Just finished up another No. 517 Outdoor Side Table and took a photo. It’s overexposed (strong sunlight in 91° heat on the roof of the Mini), but I like the reflection in the glass. The piece itself is very solid.

Here’s another view from the other side of the car. The top is 5/8” thick, and I like the contrast between the narrow line of the top and the geometry of the rails and battens beneath it:

I’ve also modified the No. 124 split-rail side table and will build it in a second version which is 3” higher (3” longer legs) than the original version.

So it’s been a very busy Memorial Day week. Hope to spend some time this afternoon cleaning shop after getting the most recent order out the door. Need to do a little machinery maintenance and finish a few jigs. Unfortunately, I wasn’t anticipating highs in the 90s the last week in May. Sweltering used to be a summertime thing.

Which reminds me:

Whether you think global warming is a “natural” phenomenon or a man-made disaster, you should be alarmed that we have 390+ ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere when 350 is the upper limit of a range that keeps the planet in equilibrium. (Until the Industrial Revolution, when we began extracting and burning fossil fuel, that number was a steady 275 ppm for the preceding 10,000 years, give-or-take a few centuries.)

As CO2 concentrations continue to rise each year, the science says the earth will continue to warm and create uncontrollable feedback loops (e.g., accelerated arctic melting by loss of the reflective property of ice, replaced by dark blue sea water that absorbs heat and promotes more melting.)

At any rate, these abnormally hot days remind me of the recent flooding in Australia, drought out West, supertornadoes that decimated Tuscaloosa and Joplin, Missouri, and the current brush fires in Texas, etc.–all harbingers of an ominous change in climate.

A powerfully violent climate is a sobering reminder of the new reality we’re living in. So go to 350.org if you’re interested in figuring out how to live more responsibly in a much hotter world.

(I now yield the soapbox.) Happy Memorial Day weekend.

Wow! It’s been a while since the last post but we haven’t been slack. Enjoyed a string of mild days here in the shop and took advantage of the record warmth to finish a recent order for the No. 3 Pagoda Bonsai Plant Stand.  The plant stand sits on a table in the shop waiting for sanding.

Here’s the same stand outdoors:

I’m designing a larger version that will incorporate a split lower deck and maybe an extra deck on top.  Currently expect it to be about 4′ across the base and a little less than 3′ top to bottom.

I haven’t forgotten about the other designs like the new Adirondack Chair and the multilevel bonsai plant and garden stand I’ve been working on. I hope to have some new stuff built, photographed and posted soon.

Looking forward to a busy spring!

Here’s a view from the shop this afternoon. How delightful!

I’m going to take a break for a while and boil some water and have a nice cup of tea. Maybe read a little. Maybe get some cypress scraps in the house and build a little fire tonight.

Our little snow will be gone tomorrow but what a nice companion to have for today.

(BTW, still working on the new adirondack chair and making steady progress.)

November was a very busy month so work on a new Adirondack chair had to be set aside while orders got built and delivered. That made the few hours in the shop last Saturday to work on the templates for the new chair that much more enjoyable. A change of pace and a chance to relax a little.

So I printed out some patterns, taped them to whatever scraps of plywood or MDF I had laying around, then bandsawed out the rough shapes and finished up the edges on the bench with rasps and sandpaper. The pic above shows the current collection of templates for the new Adirondack chair and legrest. Just a few more templates to make and I’ll be able to get cracking on the prototypes.

It’s always nice to make a little progress. I’m hoping for a patch of calm water the next few days to get these puppies built, up on the website, and (maybe) out the door in the New Year.

You might notice that that there are some curves in the templates. Not a lot and not real pronounced. But they’re there. I’m hoping the new chair blends the straight line with the restrained curve in a pleasing way.

We’ll still be making the more complicated and curvaceous No. 124 Adirondack Chair. The new chair will be simpler to build but equally attractive; at least that’s the plan! We’ll see how it goes.

I took a moment to reflect this morning on how fun this year has been with this little business. I’ve had fun designing and building new adirondack chairs, tweaking old designs, figuring things out. It’s been our best year by far.

So thanks to all our customers who have found pleasure in our products and have taken the time to let us know you like what we’re doing. It means a lot.

There’s more stuff on the drawing board, more prototypes to build, good photos to take and post (*sigh*). We just need more time!

So thanks again. I was looking for the Rockwell Thanksgiving (the idyllic family around the table) and ran across this painting which captures the mood of the day. This guy’s thankful, and so are we.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Been a while since the last post, and lots to talk about but I’ll focus on the little 516 side table again.

I decided to do two versions, the 516 and the new No. 517. The No. 517 is the same design as the 516 but has a more “muscular” look about it: legs are a bit larger, the wheelbase a bit wider and the top a bit longer. (In all it’s about 2” longer and 1/2” wider.) I like both versions which is why they’re both being offered.

Unfortunately, my camera has an electronics issue and needs a chip replaced. So when that’s done, I’ll post some proper photos of all the pieces. For now, I’m limited to iPhone photography which tends to distort perspective at close range. But I think you get an idea about the differences between the two versions in these photos. The photo above on the right is the No. 516 (with the 517 in the background). The photo below is the 517.

Now that we’ve had a break in the recent storms in the Southeast (some very near misses with tornadoes and wind damage so only some water on the shop floor), the shop needs a fall cleaning.

And I’m just finishing some new designs for a new adirondack chair and footrest so that will be the subject of my next post.

Your Correspondent: Contemplating surprises.

Here’s a quick shot of the No. 516 side table after glue up but before sanding. (The quality of the photo is abysmal; I’m trying to get some time to do a proper job photographing our products.)

Despite the poor quality, I wanted you to see how the grain flows in the legs.

In a prior post, I talked about the problem I ran into when cutting the tapers on these legs. I came up with a solution that worked beautifully. You can see in this photo how both the front and rear faces of the legs have matching grain.

While I was at it, I also modified the rail to square off the ends and I cut a rabbet in the top of the legs so that the rail was positioned more towards the front face of the legs. Now everything is where I want it, and I’m happy with the piece.

Just an FYI: For some reason, the photo minimizes the taper of the legs. It’s actually tapered a little more top-to-bottom than the photo is letting on.

Your Correspondent: thinking that a photography backdrop with accessories would make a wonderful birthday present.

Asa Christiana, an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine, recently interviewed Tommy about the new show produced by WGBH in Boston: Rough Cut–Woodworking with Tommy Mac. I’m getting excited.

I think Tommy’s doing it right; staying in his own backyard for the first season to spend some time with some of the best woodworkers in the country who live in the Northeast, then moving out in the second season (he mentions a possible trip to California to explore Greene & Greene furniture).

While the show highlights period furniture, the projects they’ll do in the shop concentrate on just a few elements of high end furniture that anyone can master with a little practice.

Haven’t checked to see WUNC-TV will be carrying it in October. What a disappointment if they don’t!

Recently had an order for some No. 516 side tables and, while building them, I took the opportunity to make some modifications to the basic design. The changes really make the table stronger.

I wanted to move the rail towards the front a little so I cut a rabbet into the top of the leg where it meets the rail. The rabbet gives the joint a mechanical advantage the butt joint didn’t have. And moving the rail out (to seat it in the rabbet) is more pleasing to my eye. I’m very happy with it. (I’ll post some pics soon.)

I also faced a challenge in making the tapered legs of the 516 table. Since the legs are laminated, I had to cut an angle into the back face of the glued-up leg to get the taper but when I did that, the nice, even grain that the face of the leg displayed was transformed into something less desirable — the grain changed direction, lost some color and picked up some contrast. Like going from a tuxedo trousers to striped pajama bottoms. Very disconcerting.

You can see the differences in the photo above. The piece to the right used to be the face of the piece on the left before I cut the taper. Notice the grain in the left piece now moves up and to the right, is a little washed out and has more contrast in the growth rings. Does everything I didn’t want it to do.

Well, the solution is interesting, but I’ll spare you the details for now. It’s not a time consuming workaround but it gets nice grain on both faces of the leg and really makes the table look good from any angle. That was the objective.

The point is that like so many things in life, surprises often lead to better things than we first imagined. So it was with this table. I had to modify the leg/rail joinery to get the rails where I wanted them and in the process, I actually strengthened the piece. I had to modify the lamination process to deal with the grain issue and got a better leg in the bargain. Nice.

Your correspondent: Sometimes finds what he’s not looking for.

Worked on some sketches of a new outdoor plant stand yesterday and thought I’d preview what I’ve got so far.

I wanted to create a multi-level stand that allowed the plants (or any other objects) to be placed in different horizontal and vertical planes. The important thing here is to get the proportions right. The design looks good to my eye but I’ll need to build the piece to see if the three-dimensional prototype does the design justice. If it does, this will be the No. 7 Bonsai Plant and Garden Stand (or something like that).

I’m using the same three-plane joint in this piece that I use in the No. 1 and No. 3 bonsai stands and the No. 917 chair and legrest. It’s simple and strong.

And, as usual, I’m using cypress. I’m varying the thickness of the rails, the legs and the decks. (I may need to widen the upper decks a tad.) The nice thing about this kind of design is that it’ll be easy to tweak since there are no curves to modify.

So I’m anxious to build it. It could easily do double duty as a side table for a set of No. 917 chairs. A cup of coffee, glasses, the newspaper, a book — all have places here. It then becomes a cutting- edge/fashion-forward side table AND a plant stand with a place for everything.

Or I could split it into two units. One unit would be a side table/stand that’s comprised of the two upper decks and the lower deck directly in front of the two upper decks. Then the other unit becomes a kind of shohin bonsai stand.

Or, perhaps more likely, I’ll make all three versions available.

We’ll see how the prototypes look.

Your correspondent: is having too much fun.