And the Rains Came… finally!

This has been a very dry Winter for us around the Monterey Bay and most of California. It’s hard to complain about the sunny, warm weather we’ve had the last couple of months, but with only one small rain-fed reservoir supplying water to 80,000+ people, a couple of years of drought can put a crimp on water use. Thank goodness a week of very wet weather has started.

One thing about nice weather is I can do more work. Not only is my workshop/studio cozy, but any gluing, varnishing, or painting I do, dries quickly. Wet, cold weather slows down the process. (Also, I’m reluctant to head out to my studio when it’s pouring outside.)

So… I’ve been working a lot on my newest medieval furniture project, the Three-legged Chair. This is made from beautiful American sycamore that I got for free. There are over 20 turned pieces that make up this chair, and I completed half of them before I realized I didn’t have enough to finish it. I was able to laminate long narrow scraps to turn four of the smaller back turnings, but I needed larger full pieces for the four long pieces that make up the arm rests.

I looked all over to find 30” to 36” 2” x 2” pieces of American sycamore. I called local hardwood lumber yards. No one had any. (A couple of them didn’t even know what sycamore was!) I finally checked the San Francisco Bay Area, from San Jose up to San Francisco and Oakland. One lumber dealer said they had some, so I drove over to Santa Clara to pick it up. However, when I got there, all they had were planks of European sycamore, which is nothing like American. Wasted trip.

Next was to check the internet. Some dealers in the Midwest and East had smaller sycamore turning blocks for bowls and pens, but nothing big enough for me. Just by luck, the second time I “Googled” American Sycamore, a hardwood dealer with an online store showed up that listed just what I needed. A little pricey, but, hey… after getting all the rest for free, I’m still doing ok on costs.

A week after ordering it, it arrived. It’s a full 2” x 2” and 30” long. Three of the pieces are perfect. One has a little checking at one end, but that will be cut off anyway. One of the perfect pieces also has some very lovely spalting. This should look great after I turn it. I now have it prepped and ready to turn.

You might have noticed on the chair that the back pieces are pointing up at an angle. My calculations showed that where the back slats met the top cross member, the angle was around 55 degrees. I drilled the back post by hand, but to drill the cross member, which is much smaller in diameter, I created a padded and adjustable “saddle” jig that I could clamp to my drill press table. Once clamped, I can set the drill press table to the proper angle and drill the top piece at the places where the slats will fit in.

Now, that I drilled the holes, I tried to fit the six angled slats in place. Ugh! Too long. I needed to re-chuck the slats in the lathe and re-turn them 1/2” shorter on each end. Unfortunately, I had no way of chucking the narrow dowel-like ends of the slats. To my rescue came a new tool (for me), a dowel collet-chuck system. This allows you to turn items from 3/16” to 3/4” in diameter. This tool is used mostly by pen turners or for working on dowels. My slats fit right in and I was able to correct the lengths.

Contemporary Crafts Market

Once again, the Baulines Craft Guild, of which I’m a Master Member, had a chance to display our works at the Contemporary Crafts Market, at the Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason, San Francisco this last weekend. Our area at this show has been generously donated by the head of Contemporary Crafts Market, Roy Helms, for many years. (Thank you Roy!)

I exhibited three pieces this year: the Medieval-style Rush Seat Stool, the Dolgeville Autoharp Model 1, and my Medieval-character Chess Set. This photo shows one end of the Baulines exhibit.

The next photos, close-ups of my chess set at the Contemporary Crafts Market show, were taken by my old friend, Charlie, who’s an avid and excellent photographer. These photos really show the detail in my carvings.

 

Charlie and I have known each other since 1964. He was the first guy I met when I started junior college in Hollister, California, and we chummed around for the next 15 years or so. We recently reconnected after going our separate ways nearly 30 years ago, and it almost felt like old times again. This photo was taken by my wife (with his camera) in the parking lot at Fort Mason.

That’s it for this post. The wind is blowing, the rain is falling (finally), and I have the heater on in my studio. Time to make some more sawdust.

Onward through the fog!

“Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

Remember that song? It was written by Sandy Denny (Strawbs, Fairport Convention) and made popular by Judy Collins in 1968. Well, to answer that “timely” question, time is just zipping by. My last post was two months ago, and the previous one was two months before that. Seems like only yesterday.

One reason for the recent delay in blog updates is, of course, the Holidays. Friends visited during Thanksgiving week, and then my wife and I traveled to Phoenix for Christmas. We stayed at the magnificent Arizona Biltmore, built in the 1920s and designed by Albert Chase McArthur, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The hotel design was definitely influenced by Wright (whose winter home, Taliesin West, was not too far away). The weather was cool, but clear and pleasant.

I spent one day climbing Piestewa Peak (formerly Squaw Peak), and it was grueling. It took me several hours to reach the top, a 1200 foot climb on one of the roughest, rockiest trails I’ve ever been on. It was worth it. The view that day was spectacular! (See photo.) I also visited the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) again. Once more I spent nearly seven hours there studying the types and evolution of instruments from around the world. To me, it’s easily one of the best Museums around the country.

We also spent a great evening at the Desert Botanical Garden, which was having “Los Noches de Las Luminarias”, a beautiful Southwest-style Christmas season event. The entire facility and trails were lined with luminarias, which got prettier as the sun set. We walked the many trails, enjoying the desert environment, and had dinner in the events center.

New Work

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I was working hard in my studio to complete a couple more pieces before the end of the year. Also, I’m finishing up a presentation I’ll give to the Diablo Woodworkers January 11th.

As you’ve seen in previous blogs, I’m working more and more on medieval-style furnishings. My newest piece is another hand-turned, hand-carved, rush seat stool. On my first rush seat stool I used fiber rush, a paper product. On my newest, I used the real thing: natural cat tail rush. Like most of my medieval-style furniture, this is white oak.

Over the last two years, I’ve made several autoharps based on the 1885-1890 originals by the Zimmermann Company in Dolgeville, New York. Around the middle of 2011, I did some patent searches on the internet for zithers, stringed instruments, and autoharps. One patent I found from around 1928 was for an autoharp of a very different design, round and long, and for standing up to play using a strap, like a guitar strap. I was intrigued and decided to make it. Here' it is:

The patent was given to J. H. Large, and so far, only one has turned up, and it was probably a prototype. It seems to have never gone into production. Oscar Schmidt came out with a similar autoharp in the 1960s called the Guitaro. The made hundreds, some electrified, for only a few years, and they keep popping up on eBay at pretty high prices.

During the 1920s, ukuleles were very popular, and Koa was the wood of choice. I still had some Koa left over from our trip to the big island of Hawaii 17 or 18 years ago, and used it for this autoharp. The binding, bridges, and keys are maple. It has 20 strings, and an unusual set of 9 key bars set up with two major, two minor, and five major sevenths. It has a very nice, full, resonate tone.

That’s it for now. I’m still working on another harp, and finally started on a medieval three-legged chair that’s been in the planning stages for over a year.

Onward…