three footings from the old fence that I buried under the trench. That was a lot of work!

Then the puzzle began. We found all of the stones in a big pile behind the garage. With a little power washing they cleaned up pretty good. I layed the stones over a bed of sand to help stablize and level as I placed the stones. Ethan was there to help problem solve!

Here it is all done with furniture. It was like adding on an outdoor room to our house.

Brandy did this nice border with rocks.

Gabe and Brandy were here in Oregon last night, stopping over on their West coast road trip. Gabe’s sister lives near San Francisco, and they drove up with baby Ethan yesterday. They’ll be back in Portland Thursday through Saturday (stay tuned), but I thought this trip would be a fine time to present them with their belated (they were married in March!) wedding gift — this chest.

The chest uses four different woods: Alder for the sides, Walnut for the feet and lid frame, aromatic Cedar inside the lid, and a piece of figured Red Gum book-matched on the top.

Except for the aromatic Cedar inside the lid, the wood came from a particularly awesome Craigslist find, which also included 25 or more board feet of cherry for the amazing price of $150. It was a trick getting everything into my Jeep, but well worth it; I am still looking at half the pile, having completed this and several other projects with the treasure trove.

There are quite a few things I would do differently, were I to approach the project again. I learned a lot, though, and for me that is a large part of how I define a successful project. If I was already a master, where would the fun be?

In particular, this was the first time I attempted a box joint, using my dovetail router jig (which doubles as a box-joint jig) with pretty good success. Alder, used on the sides of the box, is a somewhat splintery wood, and next time, I think I will use a backer board to lessen the tear-out. Still, it made pretty nice joints very quickly, and I think perfection, or as near to it as I will get, is within reach.

Finally, the top represents my first attempt at veneer work. The Red Gum I used on the exterior seemed too awesome to use as solid lumber, so I took a small section, re-sawed it on the bandsaw, and planed it to 1/4 inch thickness, essentially doubling its utility. I then book-matched and glued this veneer to a plywood substrate, which received another layer of aromatic cedar as the other piece of the sandwich. Then I clamped like the dickens. I really wished I had David Marks’ vaccuum press, but I think it turned out well.

The whole thing matched my original sketch pretty well, as it turns out. Who needs plans when you have colored pencils?

Last weekend, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time - get to know a sawyer. I’ve been on a big local kick lately, and finding someone close to home who cuts wood close to home seems to me like the environmentally appropriate thing to do, and I like the idea of my work being grounded in the place I call home.

Tyler Evans of Urban Hardwood Recovery works by day as a computer guy, something I know a little bit about, and as I do, he seems to find a certain satisfaction in working with his hands. And a chainsaw. And some pretty advanced thermodynamics, in the form of a home-built, industrial strength wood kiln that resides in his backyard. When Sarah and I visited, Tyler had a full load of Oak going, in the middle of a 4-6 month drying cycle. The kiln, tucked behind his unassuming suburban house, is capable of drying two stacks of lumber 23 feet long, five feet high, and about nine feet wide. That’s a lot of lumber, way more than even the most dedicated hobbyist could use. So he’s taken to selling it, out of his home.

The lumber all comes from the Portland area, as the name of his company might indicate. Property owners call Tyler when a tree falls down or wants felling, and he comes out with a chainsaw and trailer to remove the tree. He then takes the wood to another guy with a bandsaw mill who slabs the tree into lumber up to four inches thick (try finding 16/4 oak at your hardwood supplier sometime), which Tyler then carts home to air dry before kilning. Depending on the situation, he slabs some trees himself with an Alaskan Mill.

As you might imagine, Tyler has some pretty good stories to share of hidden items within the trees he removes. He showed us a railroad spike and toy car which had grown into the trunk of a tree, probably after being placed there by a small child somewhere along the way. Bullets and nails are also especially common, and like toy cars and railroad spikes, often damage the bandsaw blades.

The selection on hand Saturday included Oregon Cherry, Black Walnut, English Walnut, Spalted Maple, and lots of other interesting pieces that you wouldn’t typically see in a lumberyard. While we were there, a guy showed up and bought some lumber that only a mother … err … woodworker could truly love, including some old barn wood rescued from Tyler’s fire pile, and a piece of White Oak with flame, curl, tiger … pretty much any hard-to-plane grain pattern you can think of … all in one board. This slab of spalted maple burl was particularly impressive - about 12 inches thick and 2 feet square. It will make quite a bowl for someone.

I went home with a really nice piece of 8/4 spalted maple about eight feet long and 12 inches wide, as well as an incredible bit of 8/4 Black Walnut of roughly the same dimensions … all for the very reasonable price of $150. Turned into veneer, those boards will go a long way. Plus, wood from other lumberyards would be more expensive, and without the stories I got to hear while browsing. Urban Hardwood is not the kind of place you go to stock up for a project; rather, it’s the place you go to imagine your next project. If you’re a woodworker in the Portland area, I suggest you get to know Tyler. If you’re not, seek out a local sawyer for your next project.

Well, I think I’ve let this puppy age long enough in Kari and Andrew’s garage. I’m selling Labyrinth: the Mini-Golf Hole on Craigslist. Please pass this along to anyone you think might be remotely interested in it, or at the very least, amused by it.

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/tag/385794483.html

UPDATE: The Labyrinth has been SOLD. Thanks for all your interest!