The skinny on milling around

I spent most of Thursday near the small town of Carson, Iowa, at my woodworking pal Skip's house. I met Skip soon after Niz and I got married at Skip's cousin, Eddith's house. He found out I do some woodworking and invited me to help the next time he milled some logs. The 'next time' was Thursday, and it was the most entertaining and educational experience I've had since I visited Thailand earlier this year.
I've visited a couple local sawmills but have never seen the portable milling process that Skip's sawyer buddy, Andy, orchestrated Thursday.

We started by loading single logs onto a stationary frame. Andy operated a series of hydraulics to turn and stabilize each log against the frame. Next, he positioned the portable mill's blade - which is essentially a sideways bandsaw - for the correct depth, and cut the log into a square pillar, rotating the log 1/4 turn after each cut in order to remove most of the bark. When the log was squared, Andy cut 5/4" thick (that's 1 & 1/4" thick) strips from the log, rotating it occasionally in order to make the ideal piece of lumber each time. As the blade finished each cut, we pulled the freed slabs of lumber away and placed them on a series of drying racks. Surprisingly, the freshly cut wet, or "green" lumber was about the same color as the dry wood will be.

The day was not without a couple hiccups. One of the logs Skip was most excited about milling was a long, straight trunk of ash. Skip was having the log quartersawn (if interested in a quick, reliable tutorial about the differences in how wood is milled, go here). Sometimes, particularly with oak logs, this milling process results in revealing a unique and desirable surface grain highlighted by a sort of pattern of reflective... flecks. Boards cut this way also tend to be more stable, in terms of their reaction to humidity.

Unfortunately, as the ash log was being cut in half, the blade ran into a nail. And a piece of wire. Likely, they were part of a farmer's fence decades ago, and had grown into the tree over time.  Even a small piece of metal like a nail can take a major toll on a saw blade. Usually, nails and other pieces of metal (bullets and similar shrapnel are also common) are found by running a hand-held metal detector across the surface of each log. However, these surprise pieces were buried deep inside the tree. The dark spot near the middle of each half of the log shown at right is a stain in the vicinity occupied by the nail. These annoyances were balanced by the fact that the weather couldn't have been milder for July and I didn't lose any fingers.

By the end of the day we'd milled several logs of cherry, walnut, ash, burr oak (our region's version of white oak) and hickory, all harvested from Skip's land. The lumber will rest on Skip's drying rack for about a year, at which time I'll head back over to Carson and collect my wood-wages for the day. More importantly, I have a better understanding of a fundamental step in bringing a tree into fruition as a new object.

Fall & Winter Stars - 2 Experimental Tables

Before my friend Doug and I got rolling on the Organic Chair in November, most of my attention was concentrated on further exploring the repetitive, geometric technique I developed while working on my "Ark" chair. The two tables shown below are inspired by the recent transitions to Fall and Winter, respectively, and both follow the same symmetrical, 45-degree angle model. However, with these pieces, I concentrated on the star pattern that naturally emerges when using triangular-shaped pieces.

The tops of both these pieces might be the first thing that catches peoples' eyes, and I'm happy the fabrication of each worked out as well as it did with the number of variables presented with using so many pieces for each. They were somewhat tedious and time consuming to put together, but the base and legs for each proved much more challenging to put together. I should quickly mention that the fabrication process for the tops of each are not "inlay" as several people have commented. They're not stained either; the colors you see are the natural colors of the woods (mostly walnut, paduak, canarywood and redheart), with only a topcoat of semi-gloss polyurethane. Inlay involves insetting thin, non-geometric (marquetry) or geometric (parquetry) shapes into another surface. These star tables are made by putting together hundreds of individual diamond-shaped pieces.

But back to the base and legs. These were more challenging - particularly the curvy orange (made of paduak) and yellow (made of canarywood) turned ones.











In the picture on the right side, you might be able to see a curved cut mark near the foot of each one. These wrap around each leg, again in a pattern, and were partly the result of an accident. I'm not sure if this is a common occurance of more seasoned woodturners, but I often get a lot of splintering near the top and bottom of my stock. In an attempt to combat this, I started off by cutting a 45-degree angle around the stock near the top, thinking this would preempt any splintering that normally occurs. As I was turning the area around the cut, I noticed a rounded, petal-like form emerging. This did fix my splintering problem, but also resulted in an innovative form that further highlights the botanical spirit of the whole piece.

Next up, I'm going to try to make a massive form using this pattern technique. My dad, who is much better than I am with math, reminded me that the angle of cut of the triangular/diamond shaped pieces would determine the number of points on similarly star-shaped fabrications: 60-degrees = 6-sided; 45-degrees = 8-sided; 30-degrees = 12-sided; etc. So next up, I'm tackling a project that will use a combination of 60- & 30-degree pieces. But this time, I want to make something that has a rounded or wavy top surface. Any fellow woodworkers, artists, designers or math whizzes out there who can help?

ORGANISM @ Empty Room - Week 1 Recap & Upcoming...

Doug, Matt & I kicked off the final month of Empty Room one week ago with the opening of ORGANISM: A Festival of Words & Building. After a slow start building, Doug and I have made quite a bit of progress on the Organic Chair, and are looking forward to adding more elements over the next few weeks. We've mostly concentrated on building from noon - 2pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and during the weekly Wednesday Poetry Slams. If you'd like to join us, you're welcome. Just email us at organism1109@gmail.com so we can be sure to prepare. We also welcome guests to just come in and check out the space while we're working too. Here are a few pictures to show our progress:

Matt and his gang of wordsmiths are hosting events Monday - Wednesday evenings, with occasional events during the rest of the week too. To keep up with the poetry schedule, visit The Poetry Menu. Personally, I'm most looking forward to this Wednesday's Haiku Slam, and next week's Sock Puppet Slam. We also post updates nearly every day for fans of the ORGANISM Facebook Page to keep up with us. If you're coming down to ORGANISM Wednesday, you might also check out Doug's presentation at the next Pecha Kucha, which is just across the parking lot at Slowdown, starting at 8:20p.m.

Today also marks the first installment of 3 Share-a-Chair installations that I'll gradually be adding to the space. Learn more about this new ORGANISM element at Share-a-Chair.com.

I'd also like to remind visitors that we're accepting donations. There's no cost to attend any of the ORGANISM events, but there are a couple donation boxes set out. Matt is accepting donations that will support contributing poets and support the Nebraska Writer's Association. Doug and I have a donation box to support the growth of the Organic Chair installation and the Kent Bellows Studio & Center for the Visual Arts.  We're also donating a portion of the sale of objects in the Empty Room to the Bellows Studio, so your support for us also supports exceptional young talent. Bellows Studio Executive Director Anne Meysenburg is also presenting at Pecha Kucha on Wednesday, so if you're interested in learning about the organization, here's a prime opportunity.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you at ORGANISM!

Fleeting Thoughts like Falling Leaves

One of the reasons I usually enjoy living in Omaha is that I'm basically a small-town guy at heart. And let's face it, Omaha is kind of a small town. I want to think I'm a big city kind of guy; that I'm drawn to the largeness of movement and noise and action, but it's really not true. I travel for work several times a year, usually to larger cities, and after a few days, I usually can't wait to get back HOmaha. Even so, growing up in the midwest - first in Kansas, and for the last 10 years in Nebraska - I think I've had a tendency to take for granted the richness of the midwestern landscape. Who isn't at least a little drawn in by a soft breeze flowing over wheat fields before the harvest? Or the simple pattern of rows of corn, soybeans, and whatever else farmers grow around here?

The leaves started turning and falling in my Benson neighborhood several weeks ago. Initially they fell fast and hard, pulled down by the weight of a premature snow. Soon a wet, yellow blanket was covering the ground.

Over the course of the last few weeks bursts of rusty reds and oranges have joined the yellow blooms in a dying explosion of color. I don't remember the colors being this vibrant before. Or being so drawn to the contrasting tones. I'm nearly overtaken every time I turn a corner on my drive home from my studio. It gives me chills to see the yellow leaves flutter from the tops of the trees after small gusts of wind pull the stems from their branches. I don't remember being this influenced by nature either - maybe marriage is making me soft.

As beautiful as the view is now, we all know the landscape will soon give way to a neutral wash of white and brown. But as with the rest of the natural landscape, the lines and contrasts of brown against the impending snow will display a subtler beauty that is harder to see.

These same past few weeks have been busy ones for me. I've been stealing as many hours in my shop as I can trying to turn these star fabrications into tables. They are also a simple gesture at both capturing and honoring the beauty of the Fall and coming Winter landscapes, respectively. The uniform shape of each piece - both in the star form and each contributing diamond shape - echoes the symmetry and simplicity of the fallen leaves. And like a leaf, the simplicity of their form sometimes masks a design that is more complicated the closer you look; it was not easy cutting and fabricating between 200 and 300 individual, uniform pieces of wood together. As I mentioned in my previous post, these pieces are my attempt to - dare I say - turn over a new leaf, in attempt to make work that is more environmentally sustainable than I've attempted in the past. I like to think that with each successive piece of furniture or art or whatever you'd like to call them, that I'm honoring the materials as much as I can.

These tables are also part of my contribution to the ORGANISM project in the Empty Room. If you'd like to see how they turn out, please stop by ORGANISM throughout November and help us grow the space. Don't forget to bring your hammer.

A "Star" of Sustainable design? Probably not.

My involvement in November's "Organism" project in the Empty Room is mostly about chairs. And design. And building. However, sometimes it will only enhance the project by providing tables on which to rest your favorite beverage, book or both. To that end, I've created the beginnings of what will be two small coffee tables. I've been a little under the weather the last couple days, but was able to work on these over the weekend. Both follow the construction technique I developed with the "Ark" chair. However, with these tables I've focused more on the overall pattern and shape in the fabrication process. The larger piece measures about 3-feet from each star point to its opposing twin. The whole piece is about 3/4" thick. This will be the table top, which will be paired with a set of thin, spindly turned legs. The fabrication of the larger finished piece was made by cutting about 300 (288, to-be-exact) individual diamond shaped pieces that have then been glued together, one-by-one. The smaller piece will be the same design, but feature a modified wood/grain pattern from the larger one. The woods used in the larger piece included paduak and red heart (alternating in the center), followed by a layer of honey locust, with the remaining encasing made of different varieties of walnut. The smaller piece is red heart alternating with canary wood, followed by a pattern of red heart and honey locust.

For those of you who are interested in sustainable design, well... this doesn't exactly fit the bill. However, I do have an olive branch of sorts to offer, since each of the diamond shaped pieces is cut from the scraps of other projects. So, I've at least found a way to work with what would otherwise have been waste in a process that embraces the spirit of sustainability, even if the underlying wood I used was not. I look forward to hearing any of your suggestions about incorporating other sustainable design and fabrication processes.

Celebrating Others' Work: Kevin Jones, Doug Kiser & Mark Lane

I've had the good fortune to meet a lot of other artists, designers and craftsmen (and women) over the past couple years. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few of those folks' - friends and acquaintances new and old - with this post. Hopefully, none of them mind me putting them in the limelight for a bit:

Kevin Jones does all kinds of photography, but I think his passion seems to lie in capturing the spontaneity and energy revealed in screams, sweat and spit during the live acts of touring and local punk rock and indie bands. I've also been lucky enough to have Kevin take photos of several of my pieces of furniture (i.e. the coffee table at the top of this page, among others). He also does portraiture and other event-related work. Check out some of his work on KevinAndrewJones.com. Rumor has it Kevin's also not a bad framer and drummer, and he's catching up with me in the woodworking department too.

Over the past year Niz and I have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Doug Kiser and his wife Geej. Quite honestly, Doug's a more experienced and talented woodworker than I am, and he brings a background in cabinetry and interior design. I feel fortunate that Doug's been willing to share feedback, skills, resources - and even his workspace once or twice - while not making me feel like an amateur or total ass. Doug's a full-timer who does it all - furniture design and construction, cabinetry, kitchens and bathrooms and more. I'm also looking forward to seeing more of Doug's paintings soon. You can see Doug's work all over town, including Secret Penguin headquarters, Film Streams and Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance. And if you're lucky, your own house. Doug's website is dkiser.com. 

Very recently Niz introduced me to Mark Lane, who has been designing and building furniture for quite some time, but just recently launched a full-fledged business, Mark Lane Custom Furniture. Mark draws inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement, but puts a modern spin on it. I'm looking forward to checking out Mark's shop one of these days, and possibly helping him find a way to get his new thickness planer down the stairs. 

I know all three of these guys are going to keep pushing themselves forward in their respective businesses, and as they do so, hopefully their creativity, feedback and success will push me forward as well.

- Peter -

Turning you on: An (over) simplified process for using a lathe

Last week I posted a couple pictures of an in-process project that involved making some display cases with spindles. Now that I've finished that project and caught up with (most) of my July work, I thought it would be both informative and cool to show some of the simple process for producing a spindle on a lathe. In doing so, I've omitted several pictures to get to the fun stuff (isn't that what we all want?). Check it:

Step 1) Cut a length of wood that is straight and square on the ends. If it isn't square when you start the lathe, you'll cause yourself irritation and potential eye injury trying to get it centered. If you've ever done ceramics, this process is very similar to centering the mound of clay on the wheel, except that if you don't do it right, you can't just remound the material - you'll waste an expensive piece of wood a tree died to give you. You might not think it, but the harder the wood, the easier it is too turn; soft wood chips and tears more easily, perhaps because the grain/wood fibers are not as tightly bound to one another. Generally, harder woods (maple, walnut, cherry) are much more expensive than softer woods (pine). Actually, come to think of it, perhaps leafy tree wood is softer than coniferous wood - something to think about at a later date... back to getting lathed:

When you have a length of wood that is square on both ends, mark an "X" through the center of both ends. You'll use these to center the piece on the lathe. If your "X" is off-center, you'll end up wasting a lot of material trying to make a cylinder, and probably split the wood or take off giant chunks as described above.

Step 2) Once you have the wood centered and attached to the lathe (again, there are steps here, but I'm trying to keep this relatively brief/simple), you attach your tool rest (a metal bar you place your chisel/knife against, which acts like a fulcrum) about 1/4" from the edge of the wood.

(Step 3) For my project, I was cutting spindles, but wanted to keep the ends of each square, so I cut a very shallow groove around the perimeter of the wood, about 1 1/2" from each end (see photo). If I hadn't done this, I likely would have splintered off a chunk on each end; cutting the groove helps keep the ends square. If you're going to turn the entire length of wood, this wouldn't be necessary.

Step 4) Next is the fun part - turning. Turn on the lathe (obviously). Place the tool firmly agains the tool rest and gradually move it toward the stock of wood, taking off bits/shavings of material very slowly. Proceed down the length of the material, cutting a little more with each pass, until you've turned a cylinder. Pretty easy, huh? It really is.

After that you can use all sorts of other chisels and knives with different ends to create different grooves and cuts in the spindle. For this project, I was given some general direction from the client, but they wanted each one to be different. This, combined with the "rustic" or "handmade" look they wanted, made the job incredibly easy. Typically I would sharpen my knives/chisels frequently, as well as sanding the piece with sandpaper from 60 or 80 grit all the way up to 600 grit or higher. I'd also wear a respirator, safety goggles and ear muffs (safety 1st!).

I should mention I've been doing this for a while now, but am nowhere near a pro. There are people who do this - and only this - type of woodworking as a passion, and produce some amazing things. With the exception of Christmas ornaments and baby rattles, turning is something I usually incorporate into a larger piece, rather than make as stand alone objects. If you want to see cool pictures of way better turnings, or learn more about the process, check out the Loess Hills Woodturners Club, a local club based out of Iowa. Of for more photos, check out the American Association of Woodturners.

Jean's Drawers

Here's another recent addition I haven't had the opportunity to post yet. I designed and fabricated this and another similar drawer for my friend Jean, to be joined an existing table top she made from wood salvaged from the Falstaff brewery. 

The quilted look of the drawer fronts were accomplished by fabricating a series of small (1") diamond-shaped pieces of cherry and Spanish cedar together. This is very much the same process I used for the body of the "Ark" chair in my Share Your Chair blog. The center starburst is made of alternating pieces of cocobolo and redheart. The knobs are made turned from cocobolo and cherry. Though not really visible in these photos, the top and bottom are walnut veneered plywood; the sides are cherry and cocobolo. I finished it all off with a couple coats of semi-gloss polyurethane.