Getting it Down on Paper.

At the close of the last post, I'd made some choices in figure placement that greatly lessened the amount of Birch I had left for the Gretchin's Cradle. Luckily, one of the few things I like to shop for is wood. I can spend hours milling through the selections at Jensen's Hardwoods. Like I mentioned before, it's the happiest place on the earth..for me. Several months before I had gone up with several hundred dollars burning a hole in my pocket and picked up some what I can only describe as leopard spotted Claro Walnut,

a book-matched set of crotch figured Elm,

a beautiful piece of Cherry

 and some nice straight grain Black Walnut. Like many of my shopping adventures, I shopped until I ran out of cash in pocket. None of these boards was purchased with any particular use in mind. They're just nice boards.

When thinking about how to move forward on Gretchin's Cradle, I thought that if I'm going to get into a different wood anyway, I'm going to go for contrast. One option would've been the Cherry, as it darkens with exposure to the sun, but not quite the contrast I was looking for and I'd already claimed that for one of my "ongoing" projects, the Guild Shaker Table Build (more on that at a later date). The prominent figure in the crotch and flame Birch would clash against leopard Claro. Even though my wife has to pick out my clothes, I DO know stripes don't go with spots. At least I don't think they do. Garanimals anyone? I have a "grown up" version. So, the straight grained Black Walnut had to step up. Since it was straight grained, I thought I would try my hand at bent wood lamination. It's a technique I had seen many time and figured, what the heck, it can't be too hard.

The first thing was to come up with a design. After a whole lot of sketching, I had this on paper.

As I have yet to learn SketchUp, I'm still doing thing the "old school" way. The good thing is I actually love to sketch. This sketch shows that you don't have to be an artist to sketch designs. This part of the process probably took me the majority of my evenings for a week and by the following weekend, I was ready to start figuring out how to do my first bentwood lamination. I'll cover that in the next installment as well as how I have my band saw set up for resawing. Enjoy the week!! I hope you get lots of shop time!

Sacrifices - Figure Placement Dictates Design, or The Beginning of an Organic Design. Gretchin's Cradle - Part Two

As I mentioned in the last post on Gretchin's Cradle, this ended up being more of an "organic design process". There is probably an actual design term for how this design came about, but since I don't have any formal design training, I'll stick with "organic". The basic idea is that I let opportunities and problems guide my decisions through out the entire design process.

In designing a project, one aspect that is often overlooked is the specific use and highlighting of the grain or figure in a board. Many times a design is decided upon and, although the boards are chosen for their general color or characteristics, when its time to cut you are just trying to get the most efficiency or parts out of that lumber. This is where I've seen good pieces of furniture separated from great pieces of furniture. Sometimes, you just have to make the sacrifice.

When I first purchased the lumber for this project, the basic plan was very similar to Tim Clark's cradle. I had used perspective drawing in combination with a print of his cradle to get my starting dimensions. I wasn't planning a full set of drawings, only a few basic dimensions. There are numerous articles on how to cull building plans by using perspective design along with photographs to find all the pertinent dimensions of a full set of drawings. I can revisit this in the future if you are interested.

I planned on the entire build from the two Birch boards I had purchased. The "problem/opportunity" I encountered was that, by putting the crotch grain in the most pleasing orientation and position, I would be cutting from the center of the board and no longer be able to get the trestle ends from this piece of Birch.

This photo shows how the crotch grain dictated the fall on the sides of the head of the cradle and the movement of grain the subsequent rise toward the foot. The bottom of the cradle sides were taken from a piece further down the same board.

Now that I knew I wasn't getting the entire build out of these two boards, I had some decisions to make. In the next several installments of the Gretchin's Cradle build, we'll get into some of my options and where those took me and the build.

Enjoy the week!!

Marketing Genius - An Energy Efficiency Post

Two weeks ago, my co-hort at work attended an energy efficiency marketing conference and came back with this among the many other great tidbits. The link is to Heatballs!! That's right folks...HEAT BALLS!!! You know you want 'em, you know you need 'em. Coming up in 2012 incandescent light bulbs over 60 watts will no longer be available for sale. The reason for the change is to put a limit on how inefficient a light bulb (lamp) can be. This is also the death of the fat tube T12 fluorescent lamps.

This company and the genius behind it decided to see how they could get around the new efficacy rules and I believe they will succeed. Hey, if the Eden Pure, which is a light bulb in a box can sell for hundreds of dollars, why not Heat Balls!?! They are, after all, 95% efficient. The 5% being lost in light!!

Timberwerks Studio: A Year In The Life Of:

Timberwerks Studio: A Year In The Life Of:: "For 2011 I'd like to invite you all in for a glimpse of what a year in the life of a furniture maker is really like....

This is a rare opportunity! Dale Osowski (DJO Furniture Maker) creates some beautiful pieces. That he is willing to share his experience and those around him with us, is a treat! Check out his post and his work.

The Happiest Place On Earth

No, it's not Disneyland, it's my lumber supplier. My wife, Sylvia, accompanied me on a recent road trip to Jensen Hardwoods in Walla Walla, WA. Jensen Hardwoods is about 45 minutes away in one of my favorite little towns in Eastern Washington. Walla Walla is the "new" wine country, at least that's what my wife and best friend tell me. I'm partial to good beer.

On this particular trip, we were shopping for a new cradle I was building for my best friend since 6th grade and his wife's new baby. As of this post, the baby should be here any day!!! I can't wait to meet him. Sadly, they are choosing not to name him after me. Go figure!

The name of this project is Gretchin's Cradle, after the beautiful woman for which it was built. To start the design process, I emailed Gretchin about 12 different images of cradles from the internet, to get a feel for what she would like. She settled on this image, a cradle built by Timothy Clark. Once we had that settled, I contacted Tim to make sure he was OK with me using his design as the start for mine. This is a subject that is discussed quite a bit in the woodworking forums and magazines. I believe strongly that original designers should be credited even if they are merely the main source of inspiration for a piece. I do understand however that many designs are unknowingly influenced and in that instance, no harm, no foul. But, if you are aware of specific influences, definitely give credit where it's due.

The following are some shots of the boards early on in the design and build.

One aspect of this design which was quite fun, was that it was a constantly changing design. I think of it as organic designing. You start with an idea of where you think you'd like to go and tweak things along the way. In the coming posts, I'll try to convey that concept in a bit more detail.