Best Ideas

Hi Everyone,

Welcome Back!!

Well, weve had a long cold winter here but according to the weather report, its going into the 30s next week and with any luck it will stay there. So time to make hay while the sun still shines.

Heres the story behind this next project:

Our first project for the year will be a music box for some young cousins of mine who are having their first baby next month. Im going to follow some music box plans along with some box plans that were recently posted on Woodturning Online and you can see both plans at:

Music box plans by Sy Plonsky: http://www.woodturningonline.com/Turning/Turning_content/Music-Box.pdf

Small box plans by Pam Reilly at: http://www.woodturner.org/community/youth/projects/Box.pdf

Im going to use the music box plans to plan out the construction of the box and the placement of the music mechanism but turn it to resemble the small box produced by Pam Reilly.

Plans
The box that Pam made looks like it was turned out of a block of pure white holly. Its a really lovely looking box and the finial just sets of the color beautifully. The down side is that I dont have any holly and Im not sure where I could get a kiln dried block of it (this is necessary to get this project completed in time for the birth of the baby). So Im going to use a portion of a block of kiln-dried basswood instead:


As for the music box mechanism, Im going to use an 18-note mechanism from Music Box Attic-they have Teddy Bears Picnic, a personal favorite of mine. Here is their website: http://www.musicboxattic.com/18notebuy.html#.Uvu3teCLqeE.

And the finial on the top will be made out of a pen blank that I have. Its a lovely reddish-purplish-brown and should look nice. Im also going to try to include a pexiglass interior lid to keep dust off the mechanism while allowing folks to be able to view the mechanism as it plays.

So we have a challenging project ahead. Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed that the weather holds up through the completion of the project.

Stay tuned,
VW

Hi Everyone,

Well, the temperature has gone up and it rained nearly all night last night and so this means that the snow and ice are on their way out! Yay!  Flowers and lots of green stuff are just around the corner.

While were waiting for the trees to leaf out, lets make a tea box.

Discussion

Tea boxes are not terribly difficult to make if you use kiln dried wood for both the lid and the box. Green wood is more problematic as it can distort some while it dries. This can leave you with a lid that doesnt fit or a box that wobbles on a flat surface. Very slow and careful drying is required for that. We are going to be using both kinds of wood for the tea boxes I have planned.

Here is a photo of the blocks I have in stock at the moment:


The block on the left is laminated, kiln dried pine. The block on the left is a solid block of silky oak that is coated in wax. The pine block is 6" square and about 5 1/2" high. The silky oak block is 4"x4"x7".

These two blocks are both 6"x6"x3" and they are a mix of various colored hardwoods. These are dried wood as well and they can go on the lathe for turning at anytime:


All of these will make nice boxes. The silky oak is green, unseasoned wood. Its sealed in wax to prevent its drying out prematurely before we have a chance to slowly dry it out ourselves.  The pine block is dry and so that can go on the lathe right now and be turned and we wont have to worry about it cracking or distorting as we move through the production process.

Plans

The first thing Im going to do is take the silky oak block and turn it into a cylinder and take off all the wax and then wrap it in several layers of heavy paper for several months. Doing this will allow it to dry slowly and hopefully not crack. While its drying out well use the pine block and the other laminated kiln-dried blocks to make several tea boxes. Well go through the whole process step by step together and when were done well have a useful and lovely gift for someone.

So grab some coffee and stop by the wood shop-we have another adventure ahead!

Have a good weekend,
VW

The photo above is from my big Matisse book and it shows 16 of the 22 photos sent by Matisse to Etta Cone, showing states in the development of Large Reclining Nude, 1935. I wish I had photographed the various stages in the finishing of this table. I wouldnt have 22 photos, but Id have a bunch....

For the first 10 years of my career as a furniture maker, I worked mostly in natural woods, cherry, walnut and figured maple, finishing them with clear oil finishes, sometimes with accents of milk paint, slowly developing what I came to think of as my studio style. Most of my customers either lived in Vermont full time or had second homes here and were content with the sort of contemporary or Shaker look that my style evoked. For the next 20 years, some of those clients and others who came my way asked me to make more formal pieces, often designed to blend in with antiques or family pieces they already owned. I found I enjoyed the new design challenge, making pieces fit with an existing environment. Its never been easy though, this coloring of wood, And, even now that Ive been doing it for a long time, its still a challenge. Just this last week, we struggled somewhat with a table for a Boston client, who, from the start, requested a formal, somewhat shiny finish for his table ...Not too shiny, but just the right shiny.... Shinys tough. If its too perfect, it can look just like an off-the-rack piece from a local furniture store, but with the right shiny combined with our method of handscraping the big flat surfaces, you can get that wonderful, waterlike surface you find most often on really fine antiques .... It takes patience, a willingness to experiment, and sometimes a certain fearlessness that you just know you have to just have at it and things will be fine. Ive stripped a few and thats never fun, but when you get one just right, well, thats really fun ... I tried to write down the process both before I started and after I finished this one, but no matter how hard you try, it wont be exactly the same next time. Make samples, in this case, include the inlays in the samples. For this table we used several coats of diluted Lockwood water based aniline dyes, occasional masking tape on the inlays, some shellac, and after many samples two coats of Minwax brush on fast dry poly, gloss under, semi gloss over, sanded lightly with 1200 and top coated with an oil poly mix. It took, off and on,most of a week. You feel like Matisse, a little ....

Click the photos to enlarge them

The photos below were all taken with the florescent lights on. We werent totally happy until we turned them off and turned on the chandeliers that Jim cleaned and are still hanging in the finish room ... Nobody has florescents lights in their dining room anyway...

Two of our many varnish samples .. same color on the left, natural cherry on the right

The underside is finished just like the top ... Watertown runners from Moin hardware.

Will, burning in the mark and date

Leg and apron and inlay

The shine under the regular lights

The leaves
Winston Churchill said once Success is the ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm ... Just have at it ...