Covid Production

The decision was made to have Ken host the various elements of the lobby build-out.  Mike brought in the elliptical front counter so we could fit our parts to it.

By the way, please check out Robin's stunning beeswax and string art you can see here on the walls.
Here

Mike decked out in approved coverings.
Ken, not so much.

Mike demonstrating to me a drawing jig he made so I could draw the same ellipse he did.  Ken apparently digging out a splinter!!!!!

The production schedule for install has been waylayed and not because of the Virus.  Legs and whatnot waiting.

Ken asks me if I've seen his upstairs.....well, yes of course.  He takes me upstairs anyway to see how all the other things are being stored pending the schedule opening up.

One of the interesting things about this shot is how Ken constructed the bed in situ and how the roof truss goes through the bed.

Light it like film

With eight heads

With 13 C-stands

And then bring it in and swing your hammer in the Photo Shop.

Bonus points for knowing which Bay Area rapper I stole the last sentence from.

WoodNWine

Waiting on some verbal closure with the designer so I can move to another medium.  Each thing that gets placed in front of the camera takes some back and forth between it and me in order to understand what it needs.  Or how to make it do what I want.

I've been working the wine on wood for the past few days and before breaking down the set and putting up copper I'm waiting to hear some feedback.

So far this wood is being somewhat elusive. I'm thinking it's a Chestnut but that's just a guess.  My wood book says it might be a Golden Chestnut in the Beech Family. The book also lists it as "California Chinquapin" but it is a book from the late 1800's and I've never heard of a Chinquapin.

 Photographs real nice with conventional lighting but I want to make it more like this.

Not to say the conventional lighting wasn't good but it bugs me when I can see something with the eye but not with the camera.  It's a matter of working it enough to know what it needs.

Back near where the lens is.

I take a break and look at how the afternoon light goes through one of Ben Dombey's shot glasses.

Now this wood just falls on the paper as we used to say when printing negatives on enlargers.

Shooting copper requires different techniques.  One of the first mantras in the photography school I went was "Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection".  And that's exactly what copper needs.

From Here to There

Always takes me a couple of acclimation days to go from moving things this size

To using tweezers to move things this size.

But boy, it does feel nice.  From the physicality of size and strength, from the loud noises to composing things in your head, light and shadow and the sound of music from the speakers.
I feel blessed to be able to move between the worlds.

#8 / Holding Together [Union]

As I was processing these photos I was thinking how I was moving forward during this world wide sitting still moment in time.
I picked up my I Ching to read up on those two movements and opened up the book to #8 Pi/Holding Together [Union].  That's how the Wilhelm/Baines translation translates it.

It speaks to the hexagram as a requirement "that we unite with others, in order that all may complement and aid one another through holding together."

Well, how appropriate is that?  It does go on to speak of a need of a strong central figure with greatness of spirit and strength that others could rally around....well, how inappropriately appropriate is that?
Barring the strong wise leader appearing then relationships must be formed around inner laws of common experiences...
Need I say how appropriate is that?


But to get back to what was going through the mind as I was working on the photos.  Though we may be all sitting still, I think we're still moving forward.  Like a leaf on a stream that really doesn't move much, the water carries it, when it hits a rock, it just moves around it.

Shot the first go round of shellac on the pieces for the wine job.

Set those aside to harden so I could do the first sanding on them.  Worked on the stuff for the apartment building lobby.
Running some 60 linear feet through the drum sander.

At this very moment while waiting for the end of the day to approach so I can put the first coat of finish on them.

Bonus pic.

Took the longest time for me to figure out what this was after downloading it from the camera.  And I was the one that photo-ed it.
Figured out though, they're seeds in a container with plastic wrap over them to get them started.

I've said it before

I don't like finishing.
Don't know anybody who does.  I'm sure they are out there, but I haven't met one yet.
And I knew some in the business of the finishing business.  They both drank a lot.

This piece became so unwieldy I had to dismantle the living room to work on it, you can see the rolled up rug next to the CD earthquake moment frame.

Anyway, this one is in the books.

Bonus pics of life crawling up a newly made trellis and four leftover triangles from the above project made into one square.  The square hole in the middle turned out to be the perfect size to tap and screw onto the earthquake bolts on the outside.

Just a note for the young(er) type readers and for those who may read this in the distant future.  There used to be a time in the not distant past that having big knots with holes and sapwood show was a definite no-no.  Especially with walnut and the other domestic furniture woods.  But not only have tastes and acceptability change but the availability of clear and wide wood is getting more difficult.  Yes, slabs are in current vogue but come with their own defects.  Now we or maybe I welcome the defects, the sapwood, the knots and the holes.  They are of the tree and are to be accepted.

Sawdust Everywhere

One consequence of living inside of where you work, is what you're working on is everywhere where you live.
Like sawdust if you're working on wood.  And that is what I'm working on at the moment and for another month at least.  And the next job, a large wine job involves me working on wood too.
It's real hard to contain and confine the wood shavings and wood dust.  It just gets everywhere.
They, they being the winery, loved what I did before with rich wood surfaces and backgrounds so I thought I would up my game and make another trip out to Arborica to pick up some more interesting pieces.

There's a section in the sawmill/lumberyard they call "Chunk World."  Anything in Chunk World is $5 if you can pick it up.  If you need the forklift to come over, it's $150.  I brought back some large sections of Cypress and some Eucalyptus from the Chunk area.
I bandsawed one chunk into smaller sections that I'll use somehow or somewhere.

Before sanding

From the Wall of Anomalies I picked up four strange things.  $40 each.

Two of them on the right, planed and sanded so far.

Two I couldn't tell the species they were so covered in stuff that obscured the surface.
One turned out to be Chestnut.


This one turned out to be Walnut and this is what it looked like at the beginning.
Warped and cracked, just the way I like.

Before sanding.

Partially breaking through the outside.

And then the WoW! when some denatured alcohol is splashed over the sanded surface.  Both sides are spectacular.

And popped the big money for this what Evan called an experiment of waxing the face  and letting it dry and bubble.  Crazy cool, not really sure how or where I end up using this but I had to have it.

The black horizontal bands can be scrapped off somewhat so the surface will be more visually homogeneous.  You can see some of the chunks of things left of the liquor cabinet.

Evan calls it GatorWood.  It's on my bench now sitting and waiting for me to do something to it.

At the same time, things are progressing on the furniture type work for the lobby of a new apartment building going up in SF.

Starting to figure out which boards go where in this 25' long bar top.

Gluing.  This was a multiple glue up because there are three spokes that come out at right angles which complicated everything.  And I made a new pushblock and of course I needed to sign it.

Mortises in the spokes and with tenons.

 The piece of Chestnut can be seen in the background.

The second part of the glue up, fitting the spokes as well

It's real nice to be able to crosscut a 13' on the tablesaw and have the cut to be like silk.

Gluing on the spokes tomorrow on this.

And this is just the beginning of having dust everywhere.