Tuesday, January 28, 2014
guest bedroom schematic r2
Sunday, January 12, 2014
shelving wood milling/lamination in progress
The shelf will reach from floor to ceiling, which is roughly 9'. I searched for the material and found some 18' lengths of shiplapped 6/4 fir that perhaps was used as truck bedding. They were mostly flat sawn, too. So i cut these boards in 2, and then surface planed them and ripped into 1" wide strips that were then ripped and glued up.
fair bit of glue and processing. why? well, it's VG fir on the cheap, that's why! I hope it to be a bit more stable, and easier to look at than trying to match a bunch of random flat sawn fir from the same source. it is a lot of trouble, but i hope it's worth while. so far, so good.
Friday, January 10, 2014
guest bedroom schematics in process
next big project is our guest room, where I want to install a wall sized bookshelf (12'x9'), a trundle/daybed and some desk workspace. Plan is to have it all made from reclaimed doug fir. I've got a few hundred bf of it in the and have been milling the shelf boxes right now.
sketchup model located here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Re44ubFkuMM1NoY0R0SDhIRmM/edit?usp=sharing
(i'm sure there's a lot of sketchup abuse going on here.)
some shots below, can't figure out how to toggle the floating annotations so the scene is a bit cluttered. shelving will have LED tape light aimed inward around the vertical supports. that's a built-in bench/trundle bed in the corner
Saturday, November 30, 2013
a commuting bicycle hanger in reclaimed redwood and doug fir
I wanted to experiment with new joinery technique so the shelving carcass involves dadoes with stub tenons on the lower tier, and a mitered half blind dovetail on the top. Since this piece is for our commuter bikes it has low pressure associated with the joinery and I felt like I could be a bit more loose with the saw. Redwood is nice and soft and i've been working with it a lot recently, but it's so fragile that i am looking forward to using stuff that is a bit more resilient.
project photos ensue. apologies for the photos, the shelf is intended to hold helmets for la Femme and myself. also maybe a few extra doo-dads that make bikes go. chain lube, spare mags, etc.
the hardware came from someone who has the audacity to call it "Leonardo" and while it is OK, I do not think the original dude would be happy with the crappy welds. port side has two 3/4" doug fir pegs for hanging coats and such. Might have some more aiming inboard.
First step was to try to optimize the arrangement of bikes. Horizontal space was premium in this application, so a staggered,overlapping formation was chosen and sorted out on my garage wall. Please remind me to never clutter this wall so that such experiments can continue.
I mocked up a support board as proof of concept and it felt "right". We have Lath and Plaster hell here, so no modern stud finder reliably divines the stud. I resorted to what my hero Nassim Nicholas Taleb would charitably regard as "stochastic tinkering" to drill tiny probing holes into the wall near the baseboard to verify stud location, and then run these findings up along the wall using blue tape.
Shelf unit is attached with two housed bridle joints. I had performed a lot of tinkering and verifying to get the placement right. The japanese square was an invaluable tool, even though the non empirical units on the reverse side drive me crazy.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
42 years in 6/4 doug fir

Friday, November 8, 2013
between projects, i tend to carve propellers
Saturday, July 6, 2013
bench and cabinet in reclaimed fir
Part of the remodel of our bungalow, a built in cabinet and bench system leading out onto the south facing side of the house via French doors. Details:
- 12'long, 36" high cabinet tops, 18" bench with angled back.
- Finish is Watco Danish Oil.
- Frame&Panel construction atop birch ply carcass.
- laminated quartersawn pieces for the cabinet tops using breadboard ends, 7/8" thick
- Seat back and sides milled from doug fir sent here from my dad up in the Seattle area. Tree came down in a bad wind storm some years ago and he had it milled on site. had a few nice planks for me to use.
- Rest of the wood came from reclaimed doug fir that I scrounged around for. Urban Ore and Earthsource Lumber
- I'd never done built in work so had no idea how much fun it was to match up the theoretical straight boards with the empirical geometry of a 1911 bungalow.
plywood substrate
Some drawer pull ideas I had. Ended up using the ones integrated into the drawer front
The blum hinges work really well. Thanks Tim for lending my your 35mm forstner bit :-)