Arts & Crafts Candlesticks

This post will be print light, picture heavy. The subject is a pair of Arts and Crafts inspired candlesticks or candle holders or whatever, I made recently as a gift. The idea is to give a little behind the scenes, a bit of how to and some pics of the finished pieces. I'm already writing too much so lets have a picture.

 The Pieces

 

 This is a picture. It is of all of the pieces that make up these candlethingies (so called from now on, if I remember). These are the pieces from a single unit and consist of a central column with plowed grooves to receive the four "fins", as well as two pieces that fit together via a lap joint, to form the base.

 

The Glue Up

  

  
Um, yeah, that's pretty much that.

  

This Picture Requires A Little More Explanation

The center column has grooves* that travel through it's length (though grooves) as opposed to grooves that stop before they reach the top (stopped grooves...obviously). Through grooves are much faster to produce, but present a problem: the "fins" must run the full length of the column or a filler must be added to the groove above them. Preferring the look of a setback between the top and the fin I cut the fin blanks to the full height, and, using a pattern and a baring guided router bit, cut the shape. The process leaves an "S", cyma or ogee curve because the diameter of the bit/baring is too large to follow the tight curve and 90 degree transition to the column. This portion must be shaped by hand using a chisel, rasp and a little sandpaper. The picture shows the fins before (bottom), and after hand clean up (top).

*Terminology: a groove is cut with the grain and a dado, also a groove, is cut across the grain.

The Finish

Being Arts & Crafts in style these pieces needed to have the right color. This is traditionally achieved using Amonia Fuming which colors the wood by a chemical reaction between the amonia fumes and the tannic acid naturally present in the oak. Although I have used this method before, with great success, I chose not to this time, mainly because some of these pieces had visible sap wood which contains less tannic acid and therefor ends up lighter than the rest of the wood. (To those of you wondering why, for such a small project, I didn't choose pieces without sap wood, I have an answer for you but it would be rude to write it here.)  Instead I used a two step process, to approximate the color tones.

After raising the wood grain with distilled water (do not use tap water with oak as any iron in the water may turn the wood black) and sanding it with 220 paper, I dyed the pieces using a half and half mixture of TransTint Dyes diluted in distilled water. The two colors I used were #6006 Dark Mission Brown and #6004 Medium Brown. After this had dried completely (I let it sit overnight represented in the picture above) I used Zar 111 Walnut Wood Stain. It is sometimes necessary to apply a wash coat of shellac in between these steps to keep the stain from penetrating to deeply and going to dark, but I decided against it after testing on some scrap pieces. In the end the color turned just the way I wanted it. The picture below shows the finished pieces next to a scrap of amonia fumed oak that I was using as a guide.

The final finish consisted of three coats of sprayed satin lacquer and a rub down with 0000 steel wool to flatten the sheen.

 

The Final Product

 

 

Looking over this post now I realize I lied a little about the "light on print" part, so to try and save face I offer the final, condensed details: the base is screwed to the column and the holes have inserts made from altered copper end caps.

In the end I was happy with how these candlethingies turned out and I hope they give many long years of service. As always questions or comments are welcome.

Walnut & Birds Eye Hall Table No. 1

     Some of you may have read this post on my design blog concerning a budding idea for walnut and maple hall table. For those who have not read the post I encourage you to do so, mainly because I've written it once and don't really feel like doing it again here.
     All caught up? Good. As with most promising designs that one puts down on paper this one was followed by the thought "now what". This post is the first in a series that will follow one answer to that question. I say one answer because once a design is on paper there are a number of roads that can be taken to turn that chicken scratch into a piece of furniture. Option one is to start building. Simple, straight forward and the best option for those who design, build and tweak on the fly. Option two is to develop the drawing further, extrapolating dimensions and creating working drawings in either full or fractional scale. Option three is to turn to Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs to dimension the drawing and create a three dimensional rendering. The forth option is to use one or more of the previous options with the addition of creating a physical model, again in either full or fractional scale.
     For this piece I really needed some interaction, so I went with full scale mock up. The lines, the form and overall proportions had to be just right. I had to have it in front of me to make sure everything "fit" together.
     This is what I came up with, and I think I like it.

     I plan on trying another version of the top that is slightly longer and leaner, but it will have to wait until the regular shop load has cleared a little. I'll be updating as soon as possible, but until then tell me what you think.

Ballet Bar

So, there are two things that you quickly learn as the father of two young girls...
1) Girls have LOTS of friends and those friends have birthdays
2) Ballet is just part of daily life(duh)
With these two things established it should come as no surprise that the two would one day overlap. That day is now upon me, and has manifested itself in this simple, almost offhand remark by my wife:
"I want you to build a ballet bar for Xyz (obviously not the child's real name)"
Next thing you know I'm in the shop with a little design on the fly. The first thing I need to know are the rough dimensions I have to work with. My willing assistant (my six year old daughter) demonstrates the approximate hand position on an imaginary bar as I measure. Because I so despise "disposable" items (we have quite enough of those in this world without me adding to them), I design for the long haul, the nest generation at least. In this instance that translates to an adjustable bar that can grow with the child. The final element is that the item must be portable and easily assembled and disassembled.

After working though the required elements its on to the fun part. Because this bar will be used by a three year old I felt that keeping it light and slightly whimsical was the right direction. This, to my daughter, meant "painting it white and pink". Not what I had in mind. Using two or three different wood species (Red Oak, African Mahogany and Yellow Pine) would break up the piece and make it more playful, and, since it is a ballet bar, a "slipper foot" element seemed appropriate.

Because this was Thursday and the party was on Saturday, the build was on the fly too. I mocked up a rough pattern in cardboard, marked the wood and started cutting. The design evolved as I was going, a little tweak here and there until it looked about right.

As with most projects, especially these on the fly ones, you look back with a critical eye and think of the million things you would do differently next time. Luckily for me I have two little ballerinas of my own, so next time wont be too far away.