Sat 16 Feb 2008
These red oak columns were applied to a book case by a customer of mine as well as in the previous post. Handsome work!
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Projects
Archived Posts from this Category
Sat 16 Feb 2008
The images below were sent by a customer of mine who ordered fluted columns in red oak and applied them to his entertainment center. Great job don’t you think?
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Tue 4 Dec 2007
This is a video of 7 1/4″ X 11′ Spanish Cedar columns made for a local contractor
Sun 30 Sep 2007
These columns were actually made for a bed. They measure 11 inches X 50 inches high. The caps and bases were turned by a friend. I’ll post pictures shortly.
Wed 19 Sep 2007
Our friend in Vancouver, WA was kind enough to send me pictures of the stairway project he and his crew are completing for a customer in Washington state. I’ve written about this project in other posts under Turnings and stair parts. These were the balusters that were modeled after the Silas Deane home. (Not sure who he was but apparently an American Revolutionary) The next pictures are of the nearly completed stairway. The striking aspect of the balusters are the alternating pattern.
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Fri 27 Jul 2007
I thought I would show off my mahogany spiral columns just finished for a project in sunny California. These are hollow columns made of 8 “staves” each. The staves are beveled at 22 1/2 deg. to make a hollow octogan which is then turned on the lathe and then milled with a custom router cutter.
Another view below shows the spirals. There were seven in all mostly supporting the roof of a Cabana on an existing home on Santa Catalina Island off thew coast of Calif.
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The columns will be capped top and bottom with these pieces shown below.
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A few of the originals are pictured below.
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and also
Sat 9 Jun 2007
A few years back I completed a bookcase for a friend who lived in a restored Acadian style house in a small town on South Louisiana. (You may not know that Acadian is a term for French people that were forced to leave Eastern Canada years ago. They settled in South Louisiana primarily and are called Cajuns)
My friend had just sold a home and never thought he would buy a house that needed so much work but, low and behold, he did. It’s beautiful today but cost a fortune, I think, to finish.
He asked me to build a corner cypress bookcase for his office. (cypress has been popular in this area for years). I’ve always liked step-back cabinets -where the upper cabinet “steps back” an inch or two from the bottom cabinet. I also wanted to incorporate clipped corners with a roped column. Clipped corners, as you probably know, are corners that have been beveled or clipped, in this case, to create a field to apply the split columns. I chose a rope pattern on the columns that reverses from a right twist to a left handed twist.
As for the finish, I applied an amber shellac. Cypress is difficult to stain and so I used the natural amber tint in the shellac to tone the cypress down to a honey color. After three coats and light sanding, I applied a dark glazing and then rubbed it off to leave the nooks and crannies dark for an antiqued effect. Afterwards I applied another coat or two of shellac to seal everything in. What do you think?
Sat 9 Jun 2007
I had made between two and three hundred rope twisted balusters for a home in Santa Catalina Island a few years back. (If you don’t know anything about Santa Catalina Island join the club. I looked it up, however, on Google Earth and realized I should have know at least something about it. It’s quite a gorgeous place. My wife knew of it from some tune she had learned as a kid.)
Well as I was saying, I made these balusters a few years back and was asked to bid on a number of twisted columns for the same project. Well almost two years later the contractor contacts me and says they’re ready to go ahead with the columns. Shortly after they send a deposit for the columns I go to the news on my web browser and discover that Santa Catalina Island is on fire. (I’m having a hard time believing this.) But surely I tell myself it won’t affect my project. Certainly the home I am building the columns for would not be involved. And thankfully the home was not involved. I did, however, get a call from my contact with the construction company and he says, “We were one of four companies that burned to the ground. We lost everything.” I’m thinking I must be dreaming. What are the odds. It’s like winning the lottery in reverse. Long story short they are not going to quit. We’re proceeding with the columns.
