Live Edge Cherry Bench with Antique Desk Legs and Reclaimed Singer Sewing Machine Parts

For a couple years now I have been holding onto these really great adjustable cast iron legs  I got off an old decrepit desk i bought at an auction.  About a month ago I went to Forest Products in Greenfield AM and they had some really sweet natural edge cherry slabs that were the perfect fit for my desk legs.  I picked out a slab with a nice casual S-curve to it and took it home.  My first plan was to just mount the slab to the legs and have a very simple bench, but once I put it together it just looked a little to naked but I couldn't quite figure out what to do to dress it up.

I then started going through the the stack of reclaimed wood I had sitting around the shop and took out a top of an old foot pedal singer sewing machine and decided to see what I could make for the underside.  I decided upon a drawer and casing the drawer would slide into.  This would add aesthetics, storage and make the seat a little more rigid.  As a little bonus there was a small brass fitting that was originally part of the sewing machine that landed itself on the lower right hand side of the drawer.  Anyway here it is I hope you like it.

 The drawer pull is from a guy name John who is a fellow shop teacher up at Pioneer Regional, and a fellow amazing mustache owner.  He has a blacksmith business and does great work so check him out http://www.ironjohnny.com/! http://www.ironjohnny.com/, the Republican did a groovy write up on him so check that out too...   http://www.ironjohnny.com/ironjohnnyinthenews.htm

Arifact Series, Spalted Maple hollow forms and bowls

Recently I have been playing around with some spalted maple wood that I rescued from yard in Florence MA.  It all started one day when I drove by the house and saw that the home owners recently had a very large sugar maple taken down and 2+ ft tall stump was left over.  That stump had some ground level burls looked to hold some real treasures inside. I stopped and knocked on the door and asked the owners if I could cut the stump up and use it to make some bowls. 

 They gladly said yes and for the last few months I have been taking the stump apart and turning some really interesting pieces from it.  These are not functional bowls and utensils, rather they are artistic pieces meant for display.  Since they are destined to a life of sloth and laziness I decided to give them a feeling of purpose by naming them, so here we are, the "Artifact" series.  I chose the name artifact because I worked with the faults, worm holes, and voids withing the wood to my advantage in the creation of the pieces and in so doing I believe they started to look very much like what an archeologist might dig up in some ancient ruins.  I have made a few now and I am posting pictures of my two favorites.  The bowl at the top of the page was a commissioned piece from the mother of the woman who owns the house and the stump, it was an anniversary present to the home owners and they loved it.  The bowl below was completed this week and I really like the way I came out!  The wood is finished with Waterlox and that's it, all of the color variations are simply what existed in the wood when I cut it out of the stump.  I am bringing some of the other pieces to the craft shows I am in this fall and once those are over I will be posting them on my etsy page.

I hope you like them.

Milling lumber on the super cheap! The Alaskan Chainsaw Mill

So a few months ago I bought an Alaskan Chainsaw mill to start milling up some of the smaller pieces of lumber I might want to use in my projects.  The mill clamps directly onto the bar of the chainsaw and guides you as you move down the log lengthwise, and it keeps each new cut surface straight and parallel to the previous cut surface.  They are nice but not very fast so I have been putting off using it, but over the weekend I finally got the time and nerve to give it a try.  My first cuts will dissect the sugar maple someone set out for free in Hatfield a few months back that I was lucky enough to pick up.  The wood has lots of black spalting marks on the end so I hope that the inside is pretty nice as well.  Spalted wood is wood that has been infested by some sort of fungus and the fungus creates unusual patterns in the wood that can be very beautiful.

The first thing I needed to do was create a flat reference surface on the log that could guide the first cut into the log.  I found a nice piece of pressure treated that did the trick so I nailed it down, set the mill to a depth that would clear the nails I just drove in, sharpened my chain and got to it.

After a few minutes I was through my first cut so I shut down the saw and took a look at wood to see if it was as nice as I thought, and if i was going to make a second pass or just turn it into fire wood.  As you can see from the photo it was rather nice, in fact it was even nicer than i expected! so I fired up the saw and kept cutting.

After 4 more passes I had the log milled and laying on the ground for inspection.  It looks great and I stacked and stickered them at the shop to let them dry.  I started in on some of the bigger logs in the pile after this first one was done.  Unfortunately they did not have quite the same character, but were still nice enough to warrant milling.  I milled it all to a fat 1 inch, more like 1 1/4 inch, and after they dry I might resaw them and make bookmatched panels for cabinet doors or just plane them down into some really great cutting boards.  Either way the the Alaskan Chainsaw mill proved worthwhile and I hope to get some time to mill up the rest of the stack soon.

Getting your own lumber milled on the cheap

A few months ago a very large sugar maple tree on the border of my brothers backyard lost one of its major limbs, and being the good guy that he is he gave me a call to see if I wanted it.  The limb was very large and we cut it in two to move it to the mill.  Sugar maple wood is very hard and makes great furniture especially table tops and the like.  I personally love working with it, it has great character and as you will see from the pictures these logs were particularly lively on the inside.

I am sure that lots of people have had trees or parts of trees come down naturally, or by human intervention, that they would have loved to had milled up and used.  The big issue is how?   Believe it or not its can be fairly easy to find a place in your area that would most likely be happy to mill them up for you and the cost is usually very reasonable.  I took my logs to Native Lumber in Belchertown MA because I have worked with them before and like the quality of their work, and they are the only small operation I know of that has a machine that could handle these beasts.  Native lumber charges $60 an hour so the pair of logs that I took them this time around ended up costing $90 and netted me 18 beautiful slabs some upwards of 24 inches wide a,d if I was to buy comparable slabs they would be at least $250-$500 a piece! so I saved a few grand at least.  There are a few ways to find a mill in your area, best way might be to google lumber mills in your area or do a search in craigslist, both should give you some options.  Also you might want to check the phone book, if you still have one, or ask a lumber yard especially if that yard carries rough cut lumber.  I know of a guy in a town near me that has a traveling mill and will come to your land and cut the logs up for you on sight and only charges $30 an hour.  If his mill was a little bigger I probably would have used him this time but I wanted the largest lumber possible so good people of Native Lumber got my business once again.  Thankfully my brother had a bobcat to load the logs up on the trailer for me otherwise I would have been forced to use one of the traveling mills instead. 

Here is one of the logs before milling:

And here are a few shots of rough cut lumber:

And a video:

 Now What?  Well I stacked and stickered the slabs in the garage and now I have to wait at least a year until they are dry enough to work with....  That is a total drag but I have lots of other projects to work on in the mean time.

Splitting a 10 Foot Oak Log the Old Fashion Way

Every woodworker has seen it happen, a beautiful straight clean log that was growing on someones yard gets turned into fire wood.  It hurts to see big old trees to see their demise so unceremoniously and with such lack of appreciation for there usefulness.  I recently moved to a small log cabin my wife and I are renting with our 4 month old baby girl Pearl.  The log was as nice as it gets, 26 inches wide at the fat end, ten feet long and straight as an arrow.  The problem is I have no way to get it milled.  I do not have any way to get it into my tuck to bring it to a mill, its not worth the money to rent a woodmizer, and my chainsaw mill can not handle its bulk.  So what I decided to do is split it lengthwise and then stand the half up and use my chainsaw mill to convert it to lumber.  All you need to split the tree is at least 5 wedges, a sledge hammer, about 45 minutes of time and a pint of beer to as a reward upon finishing the task to keep you motivated.  Here are the steps I took to accomplish the task.

First I drove 3 wedges into the end of the log as shown.  I started at the fat end because I figured I would beat up the tough job while I had the most energy.  Anyway I put the pint glass in front of the log to give a size scale of the tree i was working on.  The hardest part was getting them to take purchase in the log but once they were good and stuck into the wood it was easy to split it a fair distance down its length.

 

 Next take a couple wedges and put them in the crack that has formed and  drive them in to spread the crack even further

Now that you are working the crack further down the log the end should have opened up enough that you can remove the original three wedges and use them to split the log further.  Continue opening the log and taking the earlier wedges out and moving down the log.  It is helpful to take a piece of wood and jam it in the opening at the end of the log to keep it open so the wedges will come out more freely.

 

Work you way down the log until you reach the other end.  At this point you may have some fibers still holding it together so while it is still propped open with the last few wedges and the blocks of wood at the end run your chainsaw down the middle and sever and remaining wood fibers holding the to halves together.  At this point you can separate the two halves and sit back and pat yourself on the back for being so darn clever and resourceful.

On last picture showing my ear protection on the logs for size perspective.

  

All that's left is to mill it up with my chainsaw.  

My first bowl

Tiger maple bowl

I have been a wood shop teacher for years now and I turned many a project out on the lathes in the shop, but I never completed a bowl before last year.  Since then I have been honing my skills and improving my techniques but no matter what i create I still love the first one I made and think its worth posting a little something about it.  Anyway here it is, just a simple footed tiger maple bowl about 8 inches across finished with a food safe poly.

Burl Hunting

Maple burl and my dad

Black birch burl

Birch burl cut open, once its cleaner you will see it pop!

Today me and my old man went out to the land he owns in search of burls.  What are burls you ask, well they are large irregular growths on the sides of trees as a result of some sort of disease or abnormality in the tree.  These growths do not necessarily kill the tree but they do ruin that area of lumber for normal uses, but for a wood turner they are gold!  The internal structure of a burl is extremely complex and are often used for specialty applications like high-end veneers, fly fishing reel seats, inlay and in this case they will be turned into beautiful bowls.  I took some pictures of the quest and the 2 burls we found and harvested.  The football shaped burl that my dad is holding is from a Maple tree that was just about dead, and the other one is from a black birch.  I will post some more pictures of the burls as they are dissected and turned on the lathe later this week.