Watcha Makin'?

[Machinebuilder]

Here's the fancy char............   Cheese board I made for a friend who gave me the walnut tree.
It turned out better than I thought, the oil really brought out the color





 

[tule peak timber]

Tule, is there internal bracing like your torsion tables or more of just a U-shaped shell?  Thanks.

Doc, this beam is a little different; no bracing at all inside but a couple of lip stringers at the top. A couple of tricks to building this beam, which will squeeze over an existing header; I make the slot at the top a little narrower than the dimension at the plugged ends. The plugged ends will need to be final trimmed at job site to squeeze onto the existing rough opening. Because the center of this long beam is a little narrower, it will grip the overhead header and need little to no trimming. The second trick is to pull one of my end grain cookies from a library of cookies (pine, oak and walnut) that I keep specifically for plugging beam ends and fireplace mantels. The single cookie gets sandwiched between 2 pieces of scrap plywood oversized and then flattened and sanded. I send the sandwich through a re-saw, ending up with sort of end grain veneers and a stable backing that I then precision cut for each end of the beam. If you do it right, you cannot see the joint. Then it gets distressed and the whole thing looks like one piece. 
This 3-1/4 sided box beam needs to sit on top of 2 dimensionally equal posts that I am standing with in the picture. These posts will be scribed on site and slipped onto the walls, so that the whole thing looks like we meant for it to happen.

 

 

 

 

[Walnut Beast]

Always amazing!

[doc henderson]

Thanks Tule.  that is so cool.  it is amazing how you can fool the eye.  also use less material and end up with less weight.  Was the wood worm eaten as it appears on the inside of the box?  I would have assumed you would use end grain cut from the same beam/log, not go to the library.  
We have a scissor trussed ceiling in the living room, and we have talked about a beam.  the sheet rock joint gets cracks at the seam, from a bit of movement.  we have talked about a beam, but a foe beam would be the way to go.  It is at 16 feet height and 25 feet long.  would that be one you would make in two section and if so how would you do the joint in the middle.  would the parts be offset?  would you distress the joint in place?  If made off site, can it be powdered and then sprinkled with magic water and grow and assembled and installed on the ceiling?  :D Thanks for your guidance oh WOC.  It has been a magical journey, and we are glad to be inspired again by your projects.  

[ScottMW]

 

 With the 40 below wind chill outside I found the time to finish up this TV stand I made for my cabin. 

 

 

 

[tule peak timber]

Pretty. Nice balance on the sapwood !

[tule peak timber]

Thanks Tule.  that is so cool.  it is amazing how you can fool the eye.  also use less material and end up with less weight.  Was the wood worm eaten as it appears on the inside of the box?  I would have assumed you would use end grain cut from the same beam/log, not go to the library.  
We have a scissor trussed ceiling in the living room, and we have talked about a beam.  the sheet rock joint gets cracks at the seam, from a bit of movement.  we have talked about a beam, but a foe beam would be the way to go.  It is at 16 feet height and 25 feet long.  would that be one you would make in two section and if so how would you do the joint in the middle.  would the parts be offset?  would you distress the joint in place?  If made off site, can it be powdered and then sprinkled with magic water and grow and assembled and installed on the ceiling?  :D Thanks for your guidance oh WOC.  It has been a magical journey, and we are glad to be inspired again by your projects.  

Hi Doc. Something like this I would ask for a photo of the livingroom to get a general idea of style and colour. This will determine the joint and possible metal in a joint. That's a LONG beam, so I am thinking maybe 3 pieces and on your scissors, maybe cladding them with matching joints (faux) depending. Half lap faux joint or simply end butt with subset wrapped metal depending. Steel can patina flat black or blued for a more modern motif, whereas copper, brass and bronze are more classic, but can be patina'd blue or green and something in between as well as brown. Lots of options here.
Starting with wood that is already worm eaten, partially rotted and pretty far gone will go a long ways to helping distress. Add a bent toothed sawblade and they don't call me the Wizard of Crap for nothing. From here, lots of suggestions on hand held tools, both power and not powered. Another secret; I love to mix oil and water on my finishes. 
If you want to work this out online, love to be involved. Also, be thinking about the type of wood you have access to that will support the look you wish to achieve. Look forward to seeing a photo. I have lots of photos of the different fake beam do dads I do.

[doc henderson]

well thanks, and I will take you up on that, if my wife has not now changed her mind.     also will be interested on fastening.  i thought a 2x on the ceiling, but worried about keeping it flat (level) and strait if the joint/peak of the trusses in not close to dead on.  thanks WOC.  DOC!   :D

[rjwoelk]

Made a board to hold my wood stove utensils  
 on the left side you got a seal.

[ScottMW]

Made a board to hold my wood stove utensils  

Neat idea!

[Larry]

During today's blizzard Hank and I hung out in the shop.  He kept a close eye on the wood stove to insure it was putting out the correct amount of heat.  Once he barked "another stick of wood and while your up maybe a chew bone".



I sanded and glued up end pieces for a book case I'm making.






Its all in the details.

[caveman]

Good looking work, Larry.

I started sanding and repairing a cedar chest that belonged to my wife's grandmother.  My middle daughter wanted one.  This will be one of her Christmas gifts.  Due to the weather, it will not get any more coats of BLO prior to Christmas.


 

 

 

 

 

[Poquo]

I almost didn't cut the log this Table Top came from. It had no bark on it, some decay and stuff growing on it. Found it at very back of a lot clearers log pile.

 

Used epoxy to seal holes and weak areas then water based poly. 

[tule peak timber]

Beautiful table! How did you find the adhesion of the water base over the epoxy? nice work.

[Poquo]

Thanks Tule , Once I filled everything it sat for a couple months, wanted to make sure epoxy was completely cured. Sanded it with 220 then sprayed the water based over the wood and epoxy areas can't tell any differences. I have used same process on other tables and so far no issues.

[tule peak timber]

Will you share which topcoat/brand you are using?

[Poquo]

I prefer Deft Interior/exterior water based, but it was out of stock. This table ended up using Minwax spar water based, it was okay to work with.

[GAB]

During today's blizzard Hank and I hung out in the shop.  He kept a close eye on the wood stove to insure it was putting out the correct amount of heat.  Once he barked "another stick of wood and while your up maybe a chew bone".

Larry:
You must be the only person with an organic low on fuel wood stove alarm.
Enjoy your alarm system.
GAB

[Larry]

He keeps my feet warm at night also! :D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I haven't made a contribution here for a bit, so here is the latest. Cherry Bench #6, the last in this series.


 

This is halfway between stool and bench, but I think has nice features.



 

 I made RO Octagonal legs for this one too using the hole saw method.


 

No spalt on these legs but there is some fleck on a few faces.



 

 All in all, not bad. 



 

 I just wish I could generate some buyers.

 We also finished up another bunch of log carrier slings and I put a couple in the Egg Stand to see what happens. One is going in the mail today IF I can ship it for a reasonable amount. They wanted over 20 bucks for their oversized tube box yesterday. I decided to make my own 'box' and walked out. Back to try again today. The thing only weighs 1.2 pounds for pete's sake.

[aigheadish]

That's a great looking bench Tom! How about trying to stick it in a consignment shop in town or in Woodstock or something? Seems like some lovely pieces that the rich folk would love to have in their summer homes. My wife did that with her purses in various hippie stores locally and she got decent sales from it. With the quality of your work I'd think you could sell them, pay the consignment fee, and still come out ahead. Or find some hoity toity places in the big city that'll show your stuff... 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I am thinking about looking into it...again.. but I am assuming the disappointment I experienced years ago when I looked into it will resurface. Most of these shops get 40% of the sale price and that's a pretty big cut. Yes, I know about their costs, etc, but...
 If I jack the price a bit to cover some of that loss, it can put the item out of reach and take a long time to sell. Still. I should look into it or else I will never know. Pricing these things fairly to cover my time, effort, and material remains very challenging yet still attract buyers.
 I would like to see $375. from a bench like the one above, but I don't know that anybody would pay that north of NYC.

[aigheadish]

Eek! 40% is pretty high! I'm not sure what kind of take the shops were getting for the wife's bags. I can't imagine it's that much, but maybe it was. I think the alternative is taking it to craft shows and the like or dumb ol' Facebag or something. It's all tough as I think you are certainly at a fair price but it is one that removes it from most casual shopper's abilities. Oh yeah, Etsy? Did we already discuss that?

Where is the Forestry Forum shop when you need one? A place to list all kinds of member's handiwork? I don't know how to drive traffic to such a place, not to mention stealing some thunder from Etsy...   @Jeff 

[beenthere]

The Forestry Forum has a "for sale" section. 5% goes to the Forum.

As to 40%, if it were less then I strongly suspect that shop would be full to the gills with way too many items on consignment (just waiting and waiting for the right customer). IMO

[Old Greenhorn]

With all due respect, the FF does not represent my market. It represents my peers and mentors. :D

You got my juices flowing and I just blew 2 hours searching around locally on the web, not a lot of good fits for my stuff that I can see. There is a consignment shop in Kingston that takes 50% and sets the item prices as they like. If it's not bought in 60 days, you'd better pick it up or they will mark it down, store it away, and throw it out, their choice, and it becomes their property. Think I'll pass on that one. >:( Most shops have some kind of rules that you can't leave stuff there forever, either annual cleanouts, or they put time limits, or whatever they come up with.
Most of these shops are 'curated', meaning they only take what they like and think will sell, but not conflict with their own products or their best friends products. My wife does business with one, but they wouldn't accept certain things she made because they were better quality than the ones made by the owners 'friend' who never really sold much of the same type item. That store just gave all the vendors notice they were closing on January 1st for good. Big surprise there was that it took so long.
I found one place that looks to be a 'good fit', but they are not open until Friday, so I'll try to give them a call and see what their deal is.
I do plan on doing some shows this year, 3 years later than I wanted to start, but I sure could use some cash infusion now to get me there. The better shows are not until the summer tourist season. We have a lot of small festivals in the hills, and they can do well with the right mix.