Steampunk Mobile Phone

I always like to take myself a bit out of my comfort zone when trying to expand some of my design ideas and concepts.  A friend of mine mentioned he will be attending the Craft Boston show this weekend so I figured that might be a great opportunity to see some really new and different designs.

This year’s theme is steampunk, which is a style that most woodworkers aren’t familiar with.  Steampunk as a genre has been around for decades but has really increased in popularity in the past few years.  Because of the kind of machine works theme to much of the work, you’re far more likely to see heavy use of brass than wood.  However, I think that even if I don’t start producing wood-based steampunk pieces any time soon, I can still get inspiration from the designers and makers at the show.

I’ll plan to take some good notes and maybe even some photos (if I’m allowed) and I’ll write a follow-up post on what I thought of the show.  The variety of artisans showing is extremely varied, from baskets to jewelry, clothing, and of course wooden pieces and  furniture.   And who knows, maybe I’ll even come home with a steampunk mobile phone!

The weather was so nice yesterday, I decided to fire up my charcoal grill for the first time this season.  As I was relaxing out on the patio, I noticed a few twitter mentions come across my smart phone.  My friend and fellow woodworker M. Scott Morton attended the opening day reception for the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society woodworkers show, and informed me that my walnut writing desk placed second for best in show in the furniture category.  An email from Tim at LACS followed this morning confirming the news.  I couldn’t be happier.

I know you might ask why I would be so happy about placing second.  Well, from dropping off my pieces last week, I know the quality of work on display at this show.  In fact, I placed ahead of some fine craftsman that I’ve always viewed more as role models than peers.  So in some ways, I’m actually quite humbled by the experience.  I don’t think that my piece demonstrates the best craftsmanship, the best design, or the best materials and finish in the show.  But I do think my choices across all those aspects are what makes the piece stand out.

In case you’re wondering, the piece is still for sale.  It’s listed exclusively at the NACS gallery in Lexington, MA for the next two weeks.  So if you’re local to the Boston area, I encourage you to stop by the showroom.

Lexington Arts and Crafts Society

I’m very happy to announce that I have been accepted by jury to show at the annual Lexington Arts and Crafts Society furniture show.  This year, the furniture guild opened the show to additional craftsman, and I was lucky enough to be selected to show two pieces.  I will be exhibiting both my walnut writing desk as well as the stepped-front chest of drawers. The show is being held at 130 Waltham St. in Lexington, MA and show dates are as follows:

Show reception: March 11th 3PM – 5PM
Show Dates: March 13th-25th
Show Hours: Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sun 12PM – 4PM
Saturday 10AM – 4PM
Closed Mondays

When I dropped off my two pieces a good number of the other works had already been delivered, and I can attest that there was some very high-quality furniture represented.   I expect it to be a quality event whit some good diversity of styles and types of pieces.  If you’re local to the area, I highly encourage you to stop by and see the show.

I’m fresh off four days of at the 2012 Boston Wood Expo at the New England Home Show, which took place last week at Boston’s World Trade Center.  OK, maybe I’m not so fresh.  In fact, it took so much out of me that it’s taken me three days to actually write up a blog post.  After four days of prowling the show floor in the Expo I was absolutely exhausted, but it was that “good” kind of exhausted.

You see, the process of designing and building furniture in many ways can be a solitary process.  Much of that time is spent doing some pretty cerebral work without coming up for air.  The real downside to that aspect of the craft is that it can be far too easy to get disconnected from the consumers and their tastes and attitudes.

One of the things I noticed about the show is that people were absolutely amazed at the pieces on display.  But many of them viewed these pieces like they would in a museum – fun to look at, but out of their league.  In fact, I think some makers were actually a bit put-off by this attitude.  We tend to build extremely high quality pieces and often can’t understand why people won’t shell out a few mortgage payments for a chest of drawers.

But I really took the opportunity to talk to attendees and listen to what they were looking for.  Not surprisingly, dark woods and finishes are still in demand.  And tastes in terms of style seem to be a range or blend between traditional and more modern.  But what really got my attention is that we totally missed the boat in terms of the types of furniture people were interested in, and could easily envision in their home.

This would include items like book cases, end tables, coffee tables, and jewelry boxes or chests.  I saw signs of continued interest in lighting solutions, although that’s not really part of my bailiwick.  I’m not planning on compromising on my quality of construction, but I think at next year’s show I’m much more likely to bring some smaller, approachable pieces and maybe just bring one of two show-pieces to frame out my portfolio.

After all, connecting the buyer and the maker is a two-way street.

Additional coverage of the event:

Woodcraft Blog

Mansfield Fine Furniture Blog

Close Grain Blog

M. Scott Morton’s Blog

Modern Woodworker’s Association

For the last four years running, the New England Home Show at the Boston World Trade Center has featured some of the finest hand-crafted furniture from the region.  Dubbed the Wood Expo, the show features works from both local craftsman as well as students of the local North Bennett Street School (one of the finest trade schools in the nation for furniture construction).

Once again, I am privileged enough to be invited to exhibit at the show.  This year I will be showing two pieces, my Seussian step stool and step-front chest of drawers.  The show will indeed award best in show awards in addition to several category winners, so I encourage you to come by and vote for your favorite piece of work whether from me or one of the other great craftsman at the show.

To offer you a flavor for what to expect, here is some video footage I took of last year’s event.  Take a look, and you’ll quickly get an appreciation for the quality of the workmanship you can expect to see.  I hope to see you there!

Sorry for the delay between posts, but I was away on vacation all last week and I’m just now getting caught up.  My wife and I took a trip down to the St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and although I did spend most of my time hanging out on the beach among palm trees, I did manage to discover a giant mahogany tree on an overnight we did to St. Croix.  I was told this tree has a great underground water source so it has flourished over the years.  I’ve made plenty of furniture out of mahogany in the past, so I thought it only fitting that I gave this tree trunk a big hug in thanks.  OK, actually I was just trying to show how big the trunk was, but it still makes for a pretty good story.

In any case, these trees are highly protected now and it is illegal to cut them down anywhere on the islands.  So this tree is safe in its natural habitat, and may grow for a hundred more years.  The tree was actually so big I couldn’t get  it all in one single shot, but I did capture a good part of the base of the tree, which hopefully gives you a decent sense for the enormity of this tree.  Maybe I’ll put this photo down in my shop so the next time I’m cutting into a nice piece of mahogany, I’ll have an added sense of appreciation for these fantastic wonders of nature.

18th Century Dovetails

I joined Boston’s Museum of Fine Art this past weekend, particularly because they have an entire Arts of the Americas wing that features some of the finest examples of American furniture through history. I don’t typically build period reproductions, but I still feel there is a lot that can be learned from the past so I decided to go check it out.

Within the exhibit, one entire room is dedicated to documenting actual furniture construction techniques by showing the insides of cases and explaining some of the early techniques.  In one corner, there is a artfully crafted Queen Anne high chest of drawers, where the museum has pulled several drawers out to showcase the joinery.  After all, hand-cut dovetails (or so I thought) are the pinnacle of fine craftsmanship in furniture so I drew in closer.

But as I did, I was completely shocked by what I saw.   First, let me explain that in my work, I painstakingly lay out my tails, cut them with a hand saw, and then trim them with a chisel before laying out the tails trying to get the tightest joint possible. But in this fine antique specimen, the tails are clearly not laid out at all, as all the angles of each tail are almost random. Nor are they cleaned up after the saw as evidenced by rough, jagged lines.  And there are fairly noticeable gaps between the pins and tails that I would find completely unacceptable in my own work.

Yet this was one of the finest specimens of work to come out of Boston in the 18th century (now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars).  So why the paradox?  Those joiners of yore viewed the drawer joinery as purely utilitarian and largely unseen, and thus they just didn’t focus their attention there.  They focused their efforts on what really mattered – the “show” side of the piece.  So maybe next time I do my dovetails, I’ll think a bit more about how our ancestors did the job.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to start producing drawer joinery that wouldn’t pass muster with a middle-school shop class.  But maybe I won’t worry so much about making sure each angle is exactly the same as the last or that the spacing between tails is equal to the hundredth of an inch.  Because our ancestors were a practical lot,  they managed to produce some truly amazing work by focusing their energy where it mattered, and didn’t sweat the small stuff.

Most of the furniture pieces I build are constructed of domestic hardwoods like walnut, cherry, and maple.  However, I occasionally use mahogany because its color, grain patterns, strength, and stability.  The problem I have always had with mahogany is that in the wild, it is a protected species.  Most of the mahogany sold in the U.S. today is either “African mahogany” (which isn’t actually mahogany at all) or plantation-grown mahogany.  Neither of these are anywhere near the quality and beauty of the first-growth lumber used hundreds of years ago.

More recently, a few operations have started up in South America (the home of true mahogany) to actually make some of that great first-growth stuff available on the market.  You see back in the 1800’s, British-occupied Belize became a heavy mahogany logging area.  Most logs in these early operations were floated down rivers to the sea where they could eventually be loaded onto ships for transport to America and Europe.

However, the variations in river levels from year to year meant that logs were either scattered onto the shore lines in flood years, or stuck on the river bottoms in drought years.  As a result, experts estimate that only about half of the harvested mahogany logs ever made it to the waiting ships.  The rest is still there on the bottom of the river.  Because mahogany is naturally rot resistant, and the river mud acts as a preservative, logs hundreds of years old can still be brought up in near pristine condition.

So why is this important?  For starters, old-growth mahogany grew undisturbed in a natural environment, so growth rings were very tight.  That means the wood is dense, strong, and frankly –beautiful.  Secondly, these old-growth logs were massive meaning they can produce single slabs or boards several feet wide.  Wider boards are great for table tops because they can be built out of a single piece of wood, rather than gluing many narrower pieces together.

River-salvaged mahogany is by no means cheap.  In fact, it averages around $25/board foot (and more for highly figured boards).  Put in perspective, a single board 8 feet long, one foot wide, and one inch thick would cost $200.  To contrast that, a piece of African or plantation-grown mahogany would typically cost about a third as much.  But the trade-off for me is twofold.  For one, I can source lumber without harming single live tree, and I can also use some of the most beautiful wood in the world in my furniture.

I currently have three good sized sticks of sinker mahogany in my lumber rack just waiting for the perfect project.  I’m imagining they will become table tops of some kind, but I haven’t decided on an actual design yet.  I may even leave a “live” edge, so you can see the outside that was exposed to the river mud.  I can’t tell you what it will be yet, but I can assure you it will look fantastic!