2nd Floor CNC

First time visitors to the second floor of my shop often ask 'How did you get that thing up here?' Invariably, I can't find the book with the pictures from the installation so I'm putting them here so I can find them ... Open Studio is coming in May and I know I'll need them then ... Click the photos to enlarge them ... About 25 more shop photos in the post below.
The completed installation.
Beginning of the installation process .. That's Jim with one of his favorite weapons.
Ready to go .. +/- 2;30 in the afternoon.
The next morning ... Noel Dydo, my main excavating man at the wheel. It was a borrowed Lull and his last comment before he got on board was 'I haven't ever driven one this old before' . Comforting.
Anyway ... In it went at about 11:00.
Buttoned back up by the end of the day ... That was five years ago in November and I think my last payment will be in July ... Mortgage burning party coming up .... To see what we do with this tool, check the category to the right called 'Trevor's CNC Projects' ... It's amazing. We do custom cnc work for other furniture makers both locally and not so locally ...

Pete's Pizza Ovens

Curved arch forms cut on the cnc .. click to enlarge

Our brother in law, Peter Moore, of Peter Moore Masonry, ( check out his fantastic work) builds genuine brick ovens, fireplaces and masonry stoves for clients all over the world. He had a brainstorm lately that we could cut the forms for the arched roofs of his ovens on the cnc, giving him fair curves and saving him boatloads of aggravating time truing up curved forms. This is the second set we've cut for him and he's got it worked out so that he can disassemble them from inside the arch after the arch is set up, and reuse the forms if he has an oven with the same radius and dimensions. It took Trevor about an hour or so, start to finish, from turn on the machine to finished forms out the door. A win/win for everybody and really nice forms for Pete to work from. Pete says he'll take some pictures of the process once he's got the form set up on the job and I'll post them here when I get them. It sounds like a cool process. Also, this week we cut a set of curved parts for a form, 3" thick, with a 24" radius and two straight sections for gluing up table aprons for a 72 x 48 racetrack dining table for another local furnituremaker and that also worked out slick. I didn't even get a picture of that one it went out the door so fast. Custom CNC work available anytime ....

Sunset/Sunrise ... A New Sculpture

Sunday, March 29th .... Yesterday was about the best possible of the early spring days, 65 degrees and sunny, where you want to be outside just every second, followed by today when it was mostly cloudy with occasional cloudbursts and showers, high in the 40's. I've been reading this sort of tedious, sort of interesting book, called 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's about the power of unforeseen and unpredictable events (prescient I guess this guy is since it was published in 2007). Two of its more interesting (to me) premises are #1. the thought that the daily news just reinforces our views and can close our minds to new ideas, an interesting idea to someone who has spent a not small part of his life reading The New York Times, and #2.,that prediciting the future is a nearly useless, wasted effort.. That hit close to home on my woodworking estimates. I can make a plan with my morning coffee and it can go out the window 10 minutes after I get to the shop. Happens time and time again. The Black Swan guy uses as an example the Sydney Opera House that was supposed to open in 1963 at a cost of 7 million Australian $. It actually opened around 1973 at a cost of 104 million Australian $. Even I'm not that bad. So today, in honor of premise #1, for the first time I can remember, I made a point of not buying the Sunday Times and of not sitting on the couch and reading it. I decided instead to make a new sculpture. It's been rattling around the metalshop in parts and pieces for a month or so and today was just its day I guess. We get our fair share of good old red sunsets here, at least when the leaves are off the trees and after about 12 years or so of them, they bore into your brain and show up in your sketch book when you least expect them, like here, back in November. Anyway, there's not much to my sculpture ... some 1.25" solid steel square stock that will eventually turn a nice rusty orange out in the rain, some kind of base and a red/orange (or maybe gold leaf) sun/moon motif. The one in the picture's spray painted plywood. I mocked up the base today using some pressure treated 2 x 12's, cut on the cnc, and later, I'll probably use some locust planks I have stickered and drying. I cut two different hole patterns but didn't have enough steel verticals to mock up the alternative, dual sided concept. Maybe next Sunday I'll finish it if I can truly kick the newspaper habit ... We'll see ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

From my sketchbook ... 11/7/08

The temporarily 'finished' piece ... Just before dark Sunday evening ... high ISO digital photography is your friend .. available light, ISO 1000

Showing the alternate double sided pattern

Cutting the square holes on the CNC

Lining up the assembly with a short steel and a framing square ...

Cutting Brass on the CNC

Well, we had to make some brass doughnuts the other day for the brass feet for the Concertina Hinge Game Table we are building. I was faced with drilling big holes, bandsawing and turning and sanding some small pieces of 1/4" brass. If it were a wood shape, I would step up the the cnc and cut it in about two seconds. We had cut some thin brass before while repairing an antique clock and I thought we might as well try the thick stuff. Once we figured out the feeds and speeds, Trevor made short work of it .... It's always great to discover a new use for the CNC..... Click the photos for better viewing ...

Trevor first cut the inside hole and the outside shape with a 1/4" super o bit leaving a 1/32nd skin on the bottom

Then he switched to a round over bit, cut the first side, routed a pocket into the spoil board, and, holding the doughnut down with a screw and washer, rounded the back side ... viola ... about 10 minutes, well spent. We're thinking of building a merry-go-round ...

A Vermont Coffee Table

My man Trevor deserves a blog post for his latest efforts at home improvement. He has made himself and his girlfriend Emily a quatersawn sycamore and walnut real Vermont coffee table for his new living room. He's been working on it off an on for a while, but last week he took it home and I shot a couple quick pictures of it as it went out the door. It's clean and clever, done on the cnc router that he runs in the shop. He cut the inlay parts, the curved supports, the little keystones and the mortises and tenons for the base ... the whole deal ... Nice job Trevor ... He says he'll do other states too .... click the pictures to enlarge them ... Coming soon, Sam's Vermont Belt Buckle ...

They're hard to see, but there are little raised outlines of Vermont in the keystones at the center of the arches ...

Vew-Do Balance Boards Board Stands

Last year we did a run of custom retail store displays for our friends at Vew-Do Balance Boards, a local company where Will used to work. Business is good for them and we did another 20 stands last week. They ship flat, hold 4 boards, four rocks and a signboard for promotional material. The parts slide together without tools and are rigid and stable .... It took a couple prototypes and subtle adjustments to get them right the first time last year, but this run of 20 stands went off without a hitch..
Click to enlarge the pictures.

40 sides, 20 backs

A fuzzy picture of the stained, assembled stand