Visiting The Old Stuff

Years ago, when I was working for a major telecommunications company, I got into scroll saw work in the evenings and weekends as a diversion from technology.  Sitting at my work bench for hours doing intricate fretwork would recharge my mentally wasted mind.  There were many days that I would just loose track of time as I enjoyed seeing designs take shape and assembling the finished project.

The problem with intricate fretwork is the number of hours that go into even a simple piece.  This is the reason I don’t do this type of work to sell, because I could never recover the labor hours involved.  It’s very therapeutic, but time consuming.

I have a lot of little baskets and jewelry boxes sitting around the house that were scroll saw projects, but the Christmas ones are my favorites.  I only see them once a year when my wife pulls them out of their storage boxes and puts them on display.  I found this Santa sleigh design in a woodworking magazine and made it out of red oak.  I made this back around the time of the Beanie Baby craze and found a Ty Santa that fit in it perfectly.

Perseverance Pays Off

So there I was, standing in my lumber supplier’s building, staring at the ugliest pallet of walnut I had ever seen.  The guys told me it was called “waddle” walnut.   When I asked what waddle was, they grinned and said “If you figure it out, let us know”.   It has to be some kind of Yankee term because none of us southern boys had ever heard of it.  All I knew was it was around a #2 common grade of walnut, which is pretty poor quality with knots, worm holes, and splits.  However, it was on sale for a really good price so I couldn’t help but take a closer look.

I had an hour to burn so I rolled up my sleeves, put on some gloves, and started digging through the pile.  I actually found some decent pieces which I pulled out and placed on the cart.  I was startled when I got to the bottom of the pile when I spotted the most beautifully figured walnut board I have ever seen.  It had a little bit of everything in it from curly patterns on one end to tiger stripes on the other.  My mind was racing as I quickly figured in my mind how many lazy susans I could get out of this board.

I was able to get two, 13” and two 16” lazy susans out of this board along with some figured maple and cherry to add character.  Here are the results:

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Bookmarks and PO Door Banks

I’m spending the next few weeks preparing for the Foothills Fall Festival in Maryville, Tennessee.  This was my biggest show last year and I have no reason to believe it won’t be again this year.

The Post Office bank boxes have been a big hit lately, so I’m working to increase my inventory of these.  This is a recent new product for me and they did well at a show a few weeks ago, so I’m building the inventory up expecting them to sell well in Tennessee.

The bookmarks were huge sellers in Tennessee last year.  They were flying out of my booth by the handful, so I am making a lot of new ones for the show.  I have a lot of highly figured maple scrap pieces that are too small for anything other than bookmarks.  I’m just pairing other pieces such as jatoba, walnut, and tulip wood with the figured maple to see what “pops” out.  This current batch looks spectacular.

Cleaning Day!

The only thing I hate worse than watching glue dry is watching clear finish dry.  I have post office box banks and lazy susans sitting all around the shop after putting their first clear coat finish on this morning.  When this happens, I can’t machine anything that would create dust.  Fortunately, I had a shipment of post office doors come in Saturday and I spent the rest of today cleaning doors.  It’s time consuming, but it’s also a lot like quiet time so I enjoyed the change of pace.

It’s rare to get a hold of these vintage doors in like new condition.  They were all in service somewhere at one time.  Many were bought in large lots and stored in basements and barns for years until re-discovered.  I probably spend at least 30 minutes cleaning each door.  Some doors may take an hour or more depending on the condition.  Hard to open locks, bent frames, and stuck hinges contribute to the reconditioning process.  I’m not trying to make them look brand new, but they need to work and fit into the box correctly.  

The first thing I do is remove the glass and wash each door with Dawn detergent while scrubbing with a soft wire brush.  This gets the dirt and crud off the door, but it’s still dull and tarnished.  If the lock doesn’t turn or work smoothly, which happens about 50% of the time, it gets disassembled, repaired, and lubricated.  Once all this is done, I use Brasso and start polishing to get the original shine back.  Sometimes I have to resort to using a Dremel tool with a spinning wire brush to get hard crud off some of the metal parts.

This is a before and after of the doors I just received.  The one on the left is representative of how they came to me.  The one on the right is what it looks like cleaned up.  The majority of these doors had smooth operating locks, so I just had to clean them and be done with it.

I recently received a few of these 1902 double dial eagles.  I got them cleaned up before I took a picture, but the dials and locking mechanism had to be completely disassembled, cleaned, and oiled to just get the dials to turn.  The effort was worth it because they now operate smooth.  These are beautiful, heavy, and well-built doors.

More Post Office Box Banks

I finally got some boxes finished to hold the early 1900s Post Office doors that I recently acquired.   These are white oak and jatoba.  Jatoba is also referred to as Brazilian cherry.   I really don’t know why, because it is not related to the cherry tree and looks more like mahogany than cherry.  It’s still a very pretty wood and easy to work with.

Like the walnut in my previous post, the jatoba dovetails really stand out against the lighter white oak.  These doors are a 1902 Star Dial, and a circa 1920 flying eagle.  Both are old and rare, however the 108 year old 1902 is the rarest and also my favorite.  It has a two digit combination where all the other doors are three digit.