Futon Repair: It's easy to fix the most common futon failures

ten-foot clamps: critical for fixing futons

Have a broken futon frame?  In this post I'll show you what kinds of problems are fixable, and I'll give you a couple of ways to figure out if your futon frame is prone to break again.  CLICK "READ MORE" (BELOW) TO SEE THE FULL POST.

Futons: they're a cheap, efficient way to furnish a tiny living space, making them ubiquitous in the apartments of twenty-somethings.  By age thirty, most of us are looking forward to the day we can afford to finally jettison this vestige of a lager-soaked youth.  But in the midst of America's lost decade, the cost of purchasing a new couch or bed (or both!) might be prohibitive.  And so, alas, many young people are hanging onto their futons, pressing them into service as the one and only couch in their living room.

For these people, bringing the futon out of the bedroom and into "prime time" means sprucing it up a bit.  After a decade of hard use, most futon covers are irreparably stained, the pad itself is lumpy and hard, and the frame is loose, or - often - cracked.  In the past few months, I've helped a few friends rehabilitate their futon frames, thereby saving them hundreds of dollars for a new couch.

Five Horses Tavern in Davis Square: A place to see my work

I'm happy to announce that an example of my work is on display in a restaurant!  Not only that, but the place - Five Horses Tavern in Davis Square on the Cambridge/Somerville/Medford line - happens to be an awesome place.  Five Horses is, at heart, a beer bar.  They have fifteen feet of taps behind the bar, cases upon cases of cold bottles, as well as a rotating cast of rare specialties. 

But Five Horses also has a big selection of nice wines, as well as a drink menu that includes the industry's favorite beverages.  The bar has been busy ever since they opened at the beginning of the month. 

A lot of people are coming in for dinner, too.  I know that the management is putting a lot of work into the menu and the kitchen, so this must be paying off. 

Right now, I have a dining table in Five Horses (see pic).  And I'm about to start a second table, for the same dining room. 

Why not head over to 400 Highland Ave. and check it out?

How to sharpen chisels and planes with sand paper

As I get better at furniture making, I am beginning to use chisels and hand planes more often.  Why?  It's not only because I'm trying to learn expert techniques (like hand-chopping mortises or flattening a panel with hand planes).  I'm also reaching for these woodworking mainstays more often because they're sharp.

One thing I've noticed about chisels and planes: almost everybody has one (or more), but few people use them.  The reason is that, unlike many other tools, chisels and planes simply do not work if they're not sharp.  Take a new hand plane out of the box and try to take a shaving, and you'll likely end up frustrated, wondering what the damn things are good for, anyway.

But if your chisels and planes are sharp, they become go-to tools that get used nearly every day.  Sharp chisels and planes have taken my furniture to another level of quality, and fitting snug joints has become a lot easier.

could hollow wood tubes be a part of the next product from Wine on Deck?

One great thing about plywood and veneer is bendability.  Veneers are easy to bend, relative to steam bending solid wood, and the finished piece can be very strong.  Another great thing about plywood?  Manufacturers are beginning to make pre-fab shapes for builders, eliminating the bending step of a project altogether.  One such shape is the hollow wood tube.  Made en masse in a plywood factory, pre-fab wood tubes are perfectly round, have strong seams, and have clean veneered surfaces. 

Since I make wine racks, and I'm looking for a good design for a counter-top wine rack, I took a special interest when I became aware of the existence of wooden tubes. 

One maker is R.J. Woodworking.  Another is Lenderink.  Both suppliers make tubes from very narrow to very wide, so you can make anything from a soda straw to a Greek column. 

Obviously, working with veneered wooden tubes will present challenges.  One challenge in particular jumps out at me: drilling through a tube at an angle, or off-center.  Once my samples arrive, I will begin exploring milling techniques, and I will report my findings here on the blog. 

180 gallon peninsula stand at Skipton's Unique Aquaria

Last month we installed a new 180 gallon peninsula stand in the middle of the showroom floor at Skipton's Unique Aquaria and Reptiles in Boston, MA.  The stand will support a 180 gallon freshwater planted tank display, smack in the middle of the store. 

This stand was my first attempt at a rubbed polyurethane finish.  It also features a custom molding I created with a couple of router profiles I have in my shop.  I am happy with the finish, which is mostly blemish-free, and has a wonderful satin sheen.  Those who have been following this blog will know that with this stand, I have achieved something I've been pursuing for a while: a good, clean black finish.

I also like the doors, which are full inset doors on soft-close hinges.  The doors are frame-and-panel, with 1/2" plywood panels rabbetted on the back edge.  The doors are still 100% flat and straight, in spite of the high humidity in Skipton's.

The stand is six feet long, two feet deep, and over three feet tall!  As of this writing, the tank hasn't been installed on the stand yet, so I don't have any pics of the complete setup.  When I do, I'll be sure to post them.  Until then, here are a couple snapshots of the stand in Skipton's.

A child's bookshelf in cherry

Recently, a friend asked me to make a bookshelf for his daughter, who turned 3 a couple of weeks ago. It's the perfect height for a child, and has space for large picture books, as well as more grown-up chapter books. The design is one I like a lot, and I plan to refine it further in the future.

In fact, you may notice that the finished piece on the left is different from the raw piece on the right.  The one on the right didn't seem quite right, so I built a second piece (with better proportions), which was definitely a step in the right direction!

Festool Domino Joiner: Long-Term Performance Review

I have owned and used the Festool Domino "biscuit" joiner for about a year now.  I've used it in dozens of projects, employing nearly all of the Domino's features, fences, and tenon sizes.  Now, a year on, it's time for a review of the product that many regard as the best biscuit joiner in the business.  My overall verdict: the Domino is indeed an excellent tool for biscuit joinery, provided you know its shortcomings and foibles.  If you aren't familiar with the Domino's quirks, however, you could be setting yourself up for some expensive disappointments.

This review looks at the individual features of the Domino, one by one.  I think this is the easiest way to organize the review, and also makes it an easy reference while using your Domino. for each feature, I list the positives first, and the negatives second. 

Click "Read More" for the rest of this post...

Best depth stop collar: plastic or set-screw?

In furniture-making, drilling pilot holes to a certain depth is not uncommon.  For worry-free and accurate work, it's nice to have a depth stop collar: something to stop the drill once it reaches the desired depth in the workpiece. 

So the question is: are all depth stop collars the same, and, if not, which is the best? 

I am happy to report that the best functioning stop collar is also the least expensive.  It's the plastic design, shown in this picture.  You can get them at Woodcraft, Rockler, or Lee Valley, for about $6.

Now, when I was looking for a picture (and the name) of these handy devices, I came across a this entry on Toolmonger.com.  I can tell you right now: the comments on Toolmonger are very negative regarding these depth collars.  but I didn't find any of the negative comments to be true to my experience, and I have to wonder if many of the people who claimed to have used them really have, or whether they just bought them...and then traded "up" to metal collars assuming the bright red plastic ones are junk. 

The truth is, these plastic collars are better than metal collars in a couple of ways: First, they don't have set screws to mar the cutting edge on your drills.  Second, since they don't use set screws, you can set them anywhere on the drill and they won't slip.  Metal collars with set screws often have the problem of the set screw getting bumped off the drill and into a gullet, and loosening the collar in the process.

I have been merciless with these collars, whereas with the metal collars I proceed gingerly because I don't want to bump the collar and loose the stopping action right when I need it.  The plastic collars never move, no matter how hard you bash them against the work.  Between the large and small sizes that came in the package I bought, they fit nearly any drill, including Kreg Pocket Hole Drills and Miller Dowel Stepped Drills. 

My verdict: don't believe the hype, save your money (and your drill edges), and buy plastic.

The easy route to a mirror polish: where cars and credenzas meet

Putting a good-looking, long-lasting finish on your furniture project can be an afterthought.  Many of you probably wish you didn't have to think about finishing at all!  This final sequence of steps is not woodworking, it's chemistry, and an exercise in patience, diligence, and attention to detail. 

Most carpenters think of applying the last coat of finish as the last step in finishing.  But furniture makers know that the final coat of finish needs to be rubbed out before the finish is - er - finished. 

Rubbing out starts with fine sandpaper, and ends with polishing.  Over the years, polishing has evolved alongside the evolution of water-borne finishes and automotive clear coats.  New automotive finishes are meant to stay flexible, so they don't crack when plastic car parts bend.  That's led to a convergence in formulations for both wood and automotive finishes.  Things have gotten to the point that you can use automotive finishes on wood projects, and automotive polishing compounds work very well as rubbing compounds for most wood finishes, including water-borne, polyurethane, varnish, and lacquer. 

This table was rubbed out using 320 grit sand paper, then 400, 600, and 800, then rubbed with 0000 steel wool.  Finally, I rubbed it with 3M fine scratch remover car polish.  The result was a beautiful surface that took mere minutes to put on and wipe off. 

A good use for the 5mm Festool Domino cutter - expansion slots

The Festool Domino biscuit joiner has a rep as the best, most well thought-out biscuit joiner on the market.  It even uses its own proprietary "domino" tenons rather than traditional biscuits.  But the Domino isn't without its glitches.  To wit: the 5mm cutter cuts mortises that are often too small for the 5mm "dominoes".  In a year of using the Domino, and over the course of three packages of 5mm dominoes, I am still convinced that the 5mm tenon is the worst-fitting of all the sizes available, and also convinced that more than 30% of the 5mm dominoes in any given bag are too large for the mortise and have to be sanded back or baked in a microwave in order to fit. 

I have stopped trying to use the 5mm tenon in my projects.  But I have found a use for the 5mm cutter: making slots for mounting cabinet tops to their cases, and table tops to their aprons.  The slots are a great size for z-clips (see photo).

Oil-Based Beauty with General Water Borne Topcoats

This post shows how to bring out the deep figure in wood furniture using water-borne finishes, which are notorious for leaving wood dead and flat.  

Introduction:

Water borne topcoat finishes - like Minwax Polycrylic and General Finishes Enduro-Var and Pre-Cat Urethane - are very popular among carpenters.  There are many reasons to choose water-borne.  For one, water borne finishes dry in about an hour, as opposed to traditional organic finishes (polyurethane, tung oil), which require 24 hours to cure.  Water-borne finishes don't smell as bad as traditional finishes, the worst-smelling of which (lacquer) is very poisonous and explosive.  Water-bornes aren't flammable, and they clean up with water instead of noxious organic solvents.  Finally water-borne finishes have excellent resistance to heat, water, alcohol and other solvents, making them appropriate for high-wear applications. 

But water-borne finishes are much less popular with fine furniture makers, for the simple reason that they just don't look as good as their oil or lacquer counterparts.  Water-borne finishes don't bring out the depth and figure in wood at all: what you see before you lay down a water-borne is pretty much exactly what you'll see once the finish is dry (some brands have yellow dye to imitate the look of oil-based polyurethane, which changes the tint of finished wood).  This is very different from solvent-based finishes like polyurethane, shellac, oil, and lacquer, all of which make wood "pop" with chatoyance, and show off the holographic shimmer inherent in many wood species.

Less expensive water borne finishes have poor clarity.  When water-borne finishes first hit the market (before my time, in the 1980's), they all had a bluish cast to them...very unnatural!  Nowadays, cheaper brands (like Minwax Polycrylic) have a yellow dye to combat the blue, but the cloudy, plastic look remains.  More expensive (read: high-tech) new water-borne formulations are less cloudy.  But even the very best water-bornes look flat and dull compared to traditional topcoats.  

The best of both worlds:

But there is a way to get most of the benefits of traditional finishes, while avoiding the majority of the hassles of organic solvents.  This method is the only water-borne one I'll use on my projects, and I happen to be using this method right now, on a table commission for a new pub opening soon in Davis Square, Cambridge.  

The Steinway Project

the Steinway Square Grand

I am lucky to have recently been offered an antique Steinway Square Grand piano, to use as the basis for a one-off furniture collection.  I am now considering the options: the purpose of the collection, how to express the essence of the piano in furniture, and how to use substantially all of the piano in whatever I make.

The piano itself is unlikely to ever be playable again, since it has been sitting in a barn in New Hampshire for the past decade or so.  But otherwise it's in amazing condition.  It has all of its parts: the main case of solid mahogany, cast iron soundboard, all the keys (with ivory veneer and real ebony), a super-flat 3-piece solid mahogany top, four fat, carved mahogany legs, mahogany pedal board, and a mahogany sheet music stand - carved with Steinway's twin serpent logo.  All of the wood is in excellent shape, and so is the finish, including the Steinway decal over the keyboard. 


My initial thought as that this one piano is too big to be made into a single piece of furniture.  Also, whatever is made will be so big and bold that few private homes could accommodate it.  I wonder if this collection is destined for a bar, restaurant, or nightclub.  Using the gorgeous sound board is another challenge: should I take the easy route and put the sound board under a glass table top, or be more adventurous?  Perhaps the sound board could be made into a chandelier of some kind, to hang over a table made from the main body of the piano.  I am also thinking of making a tall, slender cabinet, and turning the keys into handles and hinges for the cabinet doors. 

Of course, the legs are an altogether different challenge.

Take a look at the pictures, and tell me what you think I should do! (click "read more" below to see the pics).

The Fluval Nano Stand arrives at Skipton Unique Aquaria

It was a sunny Saturday morning yesterday, when I carefully packed my just-finished "Nano" aquarium stand, in solid cherry and purple heart.  The stand is small, tall, and finished in tung oil.  The frame-and-panel case features solid wood panels I planed and raised myself, and adjustable shelves.  The Nano stand will take its place on display next to the checkout counter at Skipton's, which is located in Boston, Massachusetts.  Atop the stand will go a Fluval Nano aquarium, in which the staff at Skipton plan to rear exotic marine shrimp.

Here are pics of the stand inside Skipton, with an empty Nano aquarium on top:

Fluval Nano aquarium stand in cherry and purple heart

Recently, I got a commission from Skipton Unique Aquaria and Reptiles in Boston, MA, to build a nice stand for a Fluval Nano reef aquarium display next to the store's checkout counter.  I took some photos of the stand in my shop while I waited for the last coat of oil to dry.

The project began as a very basic frame and panel stand.  As I try to do at least one new thing with every project, this was the first time I used my router table to cut raised profiles on hardwood panels.  Previously, all my frame and panel cases used plywood panels. 

I wanted to give a subtle "lift" to the stand, and so I went with top and bottom horizontal panels with a sharp bevel running along their edges.

About halfway through the build, I started thinking I should push the envelope just a little bit.  And around that same time, I ran out of cherry lumber, with the adjustable shelves still left to make.  So I dug out a nice piece of purple heart, and cut the shelves from that - making a nice little surprise for anybody who opens the front door of the stand.  I wanted to give a hint of what was inside, so I hand-carved a door handle out of purple heart as well, and also added two vertical purple stripes to the back panel.

The handle was made by first cutting profiles on either side of a stick of purple heart with a 3/4" core box router bit.  Then, I cut the end profiles on the band saw.  After cleaning up the curves on my 6"x48" linishing sander,  I cut out the sides of the handle on the band saw, giving it an hourglass shape.  I finished it off with 220 grit sandpaper in the palm of my hand.  The result is cool and curved and smooth. 

The photos show the stand before rubbing out the oil finish, which will impart a smooth sheen.

CLICK "READ MORE" (in blue below) TO SEE THE PHOTOS

longer lasting sand paper & abrasive

my favorite power hand sander

Sanding is a big part of almost any furniture or home improvement project. In fact, it's one of the few steps everybody has to take, whether you're painting your bedroom, or crafting an 18th-century reproduction sideboard. If you're a weekend warrior doing your own home improvements, then you know how tedious and time consuming sanding can be, and how a new package of sand paper can disappear faster than you can say "my arm is cramping up." You've also probably noticed that in spite of all your work sanding, once the finish (or paint) dries, you can see dozens - or hundreds - of tiny scratches that were invisible before.

If all this sounds familiar, be sure to read this post before you sand again!

Wine Bar Video Tour, Take II

I posted an edited version of the Wine Bar Video Tour on YouTube. It's shorter and I little faster-paced. I welcome comments.

New Video: the Wine Bar Video Tour

I am so happy about my new Wine Bars, I want to tell the world!  But I'll settle for a YouTube video...

Here is my second YouTube video - the Wine Bar Video Tour.  It's another narrated slideshow, telling all about how I make Wine Bars, their design, and how they can be used to solve all sorts of wine-related challenges in your home or business. 

It's available on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/rN_Skx1jx3A

and also embedded in this post, here:

How to make sliding dovetails

Sliding dovetail joints are very useful in a number of furniture making applications.  They are sometimes used instead of dadoes to join shelves to cabinet panels, or to join cabinet panels to each other.  Sliding dovetails are also sometimes used as drawer slides - and are better than "square" slides because they don't allow the drawer to lift away from its travel path. 

I have been afraid of dovetails for a long time, mostly because of the apparent difficulty of getting a good snug fit.  But sliding dovetails offer up a chance to make a dovetail without worrying about making LOTS of dovetails, as you would with a dovetailed case edge.  Making long sliding dovetails isn't easy, but it's totally doable, with the right power tools.

The first step is to mill the two workpieces to be joined, flat and square.  Next, pick the location of the "female" side of the joint, and plow a centered dado along the path of the joint using a router and a straight bit.  Make sure the dado is wider than the bottom of the dovetail bit, but not so wide that the dovetail will leave too little stock.  Plow the dado s deep as you want the joint to be  - or just a hair shy of that depth.

Wine Bars: the New Product from Wine on Deck

Now available at www.wineondeck.com

I am pleased to announce the arrival of the Wine Bar, an innovative new product from Wine on Deck. Wine Bars come a year after the introduction of Wine Wings, Wine on Deck's first consumer product. With a similar design aesthetic to Wine Wings, Wine Bars are nevertheless incredibly useful and flexible wine storage racks, that can keep up to a case of wine "on display and out of the way".

Currently, I'm offering hand-made Wine Bars in 100% solid, local flamed cherry hardwood.   Soon, I'll have a few available in curly maple, and by late July 2011 I plan to have some Wine Bars done in the classic Wine Wing pattern (curly maple and purple heart).

Wine bars mount easily to a wall stud, into plaster & lathe, cabinet panels, and even concrete.  Just locate the position of the dovetail on the wall, drill three pilot holes, and fasten the dovetail.  Then, simply slide the Wine Bar over the dovetail, push in the two locking pins, and you're ready to load the Wine Bar with up to 12 bottles of wine from any region in the world.

My first YouTube Video: a slideshow of my furniture from the past year

Over the past year practicing woodworking, I have completed a few furniture pieces, and explored some of the basic techniques of the craft of furniture making.  Apart from making Wine Wings, I have built chests of drawers, tables, bookshelves, and, of course, aquarium stands.  Now I have made a video slide show out of the pics I've taken of these pieces.

I could have better pictures, for sure.  And I didn't include pictures of the bookshelves I made early on, which we use in our home.

But it's a nice slideshow anyway: