Chairapalooza: 2015

Over Memorial Day Weekend, my brother, brother-in-law, dad, and I built eight Adirondack chairs. I've got a more detailed post about the chairs in the works, but in the meantime here are a bunch of pictures from Chairapalooza: 2015.

Ghost Maple Side Table

For Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law gave me an eight foot long, 11" wide, 6/4 thick piece of highly figured ghost maple (exciting, I know). I struggled for a while on what to do with it, and ultimately I opted for simplicity and mixing media in a way I hadn't before.

Java Gel Stain

It's a can of stain!

General Finishes Java Gel Stain has gotten a pretty hard push on social media lately (Seriously). I was making a frame for someone's college diploma recently, and she wanted dark wood but did not seem too thrilled with walnut. To achieve the desired aesthetic I could have held true to my tendency not to use stain and built the frame out of something like ebony, but that would have been ridiculously expensive (and really, kind of wasteful; that's not what ebony should be used for). This scenario is ideal for using a stain to darken a cheaper, lighter-colored, wood.

Bloodwood Nickel Pen

I've been turning a few pens recently. I'm doing it in no small part because it helps keep some rudimentary lathe skills sharp and also because unlike building complex furniture that takes days of labor, I can finish a pen in one work session. I had a small quantity of bloodwood leftover from my bed side stand, it's my all-time favorite wood to cut, and I thought, why not turn it into a pen. This is what I ended up with. More pictures after the jump.

Danggai Pen

We went to Arizona recently, and a friend of ours was kind enough to not only let us crash in his place in Phoenix, but also to borrow his car (on which we put a few miles; thanks again Brian!). Anyway, one of the ways we thanked him was by giving him this:

Bubinga Pen

We recently got a lathe, which is the tool used to turn spindles, bowls, or, in this case, pens. Basically, you put a square block of wood on the lathe, spin it on its long axis rapidly, and poke at it with a chisel until it becomes round. This pen is made out of an exotic hardwood called bubinga. More after the jump...

Stain Match 1.0

Okay. This is going to be tough. It's also a post that is going up mid-construction. Here's the deal: A commission requires me to make new furniture match this color...

Here's the problem. I don't have either any more of that stain or any ability to add 25ish years of UV exposure and general aging that I can just whip up. That means we've gotta just, ya know, wing it.