Coffee Table Type 1

I am designing a coffee table to be sold at a local furniture chain. The coffee table will be a production piece, so I decided to go through a series of prototypes before settling on a final design. The piece in these pictures is the first of these prototypes.

Prototyping is an important part of design, and woodworkers use many kinds of prototypes, often made of cardboard or plywood. I tend to work from either full-scale drawings or models made in Google's Sketchup software, taking the view that all one-off custom furniture is a prototype. 

In this case my prototypes are made from extra material I have lying around the shop, and the joinery, while "heirloom grade", is chosen for speed. The result is a "prototype" that's a one of a kind hand-made heirloom, something desirable to own, but priced within reach, less than $1,000.

This coffee table prototype is made from red oak and maple cutoffs. At first, I planned to stain the top. But the Red Oak scrap just looked too good. While the final piece will have mortise and tenon and lap joints, this prototype was built with laps and dowels. It is finished in my special mix of tung oil, urethane, and mineral spirits.

the design for this coffee table is obviously an interpretation of the modern furniture of the 1940s and 1950s.  It is a trestle design, though with the stretchers way up above the legs. The angled ends of the stretchers and table rails seemed an obvious design choice, and this gave the table an Asian feel. For that reason, I decided to give the top a long chamfer at either end. The chamfer gives this low table quite a bit of lightness and lift.

Download the Iturra Design 2010 Catalog PDF Here

 The Iturra Designs catalog is considered by many woodworkers to be the Bible of Bandsaws. The reason is that owner Louis A. Iturra loves to talk about band saws, and has packed a TON of information about real band saws into his catalog. Not just product info, but info about WHY products are the way they are, and tons of history of different band saw models. This guy has done a lot of sawing. This is perhaps the BEST

Max the Whale a big hit at Sault New England

Max the Whale has made a big splash in the South End, Boston! After originally showing up in the seasonally warming waters of Sault New England, thanks to Philip, Sault's proprietor, Max has been fished to near-extinction.

Thankfully, Boulter Plywood in Somerville has a ready supply of Max's lifeblood: 5/8" 100% mahogany marine plywood. This Sunday, I'll be working as fast as I can to make more Maxes. Philip has doubled the size of his next order, anticipating even greater demand for Max's debonair style and sink-proof cork feet.

Experts predict extreme

Maggi Steff 2048 Power Feed

I recently purchased a power feed for my shop, for hands-free cutting on the 5hp table saw, and hands-free, smooth cutting on my 3hp shaper. I was lucky to find a Maggi Steff 2048 4-wheel, 1hp feeder on eBay for a mere

AirCab at the Door Store

I am happy to announce that my AirCab wall-mounted cabinets are now available at the Door Store in Cambridge. The Door Store specializes in custom furniture. When you buy an AirCab through the Door Store, don't forget to ask about custom sizes. Their staff will help you decide on the right dimensions for your application, then send the info along to me. Your custom-size AirCab will be included in the next run of cabinets, made by me in my Allston studio.

And when you visit the Door Store, don't forget to tell them you heard about them on Isaac's blog!

the Door Store is located 940 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, MA.

power feeder and table saw: how to

since I recently ordered a Maggi Steff 2048 power feeder from eBay, I'm getting serious about figuring out how to use it best on my 12", 5hp table saw. Power feeders are typically used on shapers, and I've found lots of information on shapers and feeders. But info on using a feeder with a table saw has been harder to find. After some digging, I came up with this thread on Woodweb. Very useful tips for table saws and power feeders.

Table Saw Safety: Is it Time to Act?

For woodworkers, the issue of table saw safety is ever-present. And now the issue has grown big enough to be covered the news outlets like USA Today. The big news is a proposed federal

AirCab: The style and price of Ikea... with heirloom quality

I am always trying to come up with production piece ideas, while learning more about the craft and doing custom work. Production pieces present unique challenges: whereas with one-off furniture the goal is to

A Modernist entertainment center

Here is a picture of a recent commission - a small entertainment center to hold a flat screen TV, a cable box, and a couple of stereo components. I had a little fun turning one of the photos black & white, making it look a lot like one of those modernist catalog photos from the 1950's. Originally, my clients and I had decided to bevel the top all the way around. But when it came time to make the final cuts to the slab, the natural edge was so close to the bevel we had planned, we decided we couldn't cut it off.

The bump on the top is a large, felt-bottomed "coaster" I made for the 42" TV that will go on top of the table. The owners were looking for something they could use as an entertainment center in their small condo, then re-purpose once they move into a larger home. The coaster will protect the top so there's no damage from the TV's plastic stand.

This piece took two months to make.  It features several "firsts" for me: my first shop-made pivot hinges, first hand-planed (rather than sanded) surfaces, first invisible magnetic doors, first book-matched doors, first blind dowel & lap joined case, first carved handles, and first 100% solid wood black walnut construction, from a naturally-felled old-growth black walnut.

This was my first "fine furniture" commission, and I look forward to the chance to design & build similar pieces in the future.

 

The legs get wider at their bases, while the bevel on the top and the doors lend an upward-sweeping shape

the doors move on invisible brass pivot hinges I made myself

book-matching can lead to some amazing figure in wood. I retro-fit a 3hp motor to my band saw before sawing these panels

New Pedestal Stand for the Sera 15 gallon Biotope

my pedestal: 36" tall

front view

The Sera Biotope 60 is a 15 gallon "micro" aquarium-in-a-box, perfect for people needing just a little bit of fish tank in their lives. With its sleek shape and dark gray molded, vented canopy, the Biotope cuts a handsome figure. But the pedestal usually sold alongside the Biotope 60 doesn't live up to the job.  Short and squat, with not a lot of storage space, it could look, and serve the needs of cramped apartment dwellers, a little better.

This project represents my ongoing development in re-thinking common furniture challenges to create a new, more economical designs, while improving on quality and style at the same time. In this case, I achieved the same wholesale price point as the factory stand, but improved on it in many ways:

Ultra-accurate table saw tune-up tip

here is the straightedge lined up on the blade

Table saw tune ups are necessary and annoying.  And for me, I've never really gotten my table saw "perfectly" tuned.  I've always had the nagging suspicion that using the blade as a reference was insufficient: with a 10" table saw blade, the distance between the reference teeth is a mere 5" or so.  That's not a lot of distance to magnify any deviation from square. 

But  this week I had a bright idea: I used my machinist's straightedge to lengthen the reference surface to a whopping 24".  By laying the bar flat on the table and resting one edge against two opposing teeth on the blade, I essentially increased my precision roughly 5-fold.

Check out these pics:

My first dovetail

The dovetail: a classic corner joint, superior to almost all others for joining two boards at a square corner.  It's one of most recognizable signs of craftsmanship (especially for laypeople), one of the first things taught at most furniture schools, and the joint that spawned a million-dollar industry of products designed to avoid hand-cutting it, or avoid using it altogether. 

After nearly two years of teaching myself woodworking, I have read a great deal about dovetails.  So today, in the midst of what I think of as my first "fine furniture" commission, I decided to see if all my reading could help me make a decent dovetail. 

I decided to make a

180 Gallon Cabinet

Here are some pics (and a YouTube video) of one of my 180 gallon cabinets, now on display at Skipton Unique Aquaria in Boston.

Here is the video (below).  To see the pictures click "Read More" at the end of the post.

Best hand-plane results from sharp & square blades

Most people with a tool box own a plane and a chisel.  And yet of all the tools in those toolboxes, the plane and chisel probably get the least amount of use.  If this state of affairs sounds familiar, then read on!

When I fist started woodworking, I was, like many, the proud owner of an unused plane and an unused set of chisels.  I figured I was one of a "new breed" of woodworkers who simply relied on today's power tools to make furniture.

Such are the crazy things one can come up with when one is self-taught!

Now that I have a couple of years under my belt, and I've finally started making fine furniture,

My favorite books about hand planes

I have learned about almost everything I do from a book, followed by repeated practice.  Here are the books from which I learned about hand planes:

1. Understanding Wood, by R. Bruce Hoadley. This is the first book I ever read about woodworking.  It is so clearly the best book for beginners to read, I can't recommend it enough.  It's also a must-read for experienced woodworkers who haven't yet opened the book.  I have seen and heard enough examples of master furniture makers experiencing "mysteriously" poor results, because of something they didn't find out about in Understanding Wood.  This book takes a narrative, scientific approach to the fundamentals of wood, from physiology to wood movement, to cutting wood, blade angles, stress and shaping, and so much more.  If you make furniture and you haven't read this book, then you don't know wood.  The sections on blades, chip formation, and cutting are fundamental to my work with planes.
2. Sharpening, by Lie Nielsen.  It's a good over-all reference by a renowned metal plane maker.  It covers the sharpening of a wide range of tools.  It's organized like an encyclopaedia, which can be nice as a reference.  But I don't like this style if I'm learning about something for the first time, because it's hard to tell if you're getting the whole picture on a given topic.  For example, If you're trying to successfully use a hand plane, Sharpening will not get you there. 
3. Making and Mastering Wooden Planes, by David Finck.  A great primer on sharpening, setting, and using planes.  It's also a decent guide to making wooden hand planes.  This book is organized in a narrative way, and is best read start-to-finish.  I use it as a reference as well.  Finck teaches his methods, rather than try and cover the gamut.  For example, a novice wouldn't know from Finck's book that different planing tasks and wood grains might be best suited to different blade cutting angles and wedge angles.  However, this was the most recent book I've read on the topic, and it's the book that finally got me going with hand planes.  

These three books show the why and how of sharpening and using hand planes.  Read them and practice what they tell you, and soon your plane will be2 singing away!

120 Cabinet stand and canopy

I recently got a chance to take photos of one of my recent aquarium cabinet and canopy builds.  I also 

took photos of every stage of the build.

 

How to bend wood - vacuum methods

While researching bending methods for a counter-top wine rack I am designing, I came across this excellent post on JoeWoodworker.com.  I found the author's real-world expertise informative, as he describes a few tricks of the trade I haven't seen elsewhere.  If you want to bend wood with a vacuum bag, check this site. 

The site also offers plans and materials for building your own vacuum press.  These are relatively sophisticated systems and there are many options and parameters to consider.  Take a deep dive into vacuum press FAQs here. 

...And stay tuned for pics of my new "Wine Wave" counter-top wine rack!

CS Machinery: A source for pattern-maker's and Tucker vises

While looking for a power stock feeder on eBay, I came across a great source for the highly sought-after (and out of production) Emmert Vise.  CS Machinery is run by Bill Kerfoot, and is located in Oxford, PA, not far from Philly, NYC, and Charm City.  They have an incredible number of antique vises and vise parts, especially Tucker vises and pattern-maker's vises.  I wrote Bill an email with a question about how to use a stock feeder on a table saw.  He was very helpful and knowledgeable, which is not always the case with owners of machinery stores.  I imagine Bill knows quite a bit about vises of all types, so if you're looking for a vise, why not give CS Machinery a try?

210 Lower Hopewell Rd
Oxford, PA 19363
Phone: (610) 998-0544
Email: csmachinery@zoominternet.net

Russ Fairfield's Woodturner's Blog

While looking for information on turning (in preparation for using my new Lathe), I came across this excellent resource

QR Code for business cards?

A business development consultant advised me to add a QR code to my new business card, so that people could quickly navigate to my blog or website through their camera phone. It's an interesting idea, though I wonder