Over Sink Light Fixture -- Cabinet Coordinated

A recent commercial kitchen remodel required a new light fixture over the kitchen sink, and in order to coordinate perfectly with the cabinetry, it was fabricated from the exact same finished wood as the cabinets themselves. This wood is readily available from the cabinet manufacturer by ordering a spacer piece 3” wide by approximately 8' long, requesting the same wood and color finish as the cabinets. Thus a perfect match is assured! The 3” wide spacer stock was fabricated into a simple 4-piece mitered frame joined with glue and biscuits. Four “L” brackets attached to the top of the frame are screwed to the ceiling. The frame surrounds two 24” long dual bulb T-5 fluorescent fixtures which are separately attached to the ceiling and connected to the electrical supply.

The trick is getting a luminescent panel, which rests on a ring of 1/4” square wood molding, into such a small opening. This was accomplished by first routing, before any mitering or assembly, a dado 3/4” wide by 1/4” deep into the inner surface of the 1x3 just slightly above the 1/4” molding. This extra clearance allows the panel to be maneuvered into place on its molding. The molding was cut from other stock and stained to match, not at all a critical match as the molding is small and not readily noticed.

The fixture is approximately 28” long to allow for clearance at either end of the fluorescent fixtures and 11” wide so as not to protrude beyond the 12” deep plane of the upper cabinets. The low 3” profile means the fixture will not block any light or view from the kitchen window. The 4 T-5 bulbs provide plenty of light for the kitchen sink area and beyond. Cabinet manufacturers would certainly sell these if they thought to make them.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Café Shims - Table Leveling

You are sitting with your lover; it's a lovely sidewalk table on Place du Tertre in Montmartre. The waiter has just brought your wine, red wine, of course. The glasses sparkle in the fading Paris sunlight. You gaze into your lover's eyes and lean forward for a little kiss. Suddenly the force of your elbow finds that one leg suspended off the plane of the other three and voilà: first the seesaw down, then the recoil up. The glass of red wine tips and spills into your lover's lap. The deft lover, however, would have surreptitiously tested the table upon arrival, slipping his (or her!) café shim under the offending leg and avoided such unpleasant surprise.

Everyone has been annoyed by a rocking restaurant table. Still you probably won't have a cafe shim with you, but if you did, you would certainly impress your companions. Andrew Knowlton wrote in the April 2016 issue of bon appétit, speaking of a Beverly Hills restaurant, “They solved the single biggest annoyance in restaurants: wobbly tables.”

The set of six is made of random hardwoods, hand-sanded and oiled, not hardware shims at all! They are 1 3/4" wide and 3” long, a little smaller than a business card, and taper from 3/16” to near zero.

A novelty perhaps, but shims are useful: leveling furniture and pendulum clocks, securing hammerheads, locking Hungarian shelves, etc. 

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Antique Chair Restoration Collaboration

The front edges of this chair looked like sheaves of wheat, stringy strands of wood separating from the leg due to innumerable collisions with the drawer pedestals of its desk. The top of the back was worn bald and blonde. The finish was generally finger-marked, faded and scratched. The cushion fabric was thread-bare and worn. In short this old desk chair looked ready for the grave.

The restoration of this chair followed the process outlined in my July 30, 2015 post Finishing Tip #5: Simple Refinishing in 3 Steps, except that after cleaning (Step 1) the damage was so bad that considerable sanding was required to smooth and recontour the legs. Because completely bare wood showed right next to wood still with color a Mohawk wiping stain (Step 2) was used to blend evenly the disparate surfaces.

The collaboration commenced at this point when I handed the chair over to the skillful hands of finisher Anthony Hernandez of J. Swiss & Co. in Tucson. Instead of the usual step 3 in my simple refinishing of using oil based products to restore sheen we elected to spray the piece with satin lacquer using professional equipment. Prior to the clear coat Anthony used some lacquer toner as discussed in step 3 to help blend the color of the sanded areas.

The collaboration continued with new upholstery on the old seat board expertly accomplished by Fabrics That Go, also in Tucson. They also supplied the fabric itself which coordinated well with the chair color as well as the pattern being perfectly centered and suggestive of the form of the back. The holes in the seat board were so worn out that epoxy was used to fill them so that the screws holding the seat board to the frame would have some purchase.

All in all a nice result of some collaboration.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.etsy.com

Shop Clean-Up: Rule of Two's -- Tool Tip #16

Geraniums are an unexpected window treatment in a garage, and I'm talking about a serious grease monkey's garage where transmissions are pulled as easily as flashdrives. Even more surprising, however, were this mechanic's tool habits. As each tool finished its job, wiped clean it was and then put back in its place, turning the tired saw “a place for every tool and every tool in its place” into a mantra.

Now and again I've thought what a nice ideal this was, and now and again I would try to follow his example though not with much success. My working behavior was more to grab tools helter skelter, dropping them on any blank spot on the workbench and often having to move a bunch as I negotiated a piece of furniture. Anyone who works with their hands knows well that any job always requires every tool you own. Maybe a few might return to their places in the course of things, but inevitably in the light of the setting sun I had a job that my mechanic friend did not: putting away a pile of tools.

So now I have a piece of advice for you that has proven a psychological advantage to make this task easier:   I call it the “rule of two's.” This will work for the gardener out in the yard. It will work for a load of clean dishes in the dishwasher. It will work for the tools of any craftsman in any media. It will work for butcher block, easel or workbench. Take your tools by two's and put them away. Somehow this pairing of items just makes the task of putting away smoother, faster, more satisfying, more “artful.” Try it once and see what I mean...seems silly, but it really works!

An index of the first 15 Tool Tips can be found at:  15 Tool Tips

 Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.etsy.com

An Exception to the Rule

Suspended Drawer Side Table

Why not have your cake and eat it too, why not have the airy look of an open side table and yet provide enclosed storage for all those myriad items you might like next to a couch but out of sight? Such was the inspiration for the “Suspended Drawer Side Table,” which has roomy drawer storage but no apron or cabinet enclosing it. A pair of well-waxed undermount all wood drawer glides allow easy sliding but provide no apparent reason for the drawer to stay attached. The grain direction of the top ensures that contraction and expansion do not affect the fit of the drawer since little movement occurs with the grain through the seasons. Just to mix it up the grain direction is rotated on the shelf, though here movement would do little more than shift the legs in and out a tad. The L-shaped cleat screwed to the underside of the table top also acts as a stop when it contacts the back of the drawer face upon closing. A little surprise, however, is piling the drawer to its rim only to find the top object contacting that same cleat.

 

I used my nearly trademark selection of cherry and black walnut, a quite appealing color combination, and, as per usual, asymmetrical piecing. This piece finds its place in our own home where it fulfills a plus thirty-year-old promise to replace a cheap, commerical mahogany plywood side table...a blantant case of the cobbler's shoes.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Detail of slide

View of the back

Southwest Christmas Tree Year 2

Our yucca flower stalk has returned for its second year as our Southwest Christmas Tree, but this year we hired the services of a professional decorator.  Here follow some close-ups of several of the handmade ornaments and, of course, Happy Holidays to all my readers, customers, friends and family!!

Santa in the round by J. Lipton

San Xavier del Bac by K. & R. Palmour

Father Christmas by S. Winn

Flat Santa by J. Lipton

Saguaro Monument by K. & R. Palmour

Christmas Tree by M. Lefkowitz

God Bless Our Home by S. Winn

Yucca Flower by Nature


Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

In-Drawer Knife Block -- Compact

The items in my Etsy shop shop derive from my abhorrence of wasting wood, especially beautiful hardwoods. How can anyone trash fine pieces of black walnut, cherry, oak, mahogany, maple, hickory? Yet woodshops everywhere do so every day as you will see from this very short explanation of how woodworkers work:

First, a board is ripped usually on a table saw to the required width. Ideally a board is chosen that closely matches the final width, but these long strips of many feet, varying from a sliver to a couple inches, have no utility to the project at hand.  The Cheese Serving Board was designed to utilize these narrow strips and make something useful out of them. Fatter cutoff strips exceeding 1½ inches can be used to make the Wooden Teaspoon in.... 

Trash???

Second, a board is crosscut usually on a power miter box to the required length. This inevitably leaves a useless short chuck of wood when the cross cuts are done. Rather than go into the trash such chunks become Mini Cutting Boards as well as Wooden Teaspoon in....

Thus up until now items in my Etsy shop were designed to utilize waste wood from larger operations. The In-Drawer Knife Block is a departure from this principle as the thicker oak was specifically purchased for its fabrication. We wanted our knives convenient but out-of-sight.  Finding this particular kitchen organizing accessory, however, was not easy...so why not make it instead?

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Pierced Side Table

Not very common in my career is a request for a reproduction of a previous piece, though such is the case with this pierced side table, a different version previously appearing in this blog/portfolio:  Craftsman Style Side Table. Though Craftsman inspired it includes the uncommon design element of pierced legs as well as one of my “trademarks,” namely utilizing different woods in one piece, in this case quartersawn white oak, African mahogany and black walnut. What is not obvious in the picture is the fact that the legs are not perpendicular to the top but rather splay out in both the x and y axes exactly 1°. More than one woodworker examining the piece thought that the legs were ever so slightly tapered. They are not. Nonetheless the eye immediately understands this departure from the norm, and even if the brain can't place it, the disturbance of protocol is distinct and pleasing. Another departure is the asymmetry, such as three different thicknesses in the component pieces of the legs, the two widths of shelf boards, the very pattern of the tabletop. It's unlikely you would find anything like this in the Stickley catalog as symmetry is de rigueur in commercial furniture. I find a little asymmetry rather refreshing, the piece holding the eye a blink longer.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Simple Refinishing in 3 Steps -- Finishing Tip #5

Next year will mark my 42nd year in one form or another of woodworking. During that time I've undertaken all of three furniture stripping projects, a good rule-of-thumb:  one every 14 years. Even that might be a tad too often. In the same period, however, I've been asked numerous times to refinish grandma's bureau, a set of well-worn dining chairs, a favorite old desk, a precious rocker, you name it. Rather than completely stripping a piece and starting from "scratch," I have evolved a simple 3-step process of 1) cleaning, 2) adding color and 3) adding sheen. Hardly a unique or secret process, I was inspired to post the process when a fellow woodworker complimented the fine result. Thus follows a brief description of the three steps which are applicable to most modern pieces with varnish or lacquer finish. This process may not be suitable to older or valuable antiques or any piece finished with shellac. A couple hours will usually suffice for your project as all three steps can be accomplished in rapid succession.

  Step 1 is cleaning: I used to wipe down the furniture piece multiple times with a sequence of solvents each designed to remove a certain kind of contaminant, dirt, oil, stain, build-up, etc. Now I spray on a mixture consisting of 8 parts distilled water/4 parts white vinegar/2 parts denatured alcohol/2 parts “blue” glass cleaner with ammonia. This is applied liberally and then wiped off with soft cotton rags. Repeat if necessary. This combination does a great job of general cleaning but equally important raises the grain slightly in dings, scratches, nicks and bare, worn areas. This greatly facilitates the next step of adding color back to these “holidays,” which are typically quite resistant to taking color. Let the piece dry for 30 minutes.

Step 2 is adding color: Since dirty, contaminated, damaged areas will often resist most oil stains I prefer a wiping or non-grain-raising stain of a suitable color. Use a rag to wipe it on, though a brush can facilitate adding color back into deeper scratches and dings. The noxious solvents in these stains, which require you to work in good ventilation, have several advantages:  they further clean the surface, they restore color effectively and they dry very quickly. Several tips:  keep the rag wet, but not dripping, work quickly and lightly, finish with the grain. Usually just the defective spots can be addressed, but going over a whole surface with the wiping stain often yields good results. Again, let the piece dry for 30 minutes. You may find the finish slightly dulled after this step, but not to worry.

Step 3 is adding sheen: A tung oil product like Waterlox or a varnish /oil product like Watco can be used to add sheen over an existing finish. Wipe the oil on with a well-wetted rag and remove most of it, wiping with the grain. Your goal, however, is not to remove everything you've applied.  Rather leave a thin, slightly tacky layer. Carefully put the piece aside using cloth gloves to move it, and let it dry until hard, at least overnight. If there are zones with no surface finish left whatsoever, such as the worn top of a drawer or the edge of a door or table it will be necessary to add more sheen with a spray lacquer. Where just a clear coat will suffice Deft clear lacquer spray works well as it is forgiving to the amateur and has little overspray. Should color be needed use the appropriate shade spray toner lacquer, available from woodworking supply stores.  Scratch cover can sometimes be helpful at this step for any remaining defects.

After

Needless to say follow the product manufacturer's guidelines for disposing of wet rags due to the danger of spontaneous combustion.

Tip:  my favorite sources for finishing supplies are Woodcraft and Wordworker's Supply.   Mohawk, in addition to wiping stains, sells a myriad of touch-up and refinishing products.   Deft is usually available at big box home improvement stores.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at:   FlyingCircusStudios.etsy.com 

 

Meyers Collaboration VI

Now each of the grandchildren has their own needlepoint by Sara Meyers, most of which appear in past posts.  This collaboration runs a similar 98/2 ratio, needlepoint/woodwork, though my work has more "weight."

Meyers Collaboration V

Meyers Collaboration II

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Memory Box -- Everyday Ofrenda

It was in Flagstaff that I first encountered the wonderful Mexican tradition of creating ofrendas, offering altars for the departed, during Dia de los Muertos, which correlates to Halloween, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day in the Anglo tradition.  Two things struck me the most:  first,  just the very practice of collecting photos and special artifacts from an individual's life in order to remember and honor them and second, a strong injection of humor into our human condition of dying, taking the grim reaper to the Jay Leno Show.

This memory box was created to hold just such precious objects from a life past, a kind of everyday ofrenda to visit, to remember, to honor.  Fundamentally similar to a jewelry box, it departs, however, from it by being taller and having no removable tray or segmented compartments.  In the Dia de los Muertos tradition the dead are said to visit their ofrenda, take sustenance and cleanse themselves.  Regarding this, a true story:  I was pulling my F150 up to the garage, this memory box in the cab, and a powerful dust devil parked itself in our drive forcing me to stop.  I waited for it to move along, but it just dissipated, vanished, leaving a snowfall of yellow palo verde petals, identical in color to the petals that were tossed at the memorial for the individual whose memory box I carried.  Arizona and New Mexico:  places where wind is the garb of spirits.

Dovetail Detail

El Tiradito, Barrio Viejo, Tucson

Interior Detail

Rolling Executive Desk - Details

Frontless Drawers with Exposed Dovetails

Norse Fasteners & Wire Grommets

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Rolling Executive Desk (Office to Warehouse or Factory Floor)

Glides on eight invisible 2.5" casters from warehouse floor to office suite to conference room, horizontal file is also a laptop stand, open shelf for CPS and compact printer, full depth drawers including file drawer, pull/push handles both ends, dimensions:  30" x 64" x 30" high, caster capacity 1/2 ton, internal wire grommets and wire organizers, lower keyboard and mouse surface also for routers, modems, power strip, etc., open knee space front and back for team work, designed for grommet mount or clamp on dual monitor arms, two-minute knockdown via Norse fasteners into four one-person modules, two casters have locks, vinyl edging absorbs impacts, fully mobile work station can stay powered during transit.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Pneumatic Secret Compartment for Poker Table

My client warned me not to reveal the mechanism of this secret compartment, or he would have to shoot me, a threat I took seriously as the compartment was designed to hide his 45 which would be easily accessible should a poker game turn south. But, of course, this is the West. You see a tug on the perimeter of the table sets the pneumatic lifters, lifted from trunk lifting parts, into motion, briskly raising the tabletop above its interior apron and making the contents quickly available. Large custom made wooden scissor hinges keep the two pieces aligned and a nylon strap limits the upward motion.

The tricky part was finding lifters of exactly the right pressure and length, which would deal with the flat force angle and yet not snap the tabletop upward dangerously fast. Anyhow, my hope now is that the requisite number of years has passed, not to mention that this was one of six seemingly identical tables which I built, though only one with the compartment. The many apron segments are splined, and the whole apron screwed to the top in order to allow for wood movement. Aprons glued to their tabletops are, of course, a most common novice woodworker error.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Small Set Hungarian Shelves

For all the posts on Hungarian Shelves, including tips on how to build them, type "Hungarian Shelves" into the search this blog window at the top of the blog.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Meyers Collaboration V

This is the fifth of a series of framed needlepoints.  The stitching, which represents 99% of the work, was accomplished by my wife Sara.  My simple cherry frame is edged with a roundover and small fillet.  The piece was made in honor of the birth of our granddaughter Hazel, though it does not mean we expect her to be counting sheep in order to fall asleep.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Southwest Christmas Tree

So is it the tree itself or the decorations that adorn it?

It seemed only appropriate that our transition from dwellers of the Ponderosa pine forest of Northern Arizona to dwellers of the Saguaro forest of the Sonoran Desert include a transition in Christmas tree. Used to be that we would dutifully obtain our US Forest Service permit and cut our own Christmas tree from the foothills of the San Francisco Peaks, teaching us, without learning, that there is a reason for Christmas tree farms on more than one score. We carried that same notion to the Sonoran Desert, thinking we would just go out and cut ourselves a nice expired centuryplant flower stalk, which we had seen here and there playing Christmas tree. Given the federal bureaucracy's penchant for picayune, probably a permit for that too, but rather than risk a fine or a rancher's shotgun we found instead a discarded yucca flower stalk behind a shed at Tohono Chul Park. They seemed glad to sell it, and so here's our Southwest Christmas tree. Well lacquered now, the moth larvae scraped out, it should see us through quite a few holiday seasons.

And yes, indeed, greetings of the season to you all!

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Missing Stile Home Library -- Woodworking Tip #18

Home libraries have certainly populated my woodworking career, and though my design preference for small shelving units is the Hungarian Shelf; when the collection reaches a certain size books just feel better “housed” rather than “shelved,” cozying themselves with walls on five out of six sides. When used on a huge wall there is something disconcerting, upsetting, precipitous about Hungarian Shelves...some number on the Richter Scale being conjured.

For these larger libraries I have often used the “missing stile” approach as above, leaving the stile off one side of each vertical bay. Each subsequent carcase slides behind the stile (vertical) on the one already placed giving the whole library the look of having been built in place. I have used this system successfully even in series of six bays. The resulting junction of the stile and rails is resolved in one of three ways: the rail is either of considerably less thickness, it's end is curved, or, in the case above, beveled.

No matter which method, from a design perspective, the library also avoids a kitchen cabinet look wherein rails and stiles are sanded flush. One hint with this method is not to glue the back in its dado, thus allowing ever so little racking, if required, when the carcases are screwed together.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Queen Murphy Bed

Through both time and culture many are the instances where the bed was not a permanent, stand-alone piece of furniture. From the 20^th century minimalist roll-up futons to the 17^th century Dutch sleeping cupboards to the American Indian blanket, these beds were not in the way during the day. Whether William L. Murphy really designed his bed to disappear in order to avoid the impropriety of bringing a lady to his small San Francisco apartment might be debatable, but it's function of saving space certainly is not.

This particular bed allowed an office to double as a guest room. I used Create-A-Bed hardware, which was well-machined, operated perfectly the first time, and in no way utilized Murphy's Law. I took some liberties with their plans, however, such as making the bed header (top) assembly a single finished piece of woodwork that required no crown molding. This simplifies both assembly and disassembly but requires strict adherence to the plan dimensions. The kickboard is not shown but screws onto the sides at the base thus avoiding the use of a nailed-on baseboard. C.A.B., Inc. makes their own hinges which allow two of the pull blocks to not only rotate into legs but also cleverly release the safety latches at the top.

Interestingly, as of 1989, the name Murphy Bed is no longer proprietary and has entered our language as a common word to describe any pull-down or wall bed, making Mr. Murphy just as famous as Mr. Kleenex.

Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com