Thought I’d throw up a quick picture of the insanity of the moment, as I get ready for the Evanston Craft show.
Using a transit to site the cables on a mock-up of my latest hall table….
Archive for the ‘At the Studio’ Category
Studio Insanity!
Saturday, August 21st, 2010Making an end fitting for the Callisto Table
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010When I bought my Hardinge turret Lathe I wanted to use it to make a specific part. It turns out I use it all the time. The part I bought the lathe to make gets used in my Callisto table, Jupiter Bench, Mercury bench, Radian table, and Tangent liquor cabinet. It is a small rod end that allows me attach the stainless rods to the other table elements.
My supply exhausted, I set out to make a run for some pieces that I am currently building. The lathe features turret which indexes and allows me to perform multiple operations including turning the outside diameter, drilling holes, tapping threads. There is also a sliding cross-slide which faces the part and then cuts it off at the end.
Here is a view of the set-up
In order to really understand the lathe I thought a video would be beneficial. This shows a complete cycle of making one rod end. My favorite moment is tapping the threads at the bottom of the hole. In this moment, the tap is fed into the work, it clutches into a freespin when it reaches the depth stop, at this point I throw the lathe into reverse and back it out, it is then thrown back into forward in order to be cut off. This all happens in a matter of seconds, not bad considering that the lathe is spinning at 1600 RPM’s! Here is a look
The part is then transferred to my multi-headed drill press. In this set-up one head has a drill bit and the other a procunier tapping head.
I use a special vise to hold the part horizontally and drill the hole
The part is then tapped with the Procunier tapping head. The head auto reverses when I pull up on the quill to back the tap out of the work. Another video is the best way to see this.
At the end of the day, I am restocked with plenty of end fittings
Parallam Coffee Table
Monday, March 22nd, 2010I thought I would show some of the process that I use to make my Parallam furniture. I recently built a Convergence table- my parallam coffee table and took some pictures of the steps along the way.
Parallam is an engineered wood beam made by weyerhauser. They are constructed out of many thin strands of veneer in order to create a massive beam far bigger than the trees used to create it could have yielded. The environmental benefits of parallam are simple: You can get bigger pieces of wood out of smaller trees, and the yield from these trees is much greater than conventional processes. Trees are round and lumber is square- this produces a lot of waste. The veneers used in parallam are rotary cut, utilizing the tree in the round. Rotary cutting is best compared to unrolling a roll of paper towel. Thin wood (veneer) is sheared off in a continuous sheet and the trunk gets ever smaller. After the veneer is cut, a post is left over- they sell this as well. In fact when I queried weyerhauser they reported 95% yield from the trees they are processing- quite outstanding.
Parallam is intended to be used in Architectural structural application where exposed beams are seen. In my opinion it is pretty cool, but the best part is hidden away. The end grain of a parallam beam is a wild scramble of woods. I set out to build furniture that exposed the end grain and highlighted its amazing grain.
Parallam end grain
The beams I am using are made from three woods, Poplar, Spruce, and Southern Yellow Pine. All are fast growing domestic woods which have traditionally had limited appeal in high end furniture. Here is my redux.
The beams I buy are 18′ Long. This one has been cut in half. It is about to cut again. It is a lot of beam, but what I am after is more of that little patch of end grain.
I use my 30″ tannewitz bandsaw to cut the beam into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Over the 20″ wide Oliver jointer. this puts a perfectly flat face on the chunk
… and through the 18″ wide Oliver planer. This puts a parallel face to the jointed face.
The beams already start to reveal their inner beauty.
Next stop is back to the jointer. Now I am establishing a perpendicular edge
next is the tablesaw. The 5″ thick board is too thick for my saw, so I cut twice. In this shot, the board has been flipped and I am making the second cut.
I am back at my bandsaw cutting the chunk down again. here I am making a very straight cut which I can reference against the tablesaw fence
And back to the tablesaw using the cut twice adage.
After a bunch of cuts, I finally have some of that end grain showing
I glue the chunks back together to start to re-establish the width I just lost.
My next step is running through My widebelt sander- It is actually one of the narrowest wide belt sanders on the market. it is a 12″ wide made by AEM. I added the stainless steel covers when I rebuilt the machine.
The sanded blocks now make up quite an expanse
They are glued together again
Once glued up, I square the blocks up on my hammond glider saw. These saws were originally used in the printing industry to cut lead letterpress type.
Two blocks ready to be made into a table
And when all is said and done The Convergence coffee table with Parallam Legs
Milling Aluminum Brackets for the Helium Dining Table
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010After I built the Torus Pedestal table I was still intrigued by the possibilities of creating joinery by milling chunks of aluminum. In designing a new dining table I chose to use a similar technique to create the joint where the leg meets the stretcher.
My first step was to mock up the bracket which I had drawn in my sketch book. The wood mock-up allows me to check proportions and really visualize the steps that are needed to create the bracket.
I start with a large piece of aluminum It is 1 3/4″ thick, 8″ wide and 36″ long.
Step one is cutting this massive chunk into more manageable pieces.
Then I am back at my horizontal mill precisely squaring the blocks. In this photo you can really see the coolant and chips flying everywhere!
The blocks are measured with a large micrometer.
The Blocks have been squared up and now the vise is rotated and I change the cutters. The heavy cutting is about to begin.
The chips build up quickly.
The grooves get cut and then the remaining triangles are removed with a saw. You can see the offcuts on the right side of this picture.
Next I am off to the vertical mill. This machine, made by bridgeport, is more accurate, but less powerful than the horizontal mill. Here I will refine the surfaces created by the mill and saw.
The cutting begins
A smaller Micrometer is used to measure the thickness accurately.
Things are looking good.
The bottom corners are roughed out on a saw, then put back on the horizontal mill for finishing. Check out how the chip gets peeled off as the cutter just breaks the edge of the metal.
The brackets are getting close. Time for some drilling and tapping.
The through holes are drilled and countersunk.
The rest of the holes are drilled and tapped.
And finally the before and after on the scales. Almost 4 lbs of metal removed- about half the weight!
Next stop, building the rest of the table.
Polishing Stainless Bolts
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010If you have ever had the opportunity to see my furniture in person, you may have noticed that all of the exposed stainless steel fasteners have a great luster to them. This is a finish that I have to create on my own. It is done with a metal lathe and, although time-consuming, I feel the results are absolutely worth it.
Step One is turning with a carbide insert. This creates a perfectly flat surface and eliminates any odd surface marks.
the next step is the polishing the surface with a fine grit sandpaper to further refine the finish
The results are a handful of beauty!
