Archive for February, 2010
From Small to Big
It’s difficult to shift gears between small items such as cutting boards and lazy susans to a 19 foot long entertainment center, but I’m working through it. This thing almost takes up the length of my small shop when assembled. I’ve been dividing my time between this project and increasing my inventory for an upcoming March show. I work on the entertainment center for a week and then take a few days and crank out crafts. Then it’s back on the center.
This entertainment center will only stand 53” tall because it will fit under a sloped ceiling in an upstairs family room. It kind of feels like I am working on doll house furniture. The construction is very close to completion and will be painted white before I install it. The raised panel doors have taken the longest amount of time because of all the gluing and sanding. There will be a 50” flat screen TV sitting on the two low cabinets, and crown molding will finish out the top. Not shown, will also be a 36” desk top at the very end of the run for my customer’s kids to use. I’ll put up pictures of the final installed project when I get to that point. I have to deliver and install it in a house in Knoxville, Tennessee, so I hope I can get the whole thing in my trailer.
The bottom opening on the two left cabinets will be drawers.
Maple, The Untold Story
I use a lot of ash in many of my projects because it is almost as hard as maple, but has a more pronounced grain pattern than maple. Most of the maple I get comes from the New England states, and even though it’s smooth creamy white texture works well as a light contrast to darker woods, it’s just downright boring. There is very little grain pattern which is just not visually stimulating.
However, there are species of maple that are dramatic. Some maple wood contains natural occurrences that are referred to as “figure”. This figure shows up as shimmering, silver streaks throughout the wood and only appears in about 2% of the harvested USA maple. The most common figure appears as lines crossing horizontally across the wood and is referred to as “tiger stripe” or “flame”. Of all the figured maple, this is the most common and fairly easy to find. The second type of figure is “birdseye” which is covered with little dots that look like eyes. Birdseye is not as common and much harder to find, but very beautiful. The third and prettiest maple type is “quilted”. The pattern in this type looks like folds in a quilt and is breathtaking, especially when it contains heavy quilt. This type is very hard to find and too expensive for most of my products.
All figured maple carries a significant price premium over non-figured maple. However, quilted maple usually carries a premium price well above the other figured types and is normally found only in Oregon maple trees.
This lazy susan is an example of this type of figured maple. Notice the horizontal lines running across the maple and through the edges. This picture doesn’t do it justice.
This is one of my bookmarks which contains Birdseye maple.
I have always wanted to jazz up some of my products with quilted maple, but just could not justify the price. This changed when a large shipment of Oregon Big Leaf Maple arrived at my lumber supplier this week. They had pallets of short, cutoff pieces containing a high quilt figure for a very inexpensive price (in relation to normal quilted maple prices). I spent an hour this morning digging through the pallets and found some very dramatic pieces. The board in this picture is 2 1/4″ thick and will be re-sawed into thinner boards. The quilt pattern will become very dramatic when I put an oil-based finish on it. The final finish really brings out the “pop” factor in these type of boards. I’m very excited to finally get this beautiful wood for the first time and anxious to incorporate it into some of my products.
