Mike's Woodworking Projects
continued

12/19/2007 Here's a wooden bell I made as a Christmas gift for a friend of mine.  The bell is glued up walnut (scrap I had around the shop) and the handle is ebony (more scrap I had).  I turned a walnut clapper and attached it with string.

12/18/2007 I took a course on solid surface fabrication the fall semester so I wasn't doing much woodwork.  However, I was talked into giving a series of one day seminars for beginning carvers at the local Woodcraft store.  The first class was on carving a shell.  The next class (Jan 26, 2008) will be on carving a flower.  The flower is quite simple - after all, I have to start from "no knowledge" with the students - but I wanted to show them what's possible even with a simple design so I did this lidded bowl.

The border is known as a "guilloche" - a pattern of circles with decorative centers.

During summer school, I tool a class on carving and spent most of my time on ball and claw feet.  I'll have to take a picture and post one here.  Someday...

04/21/2007 I've been working on two office chairs designed by Norma - one for me and one for her.  The chairs are in cherry, finished in spray lacquer.  The pictures below show one of the chairs.  I've also included a close-up of one of the arms.  I carved a volute at the end of the arms and at the top of the back.

02/03/2007 I made a couple of wooden low angle spokeshaves using the Lee Valley kit.  The one in front is the small shave, made from cocobolo.  The one in back in the large shave, made from pau ferro.

01/07/2007 Some people have asked me for instructions for making a compass rose.  I've written three tutorials on veneering: one on the compass rose, one on making a sand shaded fan, and one on how to make the templates for a sunburst - which is also used for the compass rose and the sand shaded fan. All of these tutorials can be found at WK Fine Tools. 

010/5/2007 Here's an elliptical serving tray that I built recently.  The veneer is bubinga and walnut with maple stringing and dyed blue veneer for trim.  The compass rose is maple and wenge.

12/10/2006 Here's a bottom for a serving tray with a Celtic design in the center.  The fancy wood is bubinga, which is really difficult to deal with.  I still need to make the sides so I won't be finished with it for a while.

10/17/2006 I'm taking a class on veneering right now.  As exercises, we create small veneered panels, three of which are shown below.  The filleti on the first panel is of constant thickness - their waviness in the picture is due to the JPEG compression.

Norma's been asking me to make her a step stool, and since I couldn't use the exercise panels for anything else, I decided to use one as the top of the stool. 

I put a spline under the "legs" to provide some extra strength since the top of the legs is short grain.

10/17/2006 Here's a picture of the swing hung in the pergola, with Bernie relaxing on it.

09/20/2006 Well, I finally got around to finishing the swing.  I bent the arms to match the seat - I think they came out fairly nice, don't you?  The finish is water based exterior polyurethane applied via spray.  Now, I just have to hang it.  I'll post another picture once I get it up.

07/25/2006 Here's a swing that I'm working on now to replace one I did a couple of years ago.  I made the first one out of poplar and it just doesn't hold up outside.  This one is made from white oak.  I still need to put arms on it but it's been so hot I just can't stand to work in the shop - so it may be a while before I finish it.

The slats for the bottom and back were lamination bent, and glued with Titebond 3 for water resistance.  The slats are glued into the mortises with System 3 T88 epoxy because it's waterproof and has a long open time - it takes about 6 hours to cure, but in this heat it cured somewhat faster.

I recently completed a set of dining room chairs, one of which is shown below.  I call them the "Dos Equis" chairs because of the two X's on the back.  Norma did a sketch of what she wanted and I had to convert that into something that can be made in wood.  I have two pictures below, one is with the first upholstery I tried, and the second is with the final upholstery at the show.  I left the first picture because it shows the arms better than the second.  I finished the chairs with Minwax wipe on poly.  I did three other chairs, one other with arms and two without arms.

[Update 7/27/2006] I received a first place, an "Industry Best of Show," and an honorable mention in the contemporary furniture competition for this chair at the Orange County (California) Fair this year.

Here's a rocker that I built - a sort of "Stickley-meets-Maloof" rocker.  I took some of the elements of the previous rocker I built but added a sculpted seat, sculpted arms, connected the side slats to the arms in a sweep, higher back, and did more buildup on the legs.  I wrote up some construction notes, which you can read here in pdf.  A few more pictures are here.  This chair was built for a client.

[Update 7/27/2006] I won second place for this rocker in the contemporary furniture competition at the Orange County (California) Fair this year.

Here's a mahogany box that I made in the Hand Tools class at Cerritos.  Everything was done without electrons - from the preparation of the stock to the cutting of the dovetails, etc.  It's a lot of work to do everything by hand - makes you really appreciate power tools.  I carved the shell on the front just to add some decoration - I felt that the box was too plain without anything.  I was going to carve a relief shell on the inside of the top so that when you opened the box you'd have a negative and a positive, but enough is enough - I had already put too much time into something this small.  I used quadrant hinges on the box which worked out well.  Like most projects, I made a lot of mistakes while building this box but that's what we do - learn from our mistakes!

This next project was to build a reproduction of this John Townsend chest of drawers.  John Townsend (1732 - 1809) is a famous 18th Century cabinetmaker of Newport, Rhode Island.  He was one of the well-known Townsend and Goddard cabinetmakers, a group of interrelated Quaker families who were cabinetmakers in the latter half of the 18th century.  Townsend completed this chest in 1765 when he was in his 30's - it is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  There are nine surviving blockfront shell chest of drawers made by John Townsend, including a famous one that he built in 1792, when he was in his 60's, for Sarah Slocum, the daughter of John Townsend's aunt's niece, believed to be a wedding present from John to Sarah.  The Sarah Slocum chest sold at Christie's auction in 1998 for a bit over $4.7 million.

It's awe inspiring to realize that this chest was built with essentially nothing but hand tools.  The Townsend chest was made from Caribbean mahogany but I'm going to build mine out of cherry.  This is by far the most ambitious project I've attempted.  You can follow my progress in building the chest here.

[Update 7/27/2006] I won second place for the bureau in the traditional furniture competition at the Orange County (California) Fair this year.  I was also awarded the "Jurors' Choice" award.  I think the judges use a point system and original design is one of the categories.  Since this is a reproduction, I did not get an points in that category.  I believe the judges give the Juror's Choice award to the piece they like, independent of the point system. The last picture is of the chest at the show.

[Update 09/09/2009]  I was runner up in the Fine Woodworking Period Furniture Contest with this chest. 

The next picture shows a rocker I completed for a client and his wife who just had a baby.  They asked for a rocker in the craftsman (Stickley) style.  I'm not a big fan of craftsman furniture because it's so rectilinear but this chair has the elements of a craftsman piece but with the addition of curves which makes it more modern looking.  Most craftsman furniture is in quarter sawn oak but I choose walnut for this project.  The rocker is based on an original by Jay Speetjens (www.jspeetjens.com)   You can find more about my rocker here.

Here's an expanding kitchen table which I made.  I wanted a table which could expand significantly in size but would be "fully contained" - that is, everything needed to expand the table is contained within the table.  It has a folding top so that the table can be doubled in size.  Closed, the table top is 36 by 42 inches.  Open, the table top is 42 by 72 inches. 

 I have more information about this table on another web page which you can see by clicking here.

My projects continue here