Showing posts with label a. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a. Show all posts
Thursday, February 13, 2014
a double pedestal oval table
this table is heading to california tomorrow. its been in the works for a while and we had a small glitch when it came to the final finish color . its a totally new color and today, will said weve got to get more of this stain ... it was hard to photograph, and how it reads is sensitive to how your monitor is set. its a really warm orange brown color .. click the photos to enlarge them.
close up
earthquake handles .. i did mention california, didn;t i?
the clients original photoshopped image
birds eye view
there was some talk about earthquakes, (the client lives north of san francisco), and earthquake handles, which turn out to be something to hold onto if you have to get under the table in the event of the earthquake, the design work proceeded and eventually we struck a deal.
handle and base layout
after a rough cut with the jigsaw, trevor used the template and a top bearing flush cut bit to rout the table to final shape and add the aprons and stiffeners 
then, using the cnc, he cut the patterns for the base pieces. on the original table, the pieces that ran the length of the table were longer than the ones that ran across the table. after some study though, we decided that with two pedestals, the bases should be all the same.
bandsaw, sand, bandsaw, sand ... repeat as necessary.
fit it up ...
interesting shapes upside down too ..
base only
with chairs
early on, we tried oval vs. racetrack ... oval won ...
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Never Take A Coin At Face Value
The image below is of a pretty beaten up coin that is actually a French 10 Centimes bronze coin from 1855. The unidentifiable imprint on it is an eagle with his head turned to the right while it clutches a quiver of arrows. The inscription, “Empire Francais Dix Centimes” that is embossed around the circumference translates as, “French Empire Ten Cents”.
Based on the condition as seen here, the value of this 145-year-old coin is about a buck.
The value of this coin, however, is based on which side you look at. Flip it over and its value shoots up 10,000% because stamped into the face of this coin is; “Mitchell, Saw Maker, Brighton”.
So what was ol’ Henry up to defacing Emperor Napoleon the III’s coins?
He was creating a “coupon”.
While throughout history, men have been putting one stamp or another in coins, during the latter half of the 19th century, this practice became a very common practice in commerce.
While the basis of offset printing was invented by Gutenberg way back in 1452, it was an extremely labour-intensive process, as was the paper that was printed. These two facts conspired to cause printing for basic advertising to be beyond the financial grasp of the average shop owner. While the Linotype machine was invented in 1886, it did not come into widespread use until the beginning of the 20th century.
The Linotype machine was a pretty fascinating piece of work, for those of you that are interested in machinery. Using a keyboard, the “Compositor” would punch in the text. The machine would then use that information to assemble a line of text using molds of each letter, called “matrices”, setting them side by side as needed. The machine would then cast that mold into a “slug”, which was one line of set text. It then assembled the slugs in the “galley”, assembling them in the required order so as to define the story. When the printing was completed, the slugs were melted down and the material used again for the next run.
Added to this labour saver was the cost cutting in the manufacturing of paper, switching from the standard practice of using linen fiber to using wood pulp.
So all of this helped reduce the cost of printing at the beginning of the 20th century, but that didn’t help poor ol’ Henry back in about 1870. In his shop on North Street in Brighton, he was producing everything from ultimate braces to saws, but remember, this was the latter half of the 19th century. One of his complex molding planes with a single blade would sell for less than 75 cents. To bring up his volume so he could purchase stock at better prices, Henry had to advertise.
Like many small businesses at the time, Henry turned to “Counterstamping” coins. Because it was against the law to deface the British currency, Henry brought in hundreds of 10centimes coins from France and beat the hell out of those. He then handed them out as change to put them back into circulation in the hopes that they would find their way to someone in need of a joining tool. When the coins were presented to Henry back at the shop, he would give the bearer credit for the value of the coin, worth about 3 British pennies. By todays standards, given the price of hand-made wood planes, that would equal a $30 to $45 discount, not a value to sneeze at.
I purchased this coin from Rich Hartzog who operates World Exonumia, a dealer in historical coins, medals and tokens. It is purported to have once been a part of Dr. Gregory G. Brunk’s collection, Dr. Bunk being a noted authority on counterstamped coins. Mr. Hartzog has published some of Dr. Brunk’s books on counterstamped coins and is currently assembling the second update of Brunk’s title, “Merchant and Privately Countermarked Coins”. From the research I have done, I do not believe there are too many of ol’ Henry’s French francs left.
While there is the acceptance that this coin has two values; one as a French 10centimes coin and the other as a Merchant’s form of advertising, I am hoping there is a third value to it now. Adding it to my small but growing collection of H.E. Mitchell planes and I am hoping it might have just increased the value of the whole lot by more than the value of the coin. That was the rational behind its purchase, but only time will tell if it is a workable one.
Profitable or not, I have spent a number of enjoyable hours this week researching the history of these coins and in doing so, I learned a bit more about ol’ Henry Mitchell. He was obviously a bit of a hustler.
Peace,
Mitchell
Monday, February 10, 2014
Squaring up a board
Rough boards need to be squared up before they can be used in our project. Here it is my method.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
A Rack For Her Glue Gun Part II
With everything milled, the Dominos cut and the tile recesses made, it was time for the initial glue up. I glued up the four (4) side of box which forms the rear glue stick storage compartment. Then I glued the extra long walnut side and rear ebony block to it.
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| Still a bit too square for my taste. |
Next I began the shaping, as I wanted to make sure I was able to work the edge I would no longer be able to reach after final glue up. The shaping was, of course, the hard and the fun part of the project. It was the first project I was able to use my Foredom rotary tool on. Using a Kutzall bit, it made quick work of the walnut and ebony. I still used my rasps for final shaping, but the Foredom was much, much faster for the rough work.
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| The glue stick caddy, post shaping. |
Once I’d done about 70% of the shaping, I glued the sub assemblies to the base. As you may have guesses, I joined everything with Dominos. This made for easy, quick and strong joints between the vertical components and the base.
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| Flaring the curved verticals into the base was easy. |
The final shaping could now be done. I used my Festool RAS 115 to blend the shaped side of the base into the shaped side of the verticals. I learned from Andy Chidwick that using a hard platen on the RAS 115 with a 40 grit sanding disc allows you to use the sander like a grinder with better dust control and more finesse. As I had with the Foredom, I followed up the RAS 115 with rasps.
With the shaping done, I dealt with the small gap that was left between the ebony and walnut on the front piece. The glue up hadnt been perfect and there was about a 1/16” gap at the top of the joint. To fill it I dyed some 5 minute epoxy with India Ink. This created Epoxy almost the exact color of the ebony.
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| Just a touch of black epoxy made the gap disappear (I know I messed up the order). |
After the shaping, I had to deal with the coarse texture.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
a snowless winter so far
this time last year, we had about 20 inches on the ground and were bracing for what the weather man promised would be a big one. this year, no snow ... this is my 41st winter in vermont, and while i remember others with not much snow, or with snow on the ground for only part of the winter, i never remember getting to the middle of february without having my driveway plowed once. its just too weird ... they say the skiings good and from a distance, it does look like the snowmaking works. but in the photo below, that should all be white. when i was at stratton two weeks ago, except for the trails, there was no snow in the woods ... too weird.
the view of stratton from big bromley, about 10 miles or so to the south.
above is my backyard last sunday, and it still looks the same today. flakeless ...
the mosses are fascinating though ...
theres a little ice on the pond that comes and goes, but the strange thing is that most winters itis frozen from mid december to late march and this year the duckweed is still green ...
not a flake in front of the shop door ...
and not a snowdrift in the parking lot. it made me think about the new metalshop that is in the wish/plan/finance/early permit/estimate phase ... might happen; might not .. well see ...
early design phase ...
the dirt road was frozen and my convertible is in my neighbors heated garage while he is in florida, and it was sooo sunny, i went for a ride ... top up, though the sun was tempting.
one more moss and frost picture ... maybe more tomorrow ...
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