Our first combined “At the Shop” entry is due to the fact that we are so busy I feel like pulling my hair out at times! We have two dining tables, a kitchen, 115′ of bookshelves, a wine rack, and old wooden English phone booth refinishing job in the works! All for a shop that [...]
With the feet mortised and curved, and the column mortised, and all parts thoroughly sanded, I joined all the parts using loose tenons and glue. All three feet were glued on at the same time. A few pin nails held each of them securely in place while the glue dried. After the feet dried overnight [...]
This week marked the beginning of the kitchen remodel job. We began turning the 18 sheets of melamine into 13 cabinet boxes! We began the project on Monday morning, and so far, thanks to careful planning, everything has gone smoothly. Also, last weekend I was at my parents house and was speaking to my mother [...]
In stark contrast to the previous few weeks, this past week was a veritable circus! Last week I sent out a press release to three local papers talking about the way J. Alexander Fine Woodworking was joining the age-old skill of woodworking with the latest Web 2.0 tools to create a much more rich and [...]
This is an easel design that was brought to me back in July. At the time I said that I couldn’t do it because of the intricate carving work necessary. The customer then came back to me about a month ago and asked again if I could do it. After a bit of internet searching [...]
This is going to be short because the past week was pretty quiet. We didn’t do much work on designing any furniture for our custom line because yours truly had little to no artistic creativity or inspiration, and I have found that trying to force oneself to be creative is a futile effort. Neither did [...]
The last week has been a bit slow for J. Alexander Fine woodworking. We are attributing it to being such a young pup in the custom furniture market and that pesky little thing, the national economy. Even so, we do have things to report from this past week’s activities. Shop Projects As mentioned last week, [...]
Yet another new feature to the blog! Every Friday we will be posting a nice and concise recap of everything that went on in the shop and the office during the previous five days. Whether it is a shop project, a customer’s job, design work, or some aspect of the business end of things, here [...]
After dry fitting the pieces, they were sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and glue together. After the glue had dried, it was time to wipe on a a couple coats of tung oil. The tung oil really brought out the shimmering qualities of the Sapele and darkened the Walnut, contrasting the colors of the two [...]
As I mentioned in the prior post, I was planning on using Walnut for the rails and stiles and Mahogany for the corner blocks. Well, that all changed once I milled up the Mahogany! It was an absolutely boring piece of wood. No unique grain pattern! No depth of color! No Nothing! It was quite [...]