Latest Shop Work -- Remember Whistler's Mother?

I had a project on the back burner, one I've been experimenting with for quite a while.  You probably recall the painting by James Whistler of his mother.  He also made many of his own frames and an article in a picture framing magazine I subscribe did a story about them.  It inspired me to attempt to replicate that style of frame.  Whistler broke the rules of gilding in that he gilded directly onto the wood. Traditionally, gilding is done by applying multiple coats of gesso followed by multiple coats of bole (clay).  The wood he used was Oak because of it's porous nature.  Well, I followed suit and here's the result:

Square Foot of Art:  Diane Eugster

I won't go into the steps needed to achieve this but basically the first process was to spray umber tinted shellac onto the wood to compliment the color palette of this series.  It was then gilded with Dutch gold and rubbed back through a series of steps to achieve and almost iridescent quality.  If you remember the shark skin suits of the 60's you'll have an idea of how the gold appears and disappears depending on where you're viewing the frames.
Next project coming up is another frame but this one is for an heirloom piece of stained glass.  It'll be done in the Craftsman style, the client wants to hang it in a window.  I plan to use quarter sawn White Oak with ebony pegged joinery.

Greene & Greene Inspired Stool

Here it is, completely woven seat and the Honduras Mahogany oiled and finished.  The inspiration I took from Greene and Greene includes the detail on the lower legs, the cloud lift profile of the stretcher, and of course the ebony pegs through the mortise and tenon joinery.  I really like how that leg detail adds a subtle shadow line where the leg meets the floor.  By tapering the insides of the legs my feeling is that it's lighter over-all than typical Craftsman furniture while the cloud lift gives a hint of  Asian influence.  We had a get together last night for my daughter and grandson so it was tested and approved by the neighbors!

First Look

First Look

Here it is, the first look of the stool with a completely woven seat.  You can see that there are quite a few "whiskers" that will need to be clipped off with fingernail clippers.  That will be tomorrows first task.  That will be followed by coating all of the seagrass with a very thinned down application of varathane.  Once that's dry there'll be a second clipping of whiskers followed by a second coat to seal the grass.  How hard was this? Well, it was not without its challenges and looking at it I can find some flaws but that's only because I'm the one that spent hours doing the weaving.  Using seagrass was good and I enjoyed the process.
 My first go around was to use a #7 size seagrass which looks like this:

# 7 Seagrass

This is actually one roll of it but as I wove it, the more I did the less I liked it.  To my eye it's just too big for the rest of the stool.  Doing the recommended process I left it on, critically looked at it several times, slept on it, and then cut it off the next day and ordered the #4 seagrass instead. Design wise, I think the first look picture is much better.
One of the challenges to weaving a seat is keeping the weave going correctly and believe me, it's very easy to run a course the wrong way or forget which rail you should be going to!

Tangled!

Another challenge that arrises is that because the seagrass is twisted into a single strand, as you weave under, over, around, and through you're constantly untwisting it which creates a jumble!  Then as you weave the center part you must pass the weave around first the back rail, then the front rail in a figure eight pattern.  The more you weave, the smaller the hole in the middle of the chair becomes.  What tends to happen then is that the seagrass catches on the sides of that hole and untwists itself.
Whew -- really not complaining, just sharing the trials and tribulations of weaving a seagrass seat.  All in all, I'm pretty pleased with this project and look forward to placing it where it belongs in the house.  What the heck, if I really want to I could cut it off and go again but doubt that will happen any time soon.

First Stool Post

Always a bit of excitement when you finally assemble whatever you're working on and begin the finish process.  Well, that was done today so thought I'd share a picture of it.  The wood is Honduran Mahogany except for the top stretchers which are Canarywood.  Looks odd but once I weave the rush seat they won't show -- just another way to use up leftover pieces of wood.  I'll use my standard finish of Watco and the 3 part top coat.  Next photo will be of the woven seat --- over, under, around, back, repeat, repeat, repeat, ..........etc. !!!

Poor Man's Dowel Plate -- No Go!

In one of my previous posts I showed my attempt at making my own dowel plate.  Sorry to say it wasn't successful.  The first Ebony peg was the correct size and worked fine going in to the Poplar sample joint.  Each peg after that got ever so slightly larger and rougher.  I was concerned that the force required to get the peg into the joint would split the stool.  As I broke for lunch and pondered what to do I checked my emails.  I had one from Vince saying that he got his dowel plate from Lie-Nielsen!  A phone call to make sure he was home and a quick ride over there had me coming back with his brand new dowel plate.  He was more than willing to let me borrow it but did mention that he wasn't sure how to secure the plate to make the dowels.  I told him I'd come up with something so here's what I came up with:

 Since his birthday is coming up I figured might as well make it a little special.  I used a couple of scrap pieces of Australian Lacewood and sandwiched two short pieces of Maple in the middle.  The plate is recessed and it is completely open at the bottom so the dowel can fall through.  The lacewood is about 3/4" thick, the Maple is about 1 1/4" so you can clamp the Maple section in your bench vise.  It takes a lot of pounding to get the dowel through the plate.  This way it is completely supported by the bench and secured in the vise.  I thought I'd show some of the pegs.  The Ebony is from some material that was supposed to be 1/4" square for another pegged project but is undersized.  That's what I was able to use.

Thanks Vince and Happy Birthday!!

My First Cloud Lift!

If you're familiar with Arts & Craft style, especially Greene & Greene's take on it you've no doubt heard of the "cloud lift" detail that was a common element of the style.  It adds a certain Asian influence to the piece.  For the rush seated bench I'm making I decided to incorporate it into the stretcher.  Here's my piece:

  I first made a template from 1/2" MDF.  I like using it because it's very easy to form with sandpaper or files yet hard enough to guide a template router bit.  I used a technique from a recent article that suggested using a pin nailer to temporarily hold the template to the piece.  At 23 gauge, the pin hole won't show and, as advertised, it's much more secure than double back tape.  My suggestion would be to use the shortest pin possible.  My shortest was one inch and it was difficult pulling it out of the Mahogany, surprising how well that little pin held!
As it is now this stretcher is way over size, the plan is to insert it into a through mortise on the leg stretchers.  It will be secured with one of the Ebony pegs I made earlier and a bit of glue.
As far as the rest of the project I've completed cutting all of the mortises on the legs and the tenons have been cut and sized.  Something that has been a real joy to use is the Lie-Nielsen rabbet block plane I recently bought. My way of making tenons is to use two blades from my dado set with a spacer in between so that the tenon can be cut in one pass.  I like to leave it just ever so slightly oversized so I can get the fit I want.  Trimming them down is what has been the challenge.  I've tried a good sharp chisel (okay), a Stanley #92, cutting it perfectly on the saw, but nothing has worked as well as the rabbet plane.  I got the optional nickers on it and it really does the job.  About half a dozen passes on each cheek and the fits just what I'm after.  Here's what she looks like:

As with all of Lie-Nielsen tools it's a thing of beauty and after honing the blade it takes a whisker off at a time.  Very easy matter to hold the piece in a bench hook and trim away.  That's one of the stretchers with the through mortise for the cloud lift detail.
The tenons for the upper seat stretchers need to be mitered since they meet inside the leg so once that's done the final smooth planing and chamfer details will be next before glue up.

Greene & Greene Leg Detail

Work is progressing on the bench for the entry way but I'm also doing a couple of other, small projects.  One of them is a pizza peel.  We got a pizza stone and it came with a metal peel to take the pizza off but we need a wooden one to slid it into the oven.  Di's planning a get together on Friday so this one has a deadline!  The other is a corner sample of a frame I'm scheming in my head for a series of Diane's Square Foot of Art.
The Greene & Greene detail, here it is:

 You can see how it'll create an interesting shadow line at the bottom of the legs.  I chose to put a very slight (3 degree) taper on the inside front and rear legs but left the sides un-tapered to give some weight to that view.  There is a book by Darrell Peart that shows how to make a jig to cut this detail.

Basically it's a sled of 1/2" MDF that has an opening for a router cutter with a top mounted bearing to guide the cut.  There is a piece of masonite (1/8") at the rear that raises that part and allows the router to cut this inclined ramp.  Three legs down, one to go.

The tapered jig was a little more complex because the front of the legs tapers the opposite way that the backs of the legs do.  What this called for was being able to put the fence on either side of the jig.  Once I routed one side, I unscrewed the fence and positioned it on the opposite side.

The critical dimension is how far the opening is from the fence which clamps against the straight side.  Little bit of math required here, the leg is 1 5/8" wide and the ramp detail is 1" wide.  This leaves 5/16" on either side of it so that's where the fence needs to be attached.  Believe me, if it's off even a sixteenth of an inch it's quite noticeable!


The Honduran Mahogany I'm using for this is a dream to plane.  After cutting the tapers on the inside of each leg I planed them smooth -- so nice!  Next up is the mortises for the stretchers and making a template for the cross brace.  The plan is to use the Arts & Craft cloud lift as an inspiration.