The Editor's Mailbox

Magic in Music City

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:55:42 GMT

Posted by: Steve Scott

I traveled to Nashville recently, shooting photographs for an upcoming article by contributor Matthew Teague. His shop, the construction of which was chronicled on FineWoodworking.com, sits just behind his house on property once owned by country music legend Roy Acuff.

When we were done with the shoot, Matthew introduced me to the planet’s best fried chicken. Then, the next morning, he and I went downtown to tour a juried exhibition, Legs and Leaves, presented by the Cumberland Furniture Guild. The exhibit features one of Matthew’s pieces - an elegant ladder back chair in cherry with a woven cane seat.

Legs and leaves. Matthew Teague next to his ladder-back chair, along with other furniture in the Cumberland Furniture Guild exhibition

The show - the guild’s third biennial juried exhibition - is on display at the Tennessee State Museum in downtown Nashville. It features more than 30 pieces submitted by furniture makers from across the Volunteer State.

Highlights included a grandfather clock by guild president Alf Sharp featuring Bombe-style curves and beautifully matched walnut crotch veneer inlaid with holly and abalone shell. We also liked an ash dining table by Worth Squire with a pair of trees carved into the trestle supports. A pair of Chippendale dining chairs in walnut - also by Squire - featured similar carvings in the back splats.

Trees. Worth Squire carved pairs of trees into the dining chairs and table pictured above.

Stepping further away from tradition was the Chicken Little table by Miles Fields, an occasional table with a sky blue top and chicken feet. Craig Nutt’s vividly tinted and carved Celery Chair appears to be constructed of giant celery stalks, carrots, red chile peppers and a pea pod.

Celery chair. Craig Nutt’s is known for his brightly-colored, sculptural furniture featuring veggies.

The exhibition is open through Aug. 31, after which it is scheduled to travel to Knoxville and Memphis.

As we made our way out of the museum, I encountered a couple of reminders that I was in the Capital of Country Music. Just around the corner from the exhibit, and part of the museum’s permanent collection, is a giant and beautifully carved ebony bed that Johnny and June Carter Cash slept on until her death in 2003.

Bed for the man in black. This Chinese-style bed is in the permanent collection at the Tennessee State Museum.

The display is flanked on either side by portraits of the Man in Black and Ms. Carter Cash. At the exit, we were seen off by a security guard with sideburns and shades straight out of Graceland who asked “Did y’all like it?” We assured him that we had and, in a hurried baritone, he invited us back. “Come see us,” he said.

When it comes to Nashville, I hope to do just that.

-Photos and text by Steve Scott, an associate editor for Fine Woodworking magazine.

Fine Wood Demolishing

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:55:59 GMT

posted by: David Heim

My wife Kate bought a bank on eBay the other day.

Not exactly the whole bank. The money and the toasters for new deposits went elsewhere. She was the winning bidder for several hundred running feet of solid wood paneling in a bank building in Spring Valley, N.Y., that’s scheduled for demolition.

Soon to be gone. The former Barclay's and Bank of New York branch in Spring Valley, where the paneling lived.

The eBay seller was Walt Booker, a building inspector in Spring Valley. Trained as a builder of architectural models at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Booker is now overseeing the demolition of the bank and the other buildings on the downtown blockfront, to be replaced with low-cost senior housing.

Meet the seller. Walt Booker and some of the salvaged paneling.

Our mission: Remove the paneling over the weekend, before the wrecking ball landed. I rented a truck, gathered all the prybars and crowbars I could find, and enlisted (read begged) the help of Charlie Reina, my colleague at Fine Woodworking, who lives not far from the soon-to-be-razed bank. He brought more tools.

In four hours of hard labor, Charlie and I managed to separate a fair amount of paneling from the walls, but much of it looked like kindling when we were finished. I learned the hard way that unbuilding something requires as much finesse as building it in the first place. Fortunately, because the paneling cost us so little to begin with, we still got a large load of used but usable paneling for next to nothing.

Demo central
There are few sights more forlorn than an abandoned building fated to be demolished. Rubble litters the floor. The bank vault door, now a rusted hulk, still rests on its massive hinges. The tellers’ cages are gone, along with all the furniture and other bank gear. One wall of the lobby is covered in random-width pine tongue-and-groove paneling. Each board is 16 ft. long. It’s all ours.

Unlocked. The door to the bank vault.

Charlie and I soon learn how difficult it is to dislodge the wood. It’s nailed to furring every 4 ft. or so. We pry and pry and pry and manage to remove one board mainly by splitting off its tongue. We tackle another board, and pull it off more or less intact. Only 49-1/2 feet of paneling to go.

In the end, we manage to salvage about half the paneling. I figure that, if need be, I can always mill new tongues and grooves on pieces that suffered too much damage in the removal.

Tall order. The wall of 16-ft. tongue-and-groove paneling.

The president’s office
Just off the lobby was the 15 x 10-ft. bank president’s office. All four walls feature floor-to-ceiling raised-panel pine paneling. It’s been stained and varnished, and has oxidized to a deep orange. The stiles and rails are joined with dowels, and the ¾-in.-thick panels are held in place with small finish nails.

Charlie and I puzzled over the best way to try to pull the pieces off the wall for several minutes. Our first efforts resulted in split and shattered panels, cracked rails, and other mishaps. Because of the way the stiles and rails are joined, it’s next to impossible to pry them apart without splitting one or both boards. We have better luck loosening the panels, then sliding them free. But we collect more than our share of cracked and split panels. We save everything we can manage.

First crack. Charlie Reina making a tentative stab at the paneling with his prybar.

In the end, we have a 3-ft.-high stack of intact panels and a separate collection of panels with rails and stiles that we managed to keep intact.

New uses for old paneling
When Kate put in her eBay bid, neither she nor I knew what we wanted to do with the paneling. We still aren’t sure. We may use most of the tongue-and-groove pieces from the lobby to finish a workshop space we’ll share over our garage. The wood we salvaged is cheaper than Sheetrock. Not to mention easier to carry, cut, and nail in place.

Some of the nicer swag. Intact panels and a pilaster from the president's office

We still don’t know what we’ll do with that stack of raised panels. If any readers are interested, they can make me an offer. Who knows? If we decide to sell and the price is right, we might even throw in a free toaster.

David Heim is managing editor of FineWoodworking.Com

Dovetails on the Delaware

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:13:11 GMT

Posted by: Michael Pekovich

A small woodworking school in Philadelphia recently became a Mecca for hand tool junkies when Lie-Nielsen Toolworks hosted a two-day weekend woodworking show at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.

Back to school. Some of the people attending the Lie-Nielsen event at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.

I was there as a demonstrator. It was my first opportunity to teach woodworking techniques in a public setting. Up to this point, my teaching has always been on a one-to-one basis. I wrote an article a while back on basic hand tool skills and figured it might be a good foundation for my demonstrations.

Talking dovetails. A quiet moment in the demonstrations on Oct. 12 and 13.

Displays of Lie-Nielsen tools filled the school’s large bench room. There was plenty of space available to take the tools for a test drive. There were even some tools, such as a match plane and chamfering plane, that aren’t yet available to the public. It was a great way to see the tools up close after drooling over them in catalogs for years.

Demonstrations were happening in every corner.

Deneb Puchalski from Lie-Nielsen offered expert tutorials on sharpening and using hand planes. When I wasn’t busy offering tips on backsaw and chisel basics, I was watching Deneb and picking up more than a few pointers.

Keen. Deneb Puchalski of Lie-Nielsen, sharpening a chisel.

John Economaki from Bridge City Tools was also at the show demonstrating his latest offering, a small molding plane with interchangeable soles and blades capable of cutting coves, roundovers, rabbets, and dadoes. An engineering marvel and a thing of beauty, the plane can be purchased with a sole and blade configuration of your choice. Other soles can be purchased separately.

Multiplane. Interchangeable soles let you cut several profiles with the Bridge City Toolworks multiplane.

Smoothing plane. This typifies the high-quality machining and finishing on Bridge City tools.

Mario Rodriguez, a former FWW contributing editor who teaches at the school, showed folks how to re-handle chisels. Chris Schwarz, the editor of Popular Woodworking magazine, covered scraper sharpening and use.

Demo. Chris Schwarz, with a benchful of props and tools for his demonstration.

I planned on presenting tips for using the backsaw, chisels, block plane and hand plane. But because Deneb was doing such a great job, I quickly limited my topics to backsaws and chisels. That melded into a demonstration on cutting dovetails. It seems that no matter how many dovetails we’ve cut or demonstrations we’ve watched, it’s still fun to watch someone else struggle through the process.

I cut quite a few over the weekend, with only a couple of band-aids to show for it. Talking while woodworking can be hazardous. The attendees were polite and patient, and they and asked a ton of great questions. Some even offered some good pointers of their own. By far the greatest part of attending the show was the opportunity to talk shop with so many passionate woodworkers and share our joys and frustrations of the craft.

The next Lie-Nielsen event is scheduled to take place on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, at the North Bennet Street School, in Boston. Garrett Hack and Steve Latta, FWW contributing editors, will be among the demonstrators. Brian Boggs, a frequent contributor to FWW, will demonstrate his signature chair-making techniques.

Michael Pekovich is FWW’s Art Director.

Photos by Mario Rodriguez.

A Gary Garrett Meld

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:54:47 GMT

Posted by: Gina Eide

It’s hard to imagine the work of Garrett Hack and Gary Rogowski fused. They build furniture on opposite sides of the country and design in completely different styles. Hack lives on a one-horse farm in Vermont and gives his pieces a contemporary, Federal-inspired style. Rogowski runs a school in Portland, Ore. and works in Arts and Crafts and Asian-inspired idioms. So I was surprised to walk into the Fine Furnishings and Fine Craft Show in Milwaukee (it ran September 29 and 30) and see concepts from the two craftsmen blended by an Iowa furniture maker.

Asian Huntboard, the “offspring” of Garret Hack and Gary Rogowski designs, according to the maker, David Young.

David Young was giving me a tour of his booth at the show. He’d studied with Gary Rogowski so I wasn’t surprised to see an Asian flair in the sideboard at the end of his booth. But I was surprised to learn that Garrett Hack’s huntboard article from FWW #193 was the actual inspiration for the piece.

Hack’s versatile huntboard

The proportions for Young’s piece are very similar to Hack’s huntboard, he said. But Young put his own stamp on it using design ideas he picked up while studying with Rogowski. “It’s like the offspring of Garrett and Gary’s designs,” said Young with a laugh.

I’d never met Young before, but it was fun to make a connection over an article and the work of our authors. The connection was reinforced when Young pointed out the “sushi box” in his booth holding business cards.

Rogowski’s sushi box from FWW #139

Young completed the project early on while studying with Rogowski, the box was also featured in FWW #139. A half-assembled version of the same sushi box design is also sitting on my desk waiting for completion.

Photos: Gina Eide, Bill Truslow, and Matthew Teague

What a Grind: Wharton Esherick Exhibit

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:36:12 GMT

posted by: Mark Schofield

As I descended the steep spiral staircase made entirely of wood, I couldn’t decide whether I’d entered a scene from the Hobbit or was on board a medieval ship. Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) began building his studio in 1926 and finished, what had by then become his home, forty years later. It’s now a museum.

Welcome to Middle Earth? Wharton Esherick's idiosyncratic studio.
Photo by G. Widman for GPTMC

Many houses rely almost solely on wood, but few use it in such creative ways or take such care to avoid straight lines. From the dining area floor, made from a jigsaw puzzle of different fruit woods given away by a local sawyer as scrap, to the two-pronged shelf support made from a tree root, each Esherick creation has, quite literally, a twist.

At the foot of the spiral stairs, there is a sunken area displaying a collection of Esherick’s sculptures, while at the top is his bedroom complete with counter-weighted trap door to keep sawdust out of the room.

The exterior of the museum.
Photo courtesy Wharton Esherick Museum

If you visit the museum before the end of the year you can also catch the museum’s 14th annual thematic woodworking competition, "Not the Same Old Grind." Designed to encourage creative thinking and the development of imaginative forms for everyday objects, this year’s task was to create a salt and pepper grinder. The 22 finalists, whose pieces were all thoroughly shaken and ground by the jury, display amazing creativity, as evidenced by the three winners.

In third place, William Smith’s Talking Politics on Capitol Hill in maple and walnut captures precisely the word-in-your-ear stance of a couple of lawmakers. Luisa Lehrer and Ernie Post took second place with their pair of triangular pieces entitled Tango. The winner was Terry Ryan’s Calla Lilly Vase in maple and mahogany. At first glance you’d never grab this piece to season your scrambled eggs, but I’d love to have it on my kitchen table and I think Wharton Esherick would have found a place for it too.

The winners. Left, Luisa Lehrer and Ernie Post (2nd place). Right, William Smith (third place). Center, Terry Ryan (first place).
Photos courtesy the Wharton Esherick Museum

The museum, located about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia near Valley Forge Park, is open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons; call (610) 644-5822 for reservations and directions.

--Mark Schofield is the managing editor of Fine Woodworking magazine.