Table For One Drink

Happy New Year!!! Here's a very small custom end table I completed last month for a customer in New York City. He wanted a table with a top only large enough to hold one drink. The base is carved cherry, a smaller variation on a side table I did years ago. The table is 19" high, and the top is a 5" x 8" oval in dark green Vermont Verde Antique marble from Rochester, Vermont.

I really love this verde marble. It only comes from one spot in Vermont, a small quarry in Rochester, right over the mountain from me. It has beautiful rich green tones, with lots of depth and detail when taken to a fine polish. I'm totally hooked on it, so stay tuned for more designs from me using this marble.

Click the images to enlarge.

www.DavidHurwitzOriginals.com

8th Annual Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking Festival

The Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers participated in the Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking Festival as they have done for the past eight years.

The show was held at the Union Arena at Woodstock High School on September 24^th and 25^th. The spacious Guild booth displayed the newest and finest work made by the top furniture makers living and working in Vermont. Many of the Guild members from around the state brought their custom furniture to display, including George Ainley, Jas. Becker, Hugh Belton, Dave Boynton, Kit Clark, Johns Congdon, Chris Ericson, Bob Gasperetti, Erin Hanley, William Laberge, Mario Messina and Walt Stanley.

Top Honors: first, second and third in the Festival's Design Competition, Custom and Studio Furniture Category went to Guild members.

Johns Congdon of Charlotte, VT was awarded First Place for his Alienor Desk. Johns wife, Giovanna Brunini Congdon, designed the desk, Johns built the desk. The desk is named for the famed Alienor of Aquitaine, a powerful woman of the Middle Ages. The desk uses a strong and elegant sculptural silhouette utilizing intensely figured Sapele Pomelle veneer to make its statement. Johns used traditional mortise and tenon and dovetailed construction and applied the finish of shellac polished with wax. The piece is accented with custom solid silver pulls and feet.

First Place - Johns Congdon's Alienor Desk

Johns Congdon's Alienor Desk Close-up

Mario Messina of Fairfax, VT was awarded Second Place for his Japanese inspired Abacus-Soroban Table. The table is constructed with mitered dovetails, mortise and tenon and breadboard joinery. Mario chose the combination of Spalted Maple, ebonized Mahogany, Wenge and granite beach pebbles for his award-winning table.

Second Place - Mario Messina's Abacus-Soroban Table

Mario Messina's Ababus-Soroban Table Close Up

David Hurwitz of Randolph, VT was awarded Third Place for his State of Craft Console Table. David’s design of this piece included the use of carved Vermont Ash, painted Poplar and Tamo, Japanese Quilted Ash for the top. David was invited to exhibit a piece in the “State of Craft” exhibit at the Bennington Museum in 2010 and this was the piece he built for that exhibit.

Third Place - David Hurwitz's State of Craft Console Table


David Hurwitz's State of Craft Console Table Close Up

In addition to placing work for display in the Guild booth, several members had a booth featuring just their furniture. Members with individual booths include: Jas. Becker, Timothy Clark, Janet A. Collins, David Hurwitz, Bob Gasperetti, William Laberge, Maguire Family Furniture Makers, Charles Shackleton and Walt Stanley.

In spite of the sagging economy and recent storm damage in Vermont, the Eighth Annual Fine Furniture and Woodworking Festival was a success for the members of the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers, not only in capturing First, Second and Third place in the Design Competition, but also in the number of sales reported and orders received for custom pieces of furniture.

Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers Facebook Page

Become a friend of the Guild on Facebook..........


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Guild-of-Vermont-Furniture-Makers/156352884444866?sk=wall

Guild Show of New Work and Furniture in Brattleboro

What has become an annual show for the Guild members is now under way at the Vermont Artisan Designs and Gallery 2 in Brattleboro, VT. Several members of the Guild have new work on display throughout the month of August and September. The exhibit includes walnut and cherry mirrors, cherry side chairs, cherry and ash side chairs,walnut queen size bed, Shaker style clocks, walnut rocking chair and curly maple rocking chairs, cherry, walnut and maple side tables, walnut coffee tables, standing cabinets and maybe even a sideboard! All pieces are available for sale and each maker can build that special piece in your choice of wood; cherry, maple, ash, walnut, curly maple or a combination of woods.

Here are just a few of the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers participating in this year's show:

Chris Ericson of South Newfane, VT has created this original upholstered queen-size bed for this year's show. A quick visit to the gallery is advised if interested in this custom made bed as the bed he made for the show last year sold early! Tim Clark of Waltham, VT has his signature cherry and ash side chair on display at the show. Bob Gasperetti of Mount Tabor, VT has placed a rocking chair and hall table in the show.The McGuire Family Furniture Makers of Isle La Motte, VT have included table and chairs and their signature Shaker curly maple clocks. In addition, there will be one lucky person that will walk away with a free mirror! Visitors to the gallery are asked to vote for "best in show" and a drawing from the entries will be made at the close of the show.

Plan on visiting the Guild Show on the first Friday of the month for the next Gallery Walk on September 2nd.

Please visit the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers Summer Exhibit which is open from August 5 to September 22, 2011. The Vermont Artisan Designs & Gallery 2 is located at 106 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT. 802-257-7044.

Compass Star Inlay

Ever since my days as a student of furniture making, I have been intrigued by the Compass Star or as some say, Compass Rose inlay. As a student, I remember spending many a spare moment at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, standing in front of the tall mahogany secretary desk adorned with several inlaid compass stars. This form of inlay, originated in England, was popular between 1730-1750. It was first introduced in Boston, Charlestown to be exact, by a cabinetmaker named Ebenezer Hartshorn. Probate records have Ebenezer working as a cabinetmaker between 1729 and 1743. It was his secretary desk that I stood at, in awe of the inlay into the mahogany doors of the case.
My first attempt at this style of inlay as a student and I remember it took me a full 8 hours to complete,and that didn't include the prep of the material. I have since become a bit faster and it now only takes me about 2.5 hours to inlay one star the same size as the first (7" x 12").
The inlay material is traditionally holly and rosewood, two distinctly different colors, perfect for the contrast. Over the years I have tried many combinations of contrasting wood. A suggestion is to use two contrasting wood of the same hardness/density. The inlay material is prepared by planing the two contrasting woods to the same thickness and gluing them together. The center line of the two becomes one of your references when inlaying the wood.
The strips are ripped on the table saw, with a zero clearance insert, and wooden push stick to safely push the pieces past the blade. I also use a 1/16" thick sawblade to cut down the amount of kerf waste.
The layout of the compass star is just geometry. North & South, and East and West compass star rays are perpendicular and NE, NW, SE & SW are 45 degrees. Draw a circle with a compass to determine the inner circle of inlay.
Use the dividers to measure one half the thickness of the compass star stock and mark that dimension on each side of the compass cardinal and ordinal directions.
Use the same dividers to set the length of the rays of the compass star.


I use a scalpel,actually a post-mortem knife to scribe the lines to determine the area to be excavated and receive the inlay.
Pictured below are the low tech (Stanley 271 router plane, the way I did the first compass star) and medium high tech (Dremel with router base attached) way to excavate the area to receive the inlay. I guess the high tech way would be a CNC machine.
I use my scalpel to completely excavate the area that the Dremel bit can't get into. The excavated area becomes the template for cutting the inlay to fit. Remember the center line of the stock lines up with the cardinal and ordinal points.
I use a sharp chisel or plane iron to cut the stock close to the line.
And, I use a block plane to cut the point to make an exact fit.
I glue one section in place before I go to the next, leaving a section in the center unexcavated to prevent the delicate background area between the points of the compass from collapsing.
Inlaying one compass point at a time.

The photos above were taken by me to accompany the text for an article I wrote for WoodenBoat Magazine published in the 2008 May/June Issue. The article has much more in depth description of the process of inlaying a compass rose. The background wood in the above images is mahogany and the inlay is holly and rosewood.

The photo below is a compass star that I put on a desktop for a piece I recently made for a client. The desk is cherry and the inlay is holly and rosewood.I will be teaching a one day workshop on Inlay for Furniture Making, August 13th at Dartmouth College's Woodworking Studio located at the Hopkins Center, Hanover, NH. Use this link for more details.http://hop.dartmouth.edu/calendar/summer-woodworking-at-dartmouth

Please visit my personal website: www.jacwoodworking.com to see my work and more examples of inlay that I have used in my furniture making.

A Different Twist on Marketing

In February, we participated at the Designer Craftsman Show and Historic Home Show in Philadelphia. While there, we met another exhibitor from Vermont, Connor Homes, who told us about an interesting show they did last year and suggested we apply for admission. It turns out it was an antique show, and the promoter had established an area called "New Traditions". Based on our interests in antiques and our background in that field, this was an interesting opportunity. A show promoter, whom we have worked with in the past from lower Connecticut, was attempting to incorporate antiques and reproductions in one show, but to date has not been successful. The show in Maine is the 30th Annual Maine Antiques Festival, August 12-14, in Union, Maine. If you are in the area on those dates, please stop in and say hello! We will be focusing on 18th century and Shaker Chairs at the show.

Furniture Making Techniques

We held our Guild summer meeting last Saturday, June 25th at my shop in Ryegate. The weather was nice and several members made the long journey to the Northeast Kingdom (or Southern Canada as some might say!) for the meeting. One interesting and inspiring aspect of our meetings is when members share and demonstrate a technique they use to build or design their custom furniture. Most of us work in our shops by ourselves and sometimes struggle to come up with a way to get a job done quickly and efficiently while maintaining the quality and craftsmanship (speaking for myself, at least!). These demonstrations not only teach us a new technique or a variation of one we already use, but also serve as a reminder that each of us has had to problem solve and there is so much we can learn from each other. In the past we have had demonstrations by Mario Messina on the bent lamination technique he uses to create his Cephalopod Lamps. Dan Mosheim has demonstrated how he uses his CNC when building his custom furniture such as his custom cherry bed with inlay. Bob Gasperetti hosted the Guild meeting soon after building his new shop compete with an expansive finishing room and showroom of his custom cherry, walnut and figured maple furniture. At Saturday’s meeting, the Guild’s newest member, Hugh Belton of Woodstock gave us a demonstration of the two-part router fixture he designed to make chair backs that are concave from side to side and convex from top to bottom in a single operation.

Hugh has graciously supplied the following text and photos of his ingenious fixture and his custom walnut dining chairs. “Chair backs that are constructed this way are more comfortable to sit back against than those that are flat or only curve in one dimension. Typically, I start with a chair-back blank that is 14" long, 7" wide, and 3" thick. The wood is centered in the box with matching curved sides and secured so that it cannot move during the routing operation. The router, preferably a plunge router, is secured to the second component of the jig.

It is best to use a spiral down cutting router bit and cut no more that 1/4" at a time to minimize tear-out. The final pass should be 1/16" again to minimize tear-out. Be sure that the router bit is long enough to cut both ends of the chair back, which will require the greatest depth of cut. Depending on the depth of cut in both dimensions, you may have to raise the chair-back blank after some of the wood is removed. With experience you can bandsaw some of the wood away before placing it in the jig to speed up the operation. This router technique can be used to produce curved fronts on much larger pieces of furniture.

Be sure to wear ear protection, a dust mask, and a face shield when performing this procedure and always unplug the router from its power source when changing or adjusting the router bit.”

Walnut Dining Chair

To see the extensive body of work Hugh has created over the years, please visit his website www.hughbelton.com