Descending Ashtray

This is a site specific table that I am making for our neighbor, hence the unusual shape. The spindle legs are perhaps a little more traditional of a style then what I would normally make but it was a fun project to work on and figure out. The spindles themselves are not square stock at the top and bottom. They are more of an arrowhead like diamond shape which made it tricky finding the center point for turning them. I also learned early on not to use a wide gouge on the transition between the square and the round part of the spindle. The first attempt splintered out really bad and made it unusable. The second attempt went much smoother. I wrapped masking tape around the part I wanted to stay square and used my narrowest scraper to cut into the spindle at angle that moved the knife away from the grain instead of into it. Anyway the rest of the legs turned out pretty good. Then I Kreg jigged everything together from the bottom.

I probably should have taken more pictures to illustrate the process, oh well, maybe next time.

(I realized after posting the picture that it is kind of hard to see that the top is a trapezoid shape. In the picture it looks like a long table that is foreshortened. It is kind of an optical illusion.)

End-grain cutting boards are a step up from the simpler long-grain versions, because the end grain provides a milder cutting surface for the knife. They are also a bit more work to make, but not too hard, as you can see from the photos below.

I keep a special pile of scrap that’s about the right size for cutting boards, and selected some mystery wood, fir, birch, walnut, cherry and bubinga for this piece. Bubinga isn’t something I normally have around, but since this cutting board is a wedding present, I bought some at Woodcrafters to give the board some added color. Here are all the cutting board pieces laid out for gluing. They are all of different thicknesses, but I will glue them up and then plane them down to uniform thickness later.

You can really never have too many clamps!

Once the glue had cured overnight, I de-clamped the cutting board and ran it through the planer until the board was perfectly flat on both sides. It looks pretty good at this point (in fact, Sarah wanted me to stop here), but I wasn’t done yet. I set up the table saw with a stop block to crosscut the board into pieces of equal width. This width is the basic thickness of the finished cutting board, as we’ll be rotating the pieces 90 degrees in the next step.

Once the board was diced up, it was time for re-assembly. The first step was to flip the pieces the long way (the north-south axis) to alternate the grain patterns of the pieces, creating a sort of checkerboard effect in the finished piece.

Next was the second and final glue up, making sure that I rotated the pieces 90 degrees along their east-west axis to have the end grain face-up. Glue went on the long grain side of the wood.

Once the second glue up was complete, again waiting overnight, I prepared for a long winter’s sanding. I used a belt sander for about an hour to level both sides of the board, cleaning up glue squeeze-out and the inevitable irregularities caused in gluing up a project like this. A planer won’t work on end grain (it will beat the knives to kingdom come and tear out big chunks around the edges), although a hand plane might have done the trick had I thought of it. Once the board was level, a little bit of food-safe oil really brought out the deep color of the woods. It’s a pretty substantial board that I’m sure will last a long time.

I also want to go on record as having completed this wedding present before the wedding, which is a first for me!

8″ x 13″

Oil on panel

The painting is of a place in Zion National Park in Southern Utah. The park was absolutely beautiful. I actually climbed out to the peak in the center of the painting. It was a crazy hike, with 2,000 ft. drop offs on either side of the trail. One the most amazing places I have ever been to!

I have been working on this painting on and off for a couple of days. And I am kind of developing a love/hate relationship with it. On one side I am really happy with where it is going (it is still a work in progress), on the other side I feel rather lost in the detail. I need to find more clarity and unity within the painting. I am going to work on it some more. I just wanted to post it to maybe get a fresh perspective on it.

This is a field easel I have been working on. I attached the camera mount piece to the wood easel. It clips in and out of the tripod very easily. The idea was to make it as simple and light weight as possible, yet sturdy enough to handle a canvas that is 21″ high.

Everything folds up small enough to fit in a backpack or bike bag. Very cheap too. I could probably make all the components to attach to any tripod for $30.

Walking around Bruges on my recent Europe trip, I spotted this interesting tool near a construction job site. It’s a combination table saw and chop saw. Not probably the best thing in the world for building fine furniture, but I bet the owner of this tool likes carrying one tool around instead of two! Pretty cool idea, actually. I think the table saw fence doubles as a guard for the top of the blade when you’re using it as a chop saw.

Posted a bunch of our trip photos to Flickr yesterday. I have some more things to share from the trip, and I’ll be sharing those over the next few days. For now, it’s out to the shop!

9″ x 11.5″

Charcoal on paper

I used to do a lot of life drawing back in college but have not done much of it recently. A friend of mine organizes a group and I joined them for the first time today. It was a really good experience and the two hours just flew by. This was the drawing I worked on today.