Hipsters Wanted.... Lake at Walnut

Standard Pacific Homes - New Homes in Pasadena at Lake at Walnut - Community
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

This is funny. Sorry Hipsters

If you have actually been to this location, it is miles of asphalt with a view of the Ralph's parking lot on one side and the 210 on the other.

Boutiques? (Does the 99 cent store count?)

Saunter to the news stand? Nobody saunters on Lake. It's Hell hot.

Little Journey's

Little Journey's
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

I finally finished the Little Journeys Bookstand!

This project is from Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture by Robert Lange. I have much more about its construction detailed in my blog .

The finish ended up being fumed followed by tinted shellac and dark wax. I like it.

This project looks simple, but has a ton of handwork including the 16 through mortises.

A few pics

A shot of the top in the sun.

Close up on the tusks and through tenons. All handwork.

Looking up at the figure eight clips.

And now a look at the books. The piece was originally made by Elbert Hubbard to display a set of books called Little Journeys. I bought a set on e-bay and they have really cool covers and spines. They include titles like Little Journeys to the Homes of ….. Famous Women or English Authors

Shellac

Shellacin’
I cleaned up 90% shop dust by vac and broom and then run the overhead air filter for a bit before finishing. I protected the workbench with plastic. The panels are raised up on scrap sticks. You can see a bottle of Transtint (Dark mission brown) in the foreground.

I add denatured alcohol to a container and then add the shellac to the consistency of a 1lb or so cut. Very thin.

I am padding on the shellac with a clean t-shirt scrap wrapped around another scrap. I also used a glue brush and a larger brush.

I work from the middle out to the ends to avoid over collecting on the ends.

After one coat (Still wettish)

When the first coat and on are dry I sand with my little worn spongy sanding block to knock down the dust nibs /level the surface. You can do this with very worn sandpaper too. If I have nothing else I take a piece of 320 and rub it against itself to break the grit down to a softer texture.

I feel the grit of the finish with my hand and then sand very lightly until It feels smooth. The goal is to remove that grit feeling and nothing more.

Tint it
On the second and so on coats I added the dark brown dye to the shellac to add a little more color to the project.

Shot with final coat of tinted shellac

Finally I tackled the sapwood by adding a few more drops of the dye to the shellac. The sapwood lacks that tanins that enact color change via fuming. (By the way I find the liquid dye WAY easier to work with than the powdered).

I brushed the concentrated color/shellac mixture onto the sapwood only.

Before:

Brushing Shellac/Dye..

After blending with my shellac pad..

Better I think.

Dry time
I really want to finish this, but I am going to wait a few days to let the shellac cure before I wax it.

Watch the shellac dry.

Next time Wax

In Which I Fume Oak for the First Time.

I had a little more handwork to do on the Little Journey’s Bookstand. I fiddled with the tusks a bit.

I originally sanded the piece to 400 but decided to sand to 220 this time. The loose tenons/tusks took forever to sand and detail.

Fuming Time

I have always wanted to try this. Two years ago I had a student whose dad owned a blueprint shop. He gave me a large bottle of super strength ammonia. I had bought an ammonia respirator in preparation for the job.

I build a simple tent from pine scraps and then stapled plastic to the outside.

I donned long sleeves, my respirator, chemical gloves, and goggles.

I poured two bowls of ammonia.

and stuck them under the tent.


The color change happened almost immediately.

We kept watch over it and then after about 3.5 hours we removed the tent.

I poured the spent ammonia into a large bucket of water.

I took the piece back to the shop to air out for the night. That stuff is wicked! Even with a respirator.

In the finewoodworking article, author Kevin Rodel indicates that the final finish will darken the piece while warming it up.

We will see. I plan on shellac and dark wax.

Fir Joists! Yeah..

Fir Joists
Originally uploaded by gizmodyne

My neighbor is rebuilding his porch and for reasons I don't understand replaced the original douglas fir joists with new ones.

So I sauntered over with request.

There are 2 x 6's about 14' long.

In total over 50 board feet or old growth doug fir. Sweet.

The collection grows!

Roycroftian Repair

Catch up
This is a project I started from quartersawn white oak scraps about three years ago. However, I got involved in other things, so it has been bouncing around in storage getting slightly damaged during the interim. I took it out to inspect it and start the finishing process; aka actually completing the piece.

This is from “More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture” by Robert Lange. The Little Journey’s Bookstand was originally made by Roycroft to to hold a set of books called “Little Journey’s”. (I have a set of the books now… thanks to ebay).

I used the project to prepare for making a large dining table that is not finished yet either. This was the first time I cut through mortises and angled through mortises. For a small project there is a lot of hand work, 16 though-mortises, besides the eight housed mortise and tenon joints. I also hand chamfered the tenon ends. I drew out a full size pattern for the foot.

Figure Faults
Time for inspection. I still liked the overall piece and most of the wood selection. The top in particular I remember book matching.

I was not very happy with my some of the workwork. At the time I built this, I had only been woodworking for about a year.

Here were some of the problems…

The tenons were too deep to cut out with a tablesaw, So I cut them on the bandsaw, freehand. Unfortunately I nicked the actual shelf.

You can also see that the shoulder is not sitting flush to the leg.

Also seen here…

Corrections
A new friend who is also a pro woodworker came by and I was showing him some of the problems I found in thei piece. He gave me a bit of good advice to fix the bandsaw nick. “Trim the entire shelf,” he said. He then gave me a great reminder that it is often easier to have an offset than to try to get parts flush.

So yesterday I knocked down the project and began by trimming both shelves.

I then decided that I now had the knowledge and skills to better square the tenon shoulders along the ends of the shelf.
I used a crosscut sled to square the shoulders closest to the shelf edges. I should have done that the first time!
(no pic)

Then to handle the middle section (between the tenons), I clamped on a straight edge t-square and got out the flush trim bit.

I routed the middle section flush staying away from the tenons.

I chiseled the corners clean.

Since I had changed the tenon depth, I had to recut some of the trough mortices deeper.

I have a few more to go, but was very pleased with the repairs so far. Check out the fit of the shelf shoulders now….

Next up
A few more mortises and re-sanding.