CraigWoodWorks

Large wooden squares that have letters on them

2011-11-22T13:19:00.001-08:00

Just in time for Christmas, my custom made wall hangings made of large wooden squares that happen to have letters on them and arranged in such a way that words, family names, and other things you can think of criss cross in a clever fashion.

Note that the sample picture does not have any numbers associated with the letters. Those numbers are completely optional (but highly recommended). Be sure to insist on the addition of numbers when you order.

NOTE: Each wall hanging is custom made and requires two weeks for construction.

For one price of $225, you'll get your choice of letters with a total letter count of between 17 and 24. Any more than 24 or any less than 17, I'll create a custom listing for you.

Price includes UPS Ground shipping to any US mainland location. Orders must be completed by Cyber Monday, 11/28/11 to ensure shipping on 12/15/11. With UPS Ground max ship time of 5 days, this should arrive by 12/21/11 and in time for Christmas.

Actual dimensions of each square:
Width: 3 1/2 inches
Height: 4 inches
Thickness: 3/4 inches

Hardware is included on the rear that pre-connects the whole thing. It then can be hung on your wall with only two screw attachment points.

Email me at craigwoodworks at gmail dot com if you'd like to order.

If your intention is to give this as a Christmas gift, you must order by Cyber Monday, 11/28/11.

Encyclopaedia Brittanica

2011-08-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

Now for something un-wood related:

The iPad needed a home.
I had a stack of unwanted encyclopedias.
I have a thing for ModPodge.

Combine. Let dry. Insert iPad.

Version 2 coming soon which will incorporate some sort of velcro closure so the iPad doesn't fall out.

Chairs, Bacharach, Blue Devils

2011-08-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

I saw a drum corps show last month and the Devils did a Burt Bacharach show. A house is not a home, a chair is still a chair, etc. Fantastic. Then I remembered that a while back I was messing with creating full page ads for CraigWoodWorks. This was one of them.

Better Learn Balance

2010-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good.

Customer wanted a solid wood balance scale for her child. Sturdy, bullet proof, no plastic. Okay.

Maple construction. Through tenon into the base. Friction fit dowel fulcrum. Mineral oil/beeswax finish.

Note the green painted Stanley 5 1/2 in the lower right. Original owner painted the whole thing a minty fresh green. I still haven't stripped it and cleaned it, but I'm certain there's goodly sweetheart era 5 1/2 under there with perfectly preserved rosewood handle and tote.

Yes, that's a Microplane cheesegrater/zester in the back. I wondered one day if a cheesegrater microplane is the same as a wood rasp microplane. The answer is yes. Perfect for hogging off a lot of wood quickly. On sale. Williams Sonoma outlet. Nevada/California border stores on the way to Vegas.

Bishop

2010-10-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Task: replace a missing bishop by turning a new one.

Result: a little lighter in color, but otherwise okay.

Original is on the right. My duplication is on the left.

Height: 2 3/8". This was a tiny turning. I think I need smaller lathe chisels.

70 Balls

2010-09-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Abacus. Balls. 70 of them. The fun part was drilling the holes. 70 times. The longest continuous use of my drill press in quite some time.

Crate and Barrel sells something like this, but in metal. I don't do metal, although welding is something I'd like to pursue in the near future. Something about sparks and gas and molten metal and the potential for fire and explosions intrigues me.

Balls are unfinished/unpainted per customer request. She wants to paint them herself. Therefore the frame is disassemblable with screws and L-brackets.

Dimensions: 3 feet wide, almost 2 feet tall. 1 inch balls. 1/4 inch dowels.

Wood = pine. Stain = dark like my coffee.

Next up: another abacus; smaller; cherry wood frame; two sections so it looks like a Chinese abacus with five balls in the lower and two balls in the upper; seven columns; pretty joinery. What's the plural of abacus? Abaci?

Another Piano Bench

2010-08-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Piano bench, part V. Or is it part VI? Anyway, here are pics of this one, which happens to be exactly the same as two other ones I've created before. This one lived next to my piano for all of three and a half minutes before I packed it up and shipped it off to an anxiously waiting customer.

Details: Solid ash; leg structures stained dark; shellac finish on top; width 30"; depth 14"; height 18".

Next up: Another piano bench that I'll actually keep. And it won't have slats! What? No slats? I actually build things without slats?

Do you want slats? More slats here.

Messing with SketchUp: The Chair

2010-08-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

A chair is still a chair, even when there's no one sitting there.

An afternoon of experimentation and bending and twisting and pulling curves through other curves, I'm beginning to further enjoy the magic that is SketchUp.

Still not perfect (with the random non-hidden lines and parts that just don't quite line up), but soon this I will conquer.

The Magic of SketchUp

2010-08-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how all work is custom built to your specifications, it's important that you have a proper visualization of what the finished product will look like. Enter SketchUp. From Google.

The secretary desk completed last year is a perfect example of this visualization process. The customer told me what he wanted; I sketched up some stuff; we went back and forth with ideas; changes, tweaks, mods, additions, deletions, etc; and out came a 3D SketchUp model with a bunch of views; here are just a few:

Compared to the finished photos below, I'd say the renderings are a pretty accurate predictor of what you'll get in real life:

What makes this process work so well is that within SketchUp all parts of the piece are broken out into separate drawings. Therefore, relative scale and proportion is maintained throughout the piece, and all dimensions proposed are the actual finished dimensions.

If you have an idea in mind for a piece of furniture that you've been dying to have custom built for you, let me know. SketchUp drawings will be provided free of charge.

The original secretary desk post.

The Big Coffee Table/Museum Bench

2010-08-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

Big, as in six feet long.

Familiar, as in it's a copy of the benches at sfmoma.

Replacement, as in the coffee table that used to be in the living room now has no home and is for sale.

Yours, as in if you want one (or something similar) let me know and I'll build it for you.

George Nelson Bench: The 6 Footer

2010-07-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

1. Customer wants 6 footer.

2. Carlo thinks, "Wow, those would be long pieces of maple."

3. Customer says, "Yes. And make two center supports instead of one."

4. Carlo thinks, "Hmm, okay."

5. Customer also says, "Make those center supports double the size of the end pieces."

6. Carlo thinks, "Hmm, then that would make this piece exactly the same as a real George Nelson six foot bench."

7. Customer says, "Exactly."

8. Done. Built. Shipped.

9. Do you want one too?

10. Send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

Thank you. Good night.

Tiles in a Middle School Library

2010-07-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

Months ago I received an email from a middle school librarian in Texas who wanted to order 19 of my large tiles. She was planning an art installation with my tiles in order to add life to a blank wall of the library. I worked up the pricing and the shipping on her desired letters, then promptly trashed those plans and decided to just donate them to the school.

Hey, I'm a sucker for kids and reading and libraries and scrabble and art, so why not?

Here's what the final installation looks like, complete with the librarian's clever way of incorporating the school's name with a few choice words of educational significance.

For more info about my tiles, check out my original tile post.

If you'd like some tiles, please feel free to order them by sending me an email at craigwoodworks at gmail dot com. The 4" ones are $10 each and the 6" ones are $12 each.

On a related note, if you're a chemistry teacher and would like some oversized chemical elements as wall art, check these out. There's no free contest for those, so if you'd like to order a few then send me an email.

The Chemical Elements as Wood Tiles

2010-06-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

And now for something a little bit out there, a little bit geeky, a little bit fun, and a little bit of a word game.

Chemical elements as wood tiles! Put together in such a way as to spell out your name! Or spell out a word! Or spell out anything you can think of that fits the criteria!

This was an idea from a customer of mine who wanted wood tiles to embed into a bar top with random chemical elements on them. I took it one further and wanted to make them NOT random, i.e., why not spell something out?

I did a little googling and there's a guy out there that listed every word in the English dictionary that can be spelled using the symbols of chemical elements. There were something like 50,000 words in his list. Wow.

I could do words, I could do names, I could do names plus words. Or I could do a tile or tiles simply because you have a special attachment to a certain element.

Tiles are $12 each.

These are 7 1/2 inches square and are made from 1/2 inch thick birch plywood. The symbol is hand routed and hand painted black. The atomic number, atomic weight and element name are toner transferred and inked in black. The tiles are then coated in a water based poly.

What words/names can you spell with the elements? That's up to you to figure out. I'll provide a list below with all the symbols to help you out.

Email me (craigwoodworks at gmail dot com) and indicate the quantity of tiles you'd like, which symbols you'd like, and allow one week for construction.

Ac Actinium
Ag Silver
Al Aluminium (Aluminum)
Am Americium
Ar Argon
As Arsenic
At Astatine
Au Gold
B Boron
Ba Barium
Be Beryllium
Bh Bohrium
Bi Bismuth
Bk Berkelium
Br Bromine
C Carbon
Ca Calcium
Cd Cadmium
Ce Cerium
Cf Californium
Cl Chlorine
Cm Curium
Cn Copernicium
Co Cobalt
Cr Chromium
Cs Caesium (Cesium)
Cu Copper
Db Dubnium
Ds Darmstadtium
Dy Dysprosium
Er Erbium
Es Einsteinium
Eu Europium
F Fluorine
Fe Iron
Fm Fermium
Fr Francium
Ga Gallium
Gd Gadolinium
Ge Germanium
H Hydrogen
He Helium
Hf Hafnium
Hg Mercury
Ho Holmium
Hs Hassium
I Iodine
In Indium
Ir Iridium
K Potassium (Kalium)
Kr Krypton
La Lanthanum
Li Lithium
Lr Lawrencium
Lu Lutetium
Md Mendelevium
Mg Magnesium
Mn Manganese
Mo Molybdenum
Mt Meitnerium
N Nitrogen
Na Sodium
Nb Niobium
Nd Neodymium
Ne Neon
Ni Nickel
No Nobelium
Np Neptunium
O Oxygen
Os Osmium
P Phosphorus
Pa Protactinium
Pb Lead
Pd Palladium
Pm Promethium
Po Polonium
Pr Praseodymium
Pt Platinum
Pu Plutonium
Ra Radium
Rb Rubidium
Re Rhenium
Rf Rutherfordium
Rg Roentgenium
Rh Rhodium
Rn Radon
Ru Ruthenium
S Sulfur (Sulphur)
Sb Antimony
Sc Scandium
Se Selenium
Sg Seaborgium
Si Silicon
Sm Samarium
Sn Tin
Sr Strontium
Ta Tantalum
Tb Terbium
Tc Technetium
Te Tellurium
Th Thorium
Ti Titanium
Tl Thallium
Tm Thulium
U Uranium
Uuh Ununhexium
Uuo Ununoctium
Uup Ununpentium
Uuq Ununquadium
Uus Ununseptium
Uut Ununtrium
V Vanadium
W Tungsten
Xe Xenon
Y Yttrium
Yb Ytterbium
Zn Zinc
Zr Zirconium

Shipping is $5 for the first tile, plus $1 for each additional tile.

If perchance you are a crazy periodic table person who wants ALL 118 of the elements as wood tiles, that'll be $1,180. A savings of $2 per tile. Please allow one month for creation of these 118 tiles. Send an email for details. craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

The Chair Room at SFMOMA

2010-02-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

We were in SF a few weeks ago and stopped by the sfmoma (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The lobby itself was art, as is the case with lots of museums around the world. You don't actually have to go and see the exhibits to have an architecturally good time.

Similarly, the first time I went to the Getty in LA (the one on the hill, not the one on the water), I spent the whole day outside looking at the buildings, never once venturing inside to look at the art. And further similarly, at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris I tended to ignore the art inside (OK, not really), but instead kept saying to myself, hey this used to be a train station!

So here at sfmoma, I said, hey that's a cool information desk!

And whoa, look up!

And alongside the left wall of the lobby was a bench! This bench:

Anyway, into the museum!

One of the first things encountered was The Chair Room. A room of 11 chairs arranged in circle. A room of 11 pieces of wood art that serve the additional purpose of supporting your behind. A room of 11 modern chairs from modern designers from around the world from the 1930's to the present. Here they are:

Gerrit Rietveld, Zig-zag chair, 1934

Alvar Aalto, Armchair, model 31, 1931-32

Charles and Ray Eames, LCW, 1945

Nathan Lerner, Chair in a Box chair, 1947

Ray Komai, Chair, model 939, 1949

J.B. Blunk, Invisible Presence, 1962

Marc Newsom, Wood chair, 1988

Fernando and Humberto Campana, Favela chair, 1991

Frank Gehry, Cross-check armchair, 1992

Mark Naden, Topos chair, 2003

Maarten Baas, Zig-zag chair (Rietveld), from Where There's Smoke, 2004

It's fascinating that the collection of chairs comes full circle (literally, with the arrangement of chairs on a circular platform), with the Rietveld chair sitting next to the Baas chair. They're almost exactly alike, only with Baas putting his burnt signature on his (again literally, a burned cherrywood chair).

Yeah, I could've come away from this being all inspired to do chairs. Particularly chairs as an homage to these, like some sort of plywood curvy piece in the style of that fabulous Topos chair, or even a melange of scraps type of chair like the Favela. But I ended up coming away from this thinking, I'm gonna make the bench in the lobby.

Yup, the third picture above. It turned out they had dozens (if not hundreds) of these benches throughout the facility, mostly for use while resting in front of a large painting/sculpture/installation.

And I said to myself, I'm gonna go home and make one of those. Right away. It's now in progress. Lots of gluing of lots of parts in multiple steps 'cause I have a finite number of clamps in the shop. A post detailing the finished bench will be posted soon. Since it's a pseudo-slatted bench, it'll be part of my ongoing Nelson series of benches.

So the moral of the story: the next time you're in your favorite museum, ignore the art. Check out the other stuff that's in the building. Oh yeah, and if this museum happens to be the sfmoma, check out the chair room.

The Secretary Desk

2010-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

Finally, pics of the finished product. The customer took delivery in December and somehow I forgot to take pictures of it both when it was finished in the shop and when it was sitting in its final resting place in the living room. Over this past weekend, I went back to have a visit and snapped these photos:

In the lid closed and everything tucked away position.

Cuts were made from long horizontal boards so the grain matches on adjoining drawer fronts. The large drawer on the lower left contains a vertical file hanging system.

Dovetailed fronts.

Drawers (again).

Dropdown hardware. These pieces from Rockler have an adjustable brake control to reign in the speed of the dropdown action. This way it won't just slam down when you open it. Also, a magnetic catch secures the desk in the upright position.

The lived-in look. While a laptop is currently being used in this space, the opening is large enough to accommodate an iMac if the customer so desires in the future. The intention here is to pull out the laptop onto the desk portion when in use. Note also the cubbyhole shelving on the right - these are sized to fit standard 8.5x11 sheets of paper.

Drawer hardware detail.

And finally, the desk paired with a cool chair. Hiding in the back is a Nelson bench!

Construction notes: Solid cherry case and drawers. Plywood exceptions: drawer bottoms, case back, upper shelves. Dropdown hardware from Rockler. Brushed nickel drawer pulls. Dimensions? Approx 4' tall, 3' wide, 2' deep.

Price: Sold.

To discuss ideas for your own secretary desk, please send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

Spoons!

2009-12-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

Over the course of a few months I've been experimenting with turning spoons. Every now and again I'd find a random piece of maple or cherry, turn the handle on the lathe, and rough out a spoon shape using a variety of techniques: straight chiseling, spoon chiseling, routing, dremeling, flapwheel grinding, scraping, etc. I'm not quite sure which method works best, but that's part of the figuring out process and that's why I ended up with about a dozen spoons in varying styles.

So for xmas, I sanded these prototypes down, finished 'em with mineral oil (plus beeswax and carauba wax), put a pretty ribbon on 'em, attached some care/feeding instructions, and gave 'em away. In the true spirit of xmas, the best present is the type that actually can be crafted in Santa's workshop and not something that can be bought at Wal-Mart.

Each spoon had a different handle/spoon shape and was personalized with the iron/toner transfer technique that I use on lots of my other projects.

Once I figure out a streamlined modus operandi, I'll start selling these too.

Again, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Yes, there is furniture here

2009-11-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

No, it's not just Scrabble related stuff that I do. Somehow the tile thing caught on and blossomed into something that's not retro or modern or furniture, but it's still wood.

A current project in its final stages:

A full report on this custom secretary desk is coming. Perhaps the first week of December after I deliver it.

The Headboard

2009-10-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

The latest addition to the Nelson series, Project Mike: The Headboard.

This was inspired by a customer's request about eight months ago who wanted a slatted headboard. I ended up not making one for that customer, but went ahead and built one for our brand spanking new kingsize bed.

I often wondered if a mattress really did matter when it comes to sleeping comfort. After all, it's just a thing to lay on, right? And I can fall asleep anywhere -- the couch, the floor, the car, the bus, hard surface, soft surface, whatever. So when it came time to replace our 10 year old queen mattress, the woman suggested we go big. Real big. As in King.

Of course this meant scrapping the queen frame too. Now we've got a king (and a split boxspring) that's planted on the floor, sans bedframe.

And to answer my question about whether a mattress has anything to do with sleepability, I have to conclude with a resounding yes indeedy. Now I sleep completely uninterrupted without waking constantly in the middle of the night -- why I thought waking up constantly was normal, I don't know. Now we frequently have trouble getting up in the morning 'cause this new mattress is just so darn enveloping and soft and warm and cozy and squishy and joyful.

Anyway, to the headboard! Slats, all cherry wood, a couple of coats of tung oil (with lots more finishing to do later), and no frame yet. Due to various other projects piling up on my to-do list (a secretary desk, tons of giant scrabble tiles, various turned pieces, and a custom quadruple size scrabble board (to be played with 400 standard scrabble tiles)), I'll have to wait a while before attempting to make a frame. More details on the secretary desk and the ginormous scrabble board are forthcoming.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 80"

Height: 42"

Price: not for sale

Cherry wood. Preliminarily finished in tung oil.

To arrange commission of your own slatted headboard, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

The Eames House

2009-09-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I like Eames furniture. And yes, I admit I had no idea their house was in Pacific Palisades until a few months ago. And yes, I further admit that two years ago I was as ignorant as they come regarding anything that the Eames' ever did regarding furniture, architecture, film, style, life, etc.

In my former life I was a high end audio/video installation professional. In other words, I played with rich peoples' expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys. 'Cause he who dies with the most expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys wins. And he who has the biggest plasma screen hung on a wall can definitely compensate for shortcomings in other areas. I'm referring to a certain loud-mouthed former NFL wide receiver who will not be named, who just had to own a monstrous 103" behemoth. But I digress.

Anyway, there was a home theater installation I worked on a while back where the guy (not the aforementioned NFL player, but another rich guy with lots of toys) had a cool projector, a bigass screen, and a gagillion watts of speaker amplification in a dedicated theater space on top of the garage. For seating in this home theater, he had a fleet of Eames Lounge Chairs with Ottomans. By 'fleet' I mean at least a dozen of each.

Of course back then I didn't know what I was resting my grubby shoes on, and thought they were just nifty looking matching comfy ottomans with nifty looking matching comfy chairs. They were probably newer repros, but who knows? This guy was oozing overflowingly with wealth that he probably could have gone out and procured a dozen rosewood originals.

The point is that I just didn't know what I was experiencing when basking in the glory of that fleet of fabulous furniture.

Fast forward a few years and after my wife has educated me significantly in the lexicon of MCM, and here we are at the Eames House. Yup, right there on Chautauqua, just a few hundred yards up from PCH. I must've driven up that street dozens of times during my career as an installer, never knowing that right out the truck window there were four (count 'em four) case study houses: Eames, Entenza, West (Walker), and a Neutra.

A few months ago we were watching the second disc of the Eames films collection, the piece entitled House. And then I said, hey I'll google that and see what happens. And yes indeed, this is what I found: http://www.eamesfoundation.org/index.html and it's available for visitation. And we took a visit, just three weeks ago. The only catch is you can't take pictures of the inside.

What was interesting was the little conversation we had with the friendly docent at the door who was somewhat surprised that we're local and from LA. She told us that the majority of the visitors come from out of country and it's rare when a local comes by. Hmm, a comment on the not-so-enthusiastic state of architectural/historical interest among Los Angeles residents?

And during a leisurely stroll through the vast open space in front of the house, we came across some Tonka trucks, seemingly frozen in time. They probably had not been moved since forever as the rust indicated. You could just picture the Eames children (like in the House movie), running around the grounds, then moving some dirt with the Tonka trucks.

Nelson: Project Hotel

2009-07-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

This piece has to go now! I have another coffee table that's just being finished now that wants to move into the living room. There's no room for this one. Price now slashed to $300, or best offer.

Nelson: Project Hotel, aka The Square Donut. A slatted Nelson-style coffee table that's square-ish and has a hole in the middle. Part of the ongoing 26-part Nelson series.

This project was proposed waaaaay back in April, was begun waaaay back in May, and whose top was finished fairly quickly (probably waaay back at the end of May). It was the legs that gave me pause since I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. Square legs? Straight legs? Angled legs? Long legs? Spindles? Ah, yes, spindles.

It being over 100 degrees on most days for the past few months here in the San Fernando Valley, a four-part session with the spokeshave to create spindles was something I kept putting off. But lo! And behold! Lathe acquisition! Turned spindles! No more sweat session with spokeshave!

Now the obvious question: why is there a hole in the middle? The running joke around here is that we're gonna invite some kids over, plop them in the hole, give them some knives and meat and a floppy hat, and hold Benihana auditions. So if you'd like to steal the idea, purchase the table, and have at it, then feel free.

Oh wait, better idea -- put a little grill thingy in the middle, have all your guests sit on pillows around the table, and do a little Korean BBQ grill-your-own-meat in the middle of the table thing.

I also keep thinking about that scene in Wallstreet when Gordon Gecko drops the canape plate right through the hole in the faux glass coffee table at Bud's place during the meeting with Bluestar employees...

The real reason there's a hole in the middle? I don't remember. I'm sure I had a grand plan or a grand delusion of being artsy or a grand vision of the future of coffee tables with a built-in place for a trash can, but at the moment I simply can't recall. But I think it looks cool-- you get to see the toothed notches four times: twice on the outer edges and twice more on the inner edges.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 35 1/2"

Width: 26 1/4" (alas, not a square, but square-ish)

Height: 15"

Price: $300

Hard maple. Finished in tung oil.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Drumstick

2009-07-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

When I hear the word drumstick, I think of ice cream in a cone with the top dipped in chocolate and a sprinkling of nuts on top. But this is about something else.

My lathe is my friend. My spokeshave used to be my friend, but it's been demoted to just an acquaintance. While finishing up some spindles today I came across a skinny-ish piece of ash and said to myself, "Drumstick!" 'Cause nowadays I'm dreaming up all kinds of nonsense that I can make with my friend the lathe: pepper mills, French rolling pins, regular rolling pins, lamps, pens, pencils, letter openers, big wooden spoons and forks, dildos, bottle stoppers, chairs, stair spindles, light sabers, dagger hilts, chessmen, chesswomen, and of course drumsticks.

Anyway, I chucked up the ash, gave it a spin, and out came my best approximation of a drumstick. An approximation was all I could muster 'cause I didn't have a live sample to measure or copy (since I sold my drums and my collection of sticks/mallets a loooong time ago). It's a little on the short side (12.75") compared to a 5A (~16.25"), but it looks right. (The skinny-ish piece of ash was only 13.5" long.) There's a taper, there's a tip, there's a rounded butt, and there's a signature. 'Cause it's not a drumstick unless it's an official Signature Model.

So here it is, the Carlo Signature Stick, model 1138. 'Cause I'm a rock star. With only one stick. I'll be playing one-handed until its twin can be fabricated.

Dimensions:
Length 12 3/4"
Diameter 7/8"

Ash, with a few coats of satin poly
Signed, limited edition (1 of 1)

Price: $1,000,000

Cash only (in a briefcase)

Free delivery to anywhere in the world

Nelson: Project Juliet

2009-07-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Letter J, Project Juliet, Nelson piece number 10, The Shoe Rack.

I call it the shoe rack 'cause that's what came to mind when the dimensions of this thing became evident. What you use it for is completely up to you: a plant stand, a foot stool, a kids' bench, a mini coffee table for those tiny moments of coffee drinking, or even a shoe rack.

Make sure you look at the dimensions at the end of this post 'cause the pictures might make it appear to be larger than it actually is. What it definitely isn't is the size of a regular Nelson bench.

Made from leftover pieces of maple from Project Kilo: The Square Coffee Table (not yet completed), this mini bench is something I threw together 'cause I didn't want to let those perfectly good lengths of maple go to the lumber limbo pile. That lumber limbo pile of mine is growing to unmanageable proportions, so it's best if I find a good use for certain pieces rather than subject them to insignificance and loneliness.

Why these pieces were rejects from the square coffee table is due to a failed planer sled experiment. Without getting into the ugly details, these pieces ended up with a little dip in their centers. If you look at the second picture below, you might be able to notice that the center of the shoe rack is of a slightly smaller width than the ends of it. Slightly. Not a lot. Slightly.

This is an all glue joint affair without the signature notches of some of my previous Nelson-style work. The glue blocks are oriented upwards so that the end grain is visible: this resulted in some chipping of the ends of the glue blocks when attempting to flatten the top with a hand plane. Must rethink my strategy in that regard next time. I think it looks cool and gives the thing some character ;>

Spindles! Lathe turned spindles! I finally got my lathe and these spindles were the first things I spun. I'm loving the lathe so much that my spokeshave just might get a retirement ceremony and end up in the tool limbo pile (which is not as ignominious a destination as the lumber limbo pile).

Below is the shoe rack demonstrating its usefulness in a way befitting its title. As you can see, we have a thing for Keen shoes.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 34 1/2"

Width: 7 1/4"

Height: 12"

~~Price: $150~~ Sold!

Hard maple. Finished in tung oil.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

The Wall Structure, Part Two

2009-06-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Nelson Bench Project India: The Wall Structure, Part Two

Part Two meaning that it is installed and doing what it is meant to be doing: displaying stuff.

To refresh your recollection, it's a 16 foot wide by 2 foot tall slat structure with four slat shelves. It's a Nelson Bench hung on a wall, only it's not a bench. Hopefully that makes sense. It's broken up into four sections, each section being 4x2. Mounting is with some butterfly through-toggles in the drywall. Rather than bother with hitting studs ('cause my finicky stud finder seemed to not find 16" OC), I opted for equally spacing the drilled holes on the slat surface and just going with the toggles.

More on the Nelson Bench Project.

The original post has some SketchUp renderings if you're interested.

The first six pics were taken just after installation.

Although it's not wood, the metal bar structure was also part of the commission. This is a clothing company after all and the intention is to display a few things on the shelves and to hang a ton of clothes on a rack. During planning for this operation, I discovered something called Speed-Rail fittings for the junctions of the bars. With a few twists of an allen key, yous gots yourself some snug neato elbow fittings, T fittings and flange fittings. MUCH easier to manage than dealing with threaded pipe.

And the two pics below are with accessories in place. Throw up a few purses, slather on a bucket of clothes, and you get magic.

All ash construction. Finished with tung oil.

Dimensions of wall structure:
16' wide
2' tall

Dimensions of each shelf:
22" wide
1' deep

Dimensions of clothes rails:
5' lengths (x3) 1" GRC (~1 1/4" nominal)
55" height
16" offset from wall
Speed-Rail fittings

Price: permanent installation, not for sale

If you have a space that needs similar treatment and would like an estimate and some SketchUp renderings, shoot me an email and we'll discuss.

The Wall Structure

2009-06-05T12:57:00.001-07:00

Nelson Bench Project India: The Wall Structure

Construction begins today on the latest George Nelson Bench project, code named India. It's a wall-mounted slatted structure that's 16 feet wide and 2 feet tall, with four slatted shelves.

This one's pretty monstrous - kinda like building a super long Nelson bench and slapping it on a wall. Well, not kinda like, but actually building a super long Nelson bench and slapping it on a wall.

Since the slats are transversely oriented, the Nelson effect is somewhat different. It should, however, work well in the space that it's intended for as it will draw the gaze upward and extend the height of the room.

The finished piece will be written up extensively in a future post along with bunches of pictures.

All ash. So the grain will be like my four foot Nelson.

I find slats in the strangest places

2009-05-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

A Nelson-esque slat wall in Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

http://midcenturymodernmovies.blogspot.com/2009/05/ferris-buellers-day-off.html

I think I'm gonna slat a whole wall in our living room.

The Slat House

2009-05-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

We were driving around Pasadena on Saturday and my better half wanted to swing by her absolutest favoritest store in the whole wide world - Anthropologie. There's a little ritual she goes through every time one of their catalogs comes in the mail that involves oohing and aahing (but no chanting) at not only the clothing, but also the photography and the layout and the models and the accessories and the thickness of the paper.

Anyway, this particular Pasadena Anthropologie (on Lake Street for those familiar with the area), has a facade that's all slatted. And my natural reaction to this was, hey, that's an Anthropologie-store-cum-Nelson Bench! Of course you can't sit on it, but it's the look that counts.

I didn't think at the time to take a picture, but it goes a little something like this:

So we got to thinking, since we have a dual desire to fence our house and improve the look of the exterior, why not slather it with slats? It's one thing to make vertical slats and create a fence that looks like, well, a regular wooden fence. It's another thing altogether to rotate the slats horizontally and do something not so regular.

My previous life (i.e., occupation) involved driving around areas of the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, any other Hills, and the Valley, and encounter I did numerous examples of horizontally placed slats on fences and on houses. But there sure aren't any around our neighborhood where you're apt to find chainlink or picket or stucco or brick or vertical cedar plank. So hey, let's do something crazy. Let's slat it up, flip it, and rub it down. Oh no.

And therefore I christen the George Nelson Bench Project Kilo: The Fence. In combination with an exterior house paint job and construction of a gray water wetlands water treatment system enclosed by a slat wall, this project will most definitely be the whackiest undertaking of the bunch. Part of the George Nelson Bench Project.

Dimensions:

Length: Out of control
Height: Large-ish
Materials used: Wood, lots of it

Price: Not for sale

Follow-ups on this will be posted as I progress.

Steaming Pile of Mulch

2009-04-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, this is unrelated to woodworking and midcentury and modern and furniture and slat benches, but I just got so giddy this morning when a bigass truck pulled up to our house and unloaded a gigantonormous pile of steaming wood chips onto the chunk of empty land next to the driveway.

Now I have enough mulch to keep me busy mulching for the next few weeks.

I found it on craigslist -- I wish the post was still active so I could link it here, but when searching for "wood chips" under "free stuff" on LA's craigslist, it wasn't there anymore.

It's a tree/shrub removal company that's just looking for places to dump their truckloads at the end of removal jobs. A perfect situation for someone like me that needs to mulch a massive garden. And free! (But I did tip the driver.)

I don't think my wheelbarrow is gonna be big enough.

Two more benches out the door

2009-04-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

I met a cool dude yesterday. He bought two of my benches. I think I'll give him a plug here:

http://whatthehellz.com/

Now that my tiny Nelson footstool is gone and my second piano bench is not paired with my piano anymore, I realize three things:

One. I can't put my feet up when on the couch watching TV.

Two. I have nowhere to sit if I want to play the piano.

Three. There aren't many pieces left for sale! So I gots to gets movin' on the groovin' and havta get workin' on the buildin' and for real now gettin' cuttin' on the toolin'.

Time. Must find more time. Too busy typing.

This post sponsored by iTypeFaster Transcriptions.

Current Nelson Project: The Square Donut

2009-04-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law is an architect. While in architecture school a few years ago, she casually mentioned to me that google sketchup is something I should poke around with 'cause it's a cool little (free!) tool that I could use to plan our house remodel or experiment with furniture ideas.

Me being me, I ignored the suggestion. For a variety of reasons. I didn't have the time. I didn't feel like poking around with new software because there's a certain state of mind one must be in before devoting half a day to learning. I had an attachment to pencil and paper that's similar to the attachment I still have to books and newspapers and magazines -- I'm sure you've heard of such novelty items.

Of course, I discovered coffee/espresso after a vay-cay in France not long ago, and now that state of mind can be activated with a few pushes of the 'grind' button on my minigrinder and a quick stab at the 'on' button on my coffee dripping wondermachine.

Fast forward to six months ago when I listened to all the back episodes of Dave Noftz' podcast at modernwoodshop.com. He talked about computers and their place in woodworking, and mentioned sketchup. Here's that specific podcast: http://modernwoodshop.com/2008/02/02/episode-3-digital-woodworking/

So I said hmph. And then I said said maybe. And then I fired up the coffee maker. And then I devoted an evening to google's thingamabob. http://sketchup.google.com

And wow. Simple. Intuitive. Powerful. In 3D! No 3D glasses required. I giggled like a little girl when I first built up a virtual furniture piece and rotated it around and around and around and twisted it and turned it and zoomed it and coddled it and petted it and showed it off to my wife. Looky looky what I did! Yay!

What fascinated me the most was the idea of building up a piece and simultaneously keeping the individual sections of the piece intact, resulting in both a rendering of what the thing'll look like in the end AND renderings of each component. Like an instant exploded view. Throw in the tape measure tool and you can get dimensions of every nook and cranny.

So here's what I'm working on now. Just a simple little rendering with, naturally, a look at what it'll look like in the end AND two renderings of the key slat components.

It's square with a hole in it. A square donut. The leg structure is still undecided, but you get the idea. And more importantly, I get the idea. I can see exactly what's going on and can see exactly what the two slat pieces need to look like in order to fit into the four transverse teethed parts. Part of The Nelson Bench Project.

I mention frequently on posts, through email, on craigslist or on etsy, that a custom design can be created for you if you have some thoughts on how you want your furniture to proceed. And I further mention that I'll sketchup something for you for free. Well this is exactly the type of visualization you'll get.

Now if I can only figure out how to embed a 3D model instead of a jpeg within a post. That'd be cool. Then anyone can grab the square donut and twist it and turn it and zoom it and say Yay!

(Oh yeah, note to self: If sister-in-law suggests something in the future, act on it right quick.)

Nelson Bench on Dollhouse

2009-04-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Project Echo's post first mentioned the reasoning behind the military alphabet project listings and its roots within the show Dollhouse on Fox.

Here's an example of a six foot Nelson Bench from Friday's episode:

http://midcenturymodernmovies.blogspot.com/2009/04/dollhouse.html

Nelson: Project Golf

2009-04-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

We redecorated the house a few weeks ago. The tinyness of our house results in our having either a dining room or a living room, but not both. Since the dismantling of the dining room (and the dismantling of the dining table-- see Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) we've gone on a quest to make the room a true living room. And in the spirit of mid-century modern restyling, this living room is slowly but surely filling itself with pieces that fit the style.

Our 2nd bedroom used to function as a dedicated TV room, but to make the living room more of a living room, we decided to move the TV watching from out of the TV room and into the living room. The TV room is now a dedicated library.

And since the TV has moved to a wall mounting position in the living room, I had to relocate the associated equipment from the dedicated TV room closet to a more appropriate electronic gear cabinet. It's a hallway linen closet that was used for storage, but is now the electronic nerve center of the house.

And finally, the point of this post: In order to cover this electronic closet, it needed a door. What better type of door to make than a George Nelson style door.

Project Golf. The 7th project in The Nelson Bench Project. The Nelson Door.

Yup, it's not a bench. You can't sit on it. It can't be used as a coffee table. It's hinged. It was built in two sections so the top and bottom of the door can open independently. The wood used to make this project cost a grand total of $10. The spacing between the slats is considerably smaller than the slat spacing on the benches I've built so far-- mainly so you can't see into the closet.

The $10 worth of wood is from 11 pieces of 1x3 furring from Lowes at 85 cents apiece. I'm assuming they're pine ('cause it smells like pine wood when I cut 'em), but Lowes just calls them "whitewood." I don't know what whitewood is. If you're not familiar with furring, it's the least expensive stuff you can buy 'cause it's not meant for building things, but for temporary support for cabinet installation, or for building out surfaces to make them flush with other surfaces, or for supporting paneling and the like, or other activities that aren't furniture related. (Note that furring can be used as both a noun and a verb.) I picked out the straightest pieces I could find, cut 'em into 3/4 x 1 slats, and glued 'em up.

There's a coat of paint that's the same color as all the trim in our house which is a basic off-white shade called Bermuda Sand. The hinges were some simple square thingys I found in the bottom of my old tool box. I've probably had these hinges for 15 years, but never used them for anything. Thus, the first rule of random parts and hardware holds true: Keep Everything! You never know when you're gonna need it.

What's inside the closet? From top to bottom: AV receiver, TiVo, laser printer, flat panel monitor (with modem/router/switch/airport/UPS behind the monitor), an HTPC and an auxiliary PC connected to a KVM, and an inkjet printer. All of that gear controls the living room TV setup, the virtual DVD jukebox, and the whole house networking. The gear used to reside in the closet in the dedicated TV room and took up the entire closet space, but it has gotten much more simplified since its last reconfiguration and can thus fit inside this smaller linen closet space. Simplified = no more DishNetwork ('cause with over-the-air HD and Hulu, we don't need satellite anymore, and thus three satellite boxes are gone), no more DVD player (since all the DVDs have been ripped to the 4TB of storage in the HTPC), no more VCR ('cause what's a VCR? is that like an 8-track? or a cassette tape? or betamax?), no more auxiliary audio amplifier ('cause the single AV receiver is sufficient for all the audio in the house), and one less power strip ('cause of all of the above things that no longer need to be plugged in).

Dimensions:

Width: 22"
Height: 7' 6"

Price: not for sale

Not for sale because it's attached to the house. But if you want a custom Nelson door, let me know and I'll work up a SketchUp drawing and give you an estimate.

Additionally, if you'd like guidance on how to build your own HTPC and rid yourself of unwieldy DVDs by stuffing them all into a massive multi-terabyte array, let me know and I'll give you lots of details on how my system works.

Email at craigwoodworks@gmail.com

Nelson: Project Foxtrot

2009-04-02T20:55:00.001-07:00

I acquired a pair of homemade speaker stands from a dude I know. He didn't need 'em anymore 'cause he redecorated and his surround speakers didn't need a device to keep them elevated. So I gladly took them off his hands for disassembly and reuse/repurposing.

They were made of pine. The kind of pre-cut S4S (surfaced on four sides) that you pick up from Lowes or Home Depot. A dark walnut stain was applied to them, so I decided to keep the color intact during my reclamation project.

And here it is, another addition to the Reclamation Project and The George Nelson Bench Project:

The Spindled Bench!

While the speaker stands donated their lives for the creation of the top of this bench, the spindled legs were taken from an old pine table I built 12 years ago that wasn't being used. Oh wait! Remember the table top that was repurposed for The End Table? The legs for this bench were the legs that used to be attached to that table top in its previous life.

The spindles were spokeshaved (again). Read more about that in my previous post entitled Spokeshave.

I had a little trouble applying stain to the uncovered and newly cut surfaces so that the color matches with the speaker stand color. And a little more trouble with the stain adhering properly to the spindles. Note to self: more sanding! I don't know if you can see it in the pictures, but the dark walnut color is kinda blotchy and uneven. This is something I like to call character.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 47 3/4"
Width: 12 3/4"
Height: 14 1/4"

~~Price: $150~~ Sold!

Although this piece has sold (yippee!), one can be custom-crafted for you if this style of piece is what you're interested in. Any size or any wood species-- it's up to you. Email me with your ideas and I'll SketchItUp for you and give you a price estimate.

Cork: The Trivet

2009-04-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

I love wine. Living in semi-close proximity to the Napa Valley (if a 6 hour drive can be considered semi-close proximity) and extremely close proximity to Santa Barbara (think Sideways), my wife and I are frequent wine country visitors and daily wine consumers.

Blame the French and the Italians, who we had to emulate during our trips to their respective countries. Wine is served with every meal, so long as its followed by a long and leisurely stroll to nowhere in particular. When in Rome...

Anyway, we've got a plethora of corks and a similar plethora of cork trivets. My first trivets were created about 12 years ago and they've served me well over the years. Now I've made more and want to share in the corkiness.

These are made with 100% real wine corks made from actual cork. As in, from a cork tree. Note that there are no plastic or artificially created cork products in these trivets since they tend to melt when exposed to high heat. It's a trivet after all and its purpose is to protect a surface from a hot pan! I've seen many a mangled plastic cork from my earlier attempts at cork trivet creations.

This is just a peek into the world of The Cork Project. I'm trying my hand at furniture/vase/lamp building out of corks, so stay tuned for those.

I know, it's not retro modern furniture per se, but we'll file it under accessories for modern living. Recycled. Reclaimed. Repurposed.

Two sizes available.
Price: $20 per pair for the smaller size
Price: $30 per pair for the larger size

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks@gmail.com

Spokeshave

2009-03-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

I just came in from the shop after an afternoon workout with my spokeshave. My current project is another crossover event that combines the George Nelson Bench Project with the Reclamation Project. Details will be available when that piece is complete, but for now I'd just like to take a little time to talk about my spokeshave. 'Cause me likey.

It's a Kunz half-round spokeshave that I picked up from Woodcraft. Why this one? 'Cause it was cheap? And I'd never used a spokeshave before so I didn't want to go all out and get something like a Boggs? And Woodcraft was having a sale?

Its name tells you exactly what it was originally used for in the caveman days (yes, I do mean caveman days- when spokeshaves were made of stone!), and that is for shaving spokes. As in, making wheels with rounded spokes. Nowadays, they see a lot of time in chair making operations for rounded spindles on chair backs and chair legs.

I've used it on a few different projects now, mostly for making tapered spindles. The current project involves turning 2x2 square pine legs into tapered spindled legs.

And hence the workout. And a pile of shavings.

Shavings good. Sawdust messy. And I don't have to wear a mask.

The End Table

2009-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

A buddy of mine recently did up his garage. Floors, insulation, drywall, lighting, a new door, air, new electrical, a pop-down attic ladder, a sink, etc. A new baby can do that to a garage, especially if there're only two bedrooms in the house. This is not to say that the baby can do construction work, but that the baby causes the need to do the construction work. The 2nd bedroom becomes the baby room and the old office moves to the garage.

We went over to visit this new fangled garage office/den and I discovered two trash cans full of wood scraps. Cut up pieces, all about a foot long and a foot wide, that came from the old interior of the garage. Apparently they were long and wide planks running horizontally where stuff could be screwed or nailed to like lawn equipment, shelving or other miscellaneous garage junk.

I picked out a few choice pieces, planed 'em down, and thought to myself, "Self, what should I built out of this?"

(If anyone can tell me what kind of wood is/was used as random garage wood in the 1950's, then please feel free to email. It's a softish kinda wood, probably pine? Or doug fir? They're all 3/4" thick with widths varying from 6" to a full foot. Hmmm...)

The result is another entry in The Reclamation Project:

The End Table

The reclaimed garage wood was used for the leg structure only. The table top came from an old side table I built 10 years ago that no longer had a home in the house. It used to be a rectangle, but I oblonged it so it fit more with the look of the legs.

I didn't want to bother with a router roundover bit, so all edge easing was done with a spokeshave. There's something about that little tool that just does it for me.

Inspiration for this piece is the Bradshaw line of tables from Room&Board.

Here are my dimensions:

Length of table top: 23"
Width of table top: 17 1/2"
Height: 22 1/2"

Top is made of repurposed pine. Legs are made of reclaimed garage wood. Could be pine? Could be douglas fir (like 2x4 wood, but thinner and from the 1950's)?

Price: $150

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Nelson: Project Echo

2009-03-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

The military alphabet thing started after watching the first episode of the Hit TV Show On Fox! Dollhouse! Yes, I know, why do I watch that show? Did I really fall for Fox's scheming and conniving in their attempt to attract viewers with scantily clad women? On a Friday night? Right after that Terminator show with the scantily clad girl terminator?

Anyway, Eliza Dushku's character is named Echo. And the mysterious bad guy's name is Alfa. And the other girl's name is Sierra. And I had to explain to the wife why they were named such. And it became a little thing of ours that we had to know every letter of that alphabet. Because it's always a thing of mine to know everything about everything. Because I am officially in Jeopardy! training as of last week. (More on that in another post.)

So here we are at letter E, the fifth in the Nelson Bench series, or Project Echo. I have some reclaimed red oak that I wanted to use for something- the problem being that most of the pieces were smallish or shortish or thinnish. Read more on The Reclamation Project.

Project Echo is therefore a crossover event: Like when ABC mixed up the casts of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. It's a member of both The George Nelson Bench Project and The Reclamation Project. Only without the blood, the witty banter, the wispy music that's better suited to the CW network, or the doctors.

During the cutting-up-the-old-red-oak process, I discovered lots of worminess in the wood. At this time I'd like to officially rename the term worminess to character. All the little trails and divots impart lots of character into this piece. Yeah.

The legs are skinny, tapered and rounded by hand (with the spokeshave again), and are stained a dark chocolate brown. One of these days I'll use the spokeshave for the purpose by which it is named: making a wheel with spokes.

Project Echo's name? The Plant Stand.

It was supposed to be some sort of end table or side table, but since it's so light and airy and delicate and small and has skinny legs, then it had to be demoted to a Plant Stand. Of course you can put whatever you want on it. Just don't sit on it.

Dimensions are as follows:

Table top: 14 1/4" x 13 1/2"
Height: 25"

Construction is of repurposed red oak, with ash end pieces (the toothed parts), and ash legs.

Price: No longer available. Given to my mother for Mother's Day.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks@gmail.com

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2009-03-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

Current items within the Reclamation Project:

The End Table
The Plant Stand* (aka Nelson Project Echo)
The Cork Trivet
The Spindled Bench* (aka Nelson Project Foxtrot)

*The Plant Stand and The Spindled Bench are crossover events with The George Nelson Bench Project. They both utilize reclaimed/repurposed/reused/recycled wood and are also constructed in the slats tradition of the George Nelson Bench.

What is The Reclamation Project? Read on...

There used to be a room attached to the back of our garage. It was old and creaky and smelly and leaning slightly to the left. I once had visions of using it as a workshop or an office-- until the insurance people said that it wasn't to code, it was built too close to the property line, and it looked like it was gonna cave in on itself and maim somebody.

So we tore it down. And by "we" I mean a group of four of us did it and we didn't hire a crew of demolitioners. At the base of this so-called room, we found that the brilliant constructioners built it up on top of sheets of plywood nailed to some 2x4's laid flat on the ground. No concrete foundation, no pressure treated lumber, no vapor barrier, no nothing. Good stuff, yo.

The result of the demolitioning was a truckload of lumber. 2x4s, 2x6s, 2x8s, lots of plywood.

Now to the point: Why throw it all away? Why get a big phat dumpster and send all of it into a landfill? That was my thinking at the time. Too bad I didn't act on it right away.

The lumber sat in a large pile outside the garage for years before I decided to build myself a dining table. I picked out the choicest of the 2x8's, cut 'em so they were 8 feet long, got some 4x4's from another demolition of a wood fence surrounding our property, built some legs and a stretcher structure. Say that 10 times fast- stretcher structure.

The cool part was getting a bucket of chocolate brown oops paint from Lowes ($5!) and slathering it on my gigantic dining table. I think the final dimensions were 4 feet wide by 8 feet long- all with the intention of being able to seat eight people at a time for dinner. There was an additional bench project that went along with this dining table, but it didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to so it never served its purpose as seating for this table.

Above is the only picture I could find of the table. Ignore the shopvac and the miscellaneous junk surrounding it. Below that is the bench with glasses. Not a bench that has a vision problem, but a bench used as a wine glass staging area for a dinner party (with lots and lots of wine; 'cause why else would I set out 24 wine glasses?).

The table was dismantled a year later and the dining room was turned into a living room. The top of the table is still intact and I'll probably reuse it soon. The base was repurposed for use as the base of my woodshop assembly table/planer stand. The bench is now an outdoor seat in our breezeway.

Similarly, I built another dining table 10 years ago that was purpose-built for a small space in our old house. Since it had no place to go in our new house, it was relegated to the backyard and used as a gardening/planting table. Exposed to the severe weather of Southern California, it slowly deteriorated into a table-not-so-much. But it was oak! Solid red oak!

So I cut it up, picked out the good parts, planed down the tore up surfaces, and now most of the oak is definitely useable.

Keyword Number One: Reduce. By not buying wood, I am reducing my impact on new wood use and ancillary costs of transporting that wood to the end user.

Keyword Number Two: Reuse. We tore down an old structure and I am using the doug fir for other purposes. I built a table 10 years ago that subsequently deteriorated and would have ended up in a landfill if I had not cut it up and replaned it.

Keyword Number Three: Recycle. Same as keyword number two. Other words that fit: repurpose, reclaim, reinvigorate, restore.

Nelson: Project Delta

2009-03-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

For the fourth project in the Nelson Series, I present The Foot Stool.

Find out more about The George Nelson Bench Project.

What do you do with smallish leftover pieces of ash from Project Charlie? Make a smallish Nelson Bench, of course!

This was a fun project. Quick and dirty. Not too many teeth to cut. And I even got to use my brand spanking new spokeshave and make some spindles. Yessirree, hand cut spindles. I don't own a lathe and I probably won't get a lathe any time in the near future. Come to think of it, I've never used a lathe in my life. During woodshop class in junior high school, our family was on an extended vacation when they covered turning, so I missed out. Now all I do is watch that turning guy on PBS and think to myself, hmmm someday I'll get around to messing with turning. But not now.

So what do you do with this little bench? Sit on it? Let your kid sit on it 'cause it's tiny? Use it as a footstool while relaxing on the sofa? Use it as a footstool at the foot of the bed so you can put your shoes on without having to bend over all the way to the floor? Anything like that will do.

My favorite idea for a use for this one is as a coconut grater. All one would have to do is find one of these:

And attach it to the end of the stool and make something like this:

And there you have it! Coconut grater stool!

My grandfather made one of these (not a Nelson coconut grater of course, but one similar to the line drawing above) and used to grate coconuts in the garage. Actually, he probably made a few of them and gave one to each of my aunts and uncles. He made all sorts of things out of wood and didn't need no stinkin' power tools. Give him a hand saw and a screwdriver and anything was possible.

Perhaps a Nelson project in the future will be the coconut grater.

As for this project, here are the dimensions:

Length: 13 3/4"
Width: 7 1/4"
Height: 8 1/2"

All solid ash construction.

~~Price: $50~~ Sold!

Although this piece has sold (yippee!), one can be custom-crafted for you if this style of piece is what you're interested in. Any size or any wood species-- it's up to you. Email me with your ideas and I'll SketchItUp for you and give you a price estimate.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Nelson: Project Charlie

2009-03-10T18:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, number Three, Project Charlie. The Other Piano Bench.

For more on The George Nelson Bench Project, go here.

Note: Piano not included.

I'll admit now that I have a thing for the usage of something that's not a piano bench as a piano bench. Because frankly, standard piano benches are just plain ugly. They usually come in two flavors: Flavor One is a wooden topped thing (with or without a hinged top) with tapered legs. Flavor Two is a cushion topped thing that's just a bulbous piece of nonsense. Since flavor two usually has some sort of height adjustment dealie built in, the bulbousness of the cushioned top makes it just too bulbous to look at. Bulbous. That's a great word.

Example of a bulbous bulbousity:

Please note: I absolutely did not make the bench pictured above. I don't believe I would want to make the bench pictured above. I don't believe I would want to sit on the bench pictured above. I don't believe I would subject my piano to being accompanied by the bench pictured above. Sure my piano is an old rickety thing, but it does have some sense of decency and style left in her.

My sister's piano didn't come with a bench either. She went to Cost Plus and picked up a cool looking piece with flared legs and an undulating rattan top. Now, that's a piano bench with some chutzpah!

And now here's my contribution to the family of piano benches that don't look like standard piano benches: The Nelson Piano Bench.

The first iteration of The Nelson Piano Bench (Project Alpha) wasn't exactly a Nelson because of the glued up end pieces and the absence of the teeth with the notches. This bench does have the teeth and the notches and even has the requisite center toothed piece.

The legs aren't angled 'cause I was concerned about stability. Some piano players (myself included) get way too animated and physically involved with their playing that a back and forth swaying motion might be detrimental to the player's uprightness if the angled legs were present. Therefore, I kept the legs straight. The dadoes within which the legs rest were cut on all the slats including the outer ones. This was a little thing I wanted to try to see if it looked cool that the leg ends were visible. I think they're cool.

Here are the dimensions:

Length: 30"
Width: 14"
Height: 18 3/4"

The length of 30" is more in line with a typical piano bench length. Project Alpha was much shorter. The height is just a tad lower than Project Alpha because as I mentioned in the Project Alpha description, it felt a little high. A quarter of an inch lower feels just right.

Ash top, with poplar legs. Yeah, I know, the legs are poplar. I ran out of ash for the legs so I had to resort to whatever else was on hand. Hence the poplar. What little pieces of ash I had left went to Project Delta.

~~Price: $150~~ Sold!

Although this piece has sold (yippee!), one can be custom-crafted for you if this style of piece is what you're interested in. Any size or any wood species-- it's up to you. Email me with your ideas and I'll SketchItUp for you and give you a price estimate.

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Nelson: Project Bravo

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Number Two on the Nelson Project list is, well, The Nelson Bench.

Get more info on The George Nelson Bench Project.

OK, I lied. In the description of what The George Nelson Bench Project is, I stated that I won't actually make a George Nelson Bench. Well it seems that I somehow had to make one just to make sure I was able to make one and keep it as for real as possible. Note that when saying the words "for real" out loud, don't pronounce the "r." It'll sound something like "fo real." Never mind.

So here it is. Project Bravo is a four foot Nelson Bench complete with proper toothed ends and notched slats and a center support as well. The legs are angled inward to give it that oh so sexy Nelson flair. The stain on the legs is more of a chocolate brown than a true ebony-- so that'll be my little distinctive difference from a Nelson Bench that you can find elsewhere.

The dimensions:

Length: 48"
Width: 18"
Height: 14"

See? Even the dimensions are authentic!

All solid ash construction.

Price: Inquire

To arrange purchase, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Nelson: Project Alfa

2009-03-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

The first project in the Nelson Series is The Piano Bench.

Check out more information on The George Nelson Bench Project.

My piano came without a bench and I've been using a swivel chair. While the swivel chair is definitely comfortable/ergonomic/infinitely adjustable, it just doesn't look right in front of the jet black fantasticism of a piano. I don't think fantasticism is a word.

Granted, my piano cost me a whopping $2.25, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be paired with a decent bench, right? Yes, I said $2.25. Well actually it came out to $102.25 including the piano mover's fee. The wonders of eBay.

So to inaugurate my new woodshop and tweak the new tools and make sure they cut straight and make sure I still know how to cut straight, the first project was a simple exercise.

I call it The Piano Bench because of its initial usage, but in the pictures it's being used as a side table / cafe table / end table. And therefore those are the options for your usage as well. Bear in mind that the title of the piece does have the word bench in it, so you can sit on it too. Note that the two lovely chairs flanking this piece in the first picture are not included.

A real Nelson bench has teeth on the sides of the slats where the notched slats fit comfortably. I didn't mess with that process yet and decided to do a straight ahead glue up on the ends. The grain of the alternating pieces is rotated to face upwards so there's some contrast between the slats and the center pieces.

The legs are perpendicular to their adjoining horizontal supports and are not angled inwards as in a real Nelson bench.

Oh yeah, it's all pine. 'Cause that's the wood I happened to have on hand at the time. I had a whole bunch of ash and maple as well, but they were still getting acclimated to my shop, so I saved them for later projects.

Here are the dimensions:

Length: 22 3/4"
Width: 14 1/4"
Height: 19"

I looked up standard piano bench heights and got anywhere from 18" to 20". I split the difference and made it 19". For some reason it seems a little high for my piano. Or maybe I just got so used to sitting a little low with the swivel chair. Low rider swivel chair.

~~Price: $75~~ Sold!

Although this piece has sold (yippee!), one can be custom-crafted for you if this style of piece is what you're interested in. It's different from the other Nelson pieces since it doesn't have toothed ends and is a simpler alternating grain direction glue-up. Any size or any wood species-- it's up to you. Email me with your ideas and I'll SketchItUp for you and give you a price estimate.

The George Nelson Bench Project

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Project Alfa: The Piano Bench
Project Bravo: The Nelson Bench
Project Charlie: The Other Piano Bench
Project Delta: The Footstool
Project Echo: The Plant Stand
Project Foxtrot: The Spindled Bench
Project Golf: The Nelson Door
Project Hotel: The Square Coffee Table
Project India: The Wall Structure
Project Juliet: The Shoe Rack
Project Kilo: The Fence (proposed)
Project Lima: The Piano Bench, Part III (proposed and desperately needed)
Project Mike: The Headboard (not for sale)
Project November: The Six Foot Nelson Bench

This is an extensive tribute to the George Nelson Bench, which was first introduced in 1946 for Herman Miller. The picture below is from the Room and Board website: a fabulous example of an officially licensed place that sells Herman Miller / George Nelson reproductions.

While I do not intend to just build regular Nelson benches which are available through numerous retailers (both with Herman Miller's permission and without), I do intend to do a sort of theme and variations on the Nelson style. More to the point, each of my creations will have slats of some sort.

This will be a 26-part series, with 26 unique builds. Why 26? Because there are 26 letters in the alphabet and the designation system I chose utilizes the military letter system: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, etc. Why this lettering system? Because it's cool.

All work is custom built to your specifications. While the projects pictured above and the projects linked to above are all possible creations for you, let your imagination run wild and propose something out there and wacky and unnaturally dimensioned and even without slats.

Every proposed build comes with free 3D Google SketchUp renderings. This way you can get a real feel for what the end product will look like, and sort of wrap your head around the concept. These drawings being 3D, it is then a literal wrap around.

To order something like the benches above, or to propose your own bench, send email to craigwoodworks (at) gmail (dot) com

I Like Wood (a haiku)

2009-03-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

i like to build things
furniture with wood is good
power tools are loud

About Me

2009-03-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

I've been woodworking since 1999 and have been producing a variety of furniture pieces off and on since then. After a rather extended recent wood hiatus and relocation to a new house, I've created a new and improved shop space inside our two-car garage and have embarked on a furniture odyssey with a different twist.

This twist will center around producing pieces that have a distinctly Mid-Century Modern feel. Blame my wife for this twist since she's the one who has had an infatuation with Mid-Century modernist styles, including furniture, decor and the upcoming total redesign of our house. A few of her favorite words she likes to throw around that have also struck a chord with me: Eichler, Eames, Saarinen and Wikkelso.

Some of my pieces will be as close to reproductions as I can muster, given just a photo. Others of my pieces will be inspired by original designs. And still others will be complete originals that in my eye will have some hint of the 40's/50's/60's vibe.

I do not work from plans. I draw up everything on paper or work up everything using Google SketchUp.

Everything I make will be made for sale. This might cause some friction in the household because some pieces will be created with a specific purpose and for a specific place in our house. But I think I'll list everything anyway, 'cause I can always make another one if need be.

While my current listings are the ones that are physically available and for purchase immediately, anything you desire can be created. Scratch that. Anything you desire can be created, so long as it fits within the design feel of mid-century modern.

Drop me an email if you have questions or would like to discuss the creation of a piece. All proposals, estimates and preliminary drawings are available free of charge.

Current items for sale can be found here. Email to craigwoodworks@gmail.com for purchase information. Delivery available to anywhere in the US. Or free delivery if you live in Southern California.

Contact

2009-03-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

If you have questions, comments or concerns, or would like to place an order, please do not hesitate to email.

Proposals, estimates and preliminary drawings for any custom piece are available free of charge. Send an email with your ideas and we'll discuss the creation of the mid-century modern furniture item (or other wooden item) of your dreams.

Email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

What's Available for Purchase?

2009-03-01T11:13:00.000-08:00

What's available for purchase, you ask?

Everything's available for purchase, I answer!

All pieces are custom made to your specifications. All pieces are drawn up in SketchUp for you to get a 3D idea of what the thing will look like when it's done.

Of course, custom can also mean that you want it exactly like an existing piece. Take for instance one my of recent customers who wanted an exact duplication of a George Nelson six foot slat bench: http://craigwoodworks.blogspot.com/2010/07/george-nelson-bench-6-footer.html. For info on pieces in my George Nelson bench series, check this out.

Please contact me with your furniture or wooden object needs and I'll get back to you right quick:

craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

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2002-09-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

If you have any questions or concerns about anything on this site, please do not hesitate to contact me at craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

Thank you for your order!

2002-09-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

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2002-09-28T03:16:00.000-07:00

4 inch Scrabble Tile

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2002-09-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

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2002-09-28T02:51:00.000-07:00