Consequence of Workmanship

 Committing to a chisel chamfer

I bought both of David Pye's seminal books on Stewart Brand's recommendation probably 1972 and they're both still rumbling around in my head.(One is missing at this point). On design and workmanship. 
You can jig or machine everything up and get repeated results or you can trust (and live with) doing things in a way that will show your handwork.
I jig and machine the crap out of stuff, no worries.  But there are times when I want to live and die by a couple degree dip of a chisel or a commitment to strike the center of something in one strike.

On the first piece of furniture I built for J&D, I had rasped some what I thought looked like stylized tree roots in the bottom of the legs.  They wanted the same detail on the Iron Bark Kimono.  I did it again this time but wanted them to be more from the hand so how they came off the gouge is how they will be.  One proved to have gotten the best of me and so it shall stand as my failure.

The chiseled chamfers on the curves

From this morning.

The drawer dovetails.  Half blind in front, through in the back.
Cut them on the WoodRat.  I know you won't know what that is.  Nobody does which I can't understand but there are those objects that are so sublime but which nobody can see.  The WoodRat is one of them.
You dance with it.  It's a machine, it's a jig but at the same time there is a consequence of workmanship involved.  It's not rote, it's intuitively fluid and light.  It's so sublime it twists your head to see things differently.

The template (which you make) is on the left, the piece you're cutting is on the right.  They are tied together.  Move one, the other moves the same distance.
You judge where things are with your eye.

A trial piece to see if your calculations are correct.

Drawer fronts, sides as they come off.

Starting to chisel rounded corners to become sharp corners.

Finished drawer fronts.  Glue up tomorrow.

Edit.
Glued up one of the drawers last night.  This is straight out of the clamps.  A teensy tiny gap on the top half tail but once it gets finished you won't even see that.  The rest of what you see is a shadow around the tails and pins.

Lost Faith or Faith Lost?

My Cross

Four tapered sliding dovetails in the legs.

I deeply deeply believed I could do.  I had the faith.  Waiting for the school bus one morning in early winter in Beavercreek, Ohio, I knew I could run fast enough to run across a thinly frozen very small pond without breaking through.  With all my heart I believed I could.  It was first or second grade.  I backed up, I saw myself running so fast that my feet barely touched the ice.  I ran and went to school that day with wet muddy shoes and pants.

I kept the faith though.  Now we all know that wood contracts and expands according to humidity and temperature.  Everybody believes that.  I went through a phase where I didn't think those laws of wood pertained to me.  I built furniture without taking in account the age old wisdom that says you must build around the notion that the wood will move on you.
And you know what?  That stuff I built back then when I had the faith has stuck to my faith.  The dining table that Taylor has now should have had the joints opened up but nothing has moved.  A mitered breadboard on a 3 foot wide solid piece of wood?  Those miters are supposed have been ripped apart by now with seasonal shifts.
They are as tight today as they were almost 30 years ago.  I had the faith.

I've lost it now.  Maybe it lost me.  Dunno.

Either way, I'm going to extraordinary lengths with the Iron Bark Kimono to bow down to the immutable laws of wood.

The wood I'm working with came from the same tree, having been cut apart into brothers and sisters.
And damn, this is one beautiful but dysfunctional family.  They are all shouting loudly at each other, trying to make themselves heard over the other.  I'm like the referee in the middle of a 3 way incestuous mud wrestling match.  Clothes are being ripped off, more and more skin is showing.  Gorgeous skin, glistening skin, supple skin but man, what angst it takes getting there.

Five Year Tradition

Five years ago, Taylor and I started a new tradition.

We were born on days that are real close together on the calendar and decided we should have our portraits taken during our birthday week.  Every five years so it coincides with the "big" numbers.
Five years ago I turned 60, she 25.  This time she turned 30 and me 65.

So five years ago we met in the Mission at Clooney's Pub and had more than a few then walked down to Michael Shindler's studio to have a tintype done.  One each.

Last week we met at The Broken Record in what I would call The Outer Mission, others may disagree with me on that geographical nomenclature.  Very nice whisky program there by the way and then down to Kari Orvik's studio.  Sitting right on top of the human condition known as the corner of Mission and Geneva, with whirling fans and a sunset, we sat again.

Just love how real and immediate tintypes are.  The plate you shoot with is the plate you take home.
And there's no hiding what you look like.  Kari did a beautiful job making sure who you see is who we are.

This five year's are still in the black paper, I need to make a couple frames like I did last time.

We talked about how to carry on the tradition after I'm gone....I may have three, maybe four, more sittings in me.
We have a plan.

The Slow Grain Movement

Use your favorite search engine (I don't Google, I DuckDuckGo things) to find out more.
Search terms...."Carol Koebbeman" "Cut Matching Curves"

The wood for the Iron Bark Kimono will wrap around from side to front to side.  There's a slow S curve in the grain that I want to follow.  Rather than forcing a straight joint I want to join the wood following somewhat the natural flow of the grain.
The Slow Grain Movement is here.

Years ago I remembered reading an article about routing matching curves and took a short tour of the internet to find it.
Basically you construct two templates.  The first template is used the make a perfectly matching mirror template.  Rout one side with the first template, rout the other side with the second and they should match perfectly.  Whatever perfect may mean when working with wood.

Roughly cut the curve into a 1/4"MDF, hot glue down blocks, hot glue a thin strip of MDF onto the blocks.

The first three blocks are used so the curve is smooth.  You then start to glue in more blocks around the curve.  This is the first side done.

Clamp another thin strip of MDF to the first template making sure it is tight to the first curve.

Another piece of MDF (the other side of the roughly cut first piece) and hot glued blocks and you're done.

Visually aligning the the two templates on the wood.

Don't have any "action" shots of the routing.  Did not expect such a nice match from the technique but upon first flipping the two boards into position, they just fell right together.  They are not being glued in this shot, just looking at the joint.
Thank you Carol Koebbeman.

Bonus pics!!!!
Laying out the legs.

John and Tony singin' and playin'

Death Tomatoestars

Drying food for the annual (but didn't happen last year) solo trip to Death Valley that's coming up.
Tomatoes from the community garden on the corner.

And as a gift to the planet I'm going to show you the eclipse in order to save the vast amount of resources people will be using to travel to see it.  Stay home.

Now wasn't that better?

Pahl@PaulKirchnasm

As I remember It.
Missoula
Dark almost Night
Throwing glow in the dark frisbee
On LSD

As I remember it.
Throw back head laughing
Giddy at the
Tracers that lasted like lifetimes.
Free Free Free

As I remember it.
Gary Pahl with Angular nose.
Came close, nose dynamically tilted.
Said to me.
"You put people down in order to build yourself up."
A Tracer that has lasted a lifetime.
"You put people down in order to build yourself up."
Man-o-Man Nose-o-Nose he said it

Maybe that was first lesson to learn.
And relearn
And still learning.

As I remember It.

Sounds are the real words
Pahl@Paul



The room was bare, pushed the window open wide.
Chaos becomes Calm,

Sounds
Take care of chaos
Take care a chaos

Sounds
Take care of calm
Take care a calm

Madrone Maybe

I spent the day sitting in a chair that rolls around, looking at the wood.  And flipping the wood front to back.  Took some photos, cut them up in Photoshop and made the piece of furniture that way.  Thinking I might need one more slightly different species.
Madrone ranges from Vancouver Island down to Central California.  Hugs the coast all the way.
Native Americans ate the berries, used them in cider, made medicinal tea from the bark, leaves and bark used to treat various low scale aliments. 
I have had this large slab of Madrone for years sitting in my wood museum.  It's twisted all to hell.  Madrone is apparently hard to dry without lots of waste.  I'm thinking though with some finesse applied that I can get it flat and straight.
The color might really look nice next to the Eucalyptus...a darker red but in the same family.