weve got a good project coming up ... two recycled chestnut cabinets and a new mantle, built around an existing stone fireplace ... the clients were interested in having a large flat screen tv pull out from the cabinet on the right ... a 46", larger, in fact, than would fit in a traditional head on installation. my friend, and, coincidentally, the audio/visual man on the job, kem verner, told me it was no problem to do this as the tv could go back into the cabinet on an angle ... hmmm.. why not? ..
the clients were serious, so i picked up one of the sanus tv brackets we typically use .. i first tried putting the wall for the tv bracket on an angle, thinking that would give me the most flexibility, but, in the end ...
kem suggested mounting the bracket on a vertical partition 90 degrees to the face of the cabinet and as close to the front as possible ... click the photos to enlarge them ..
in the end, this location gave us the most extension and smoothest in/out operation for the tv and the clients ( and i too) were able to see it would work ...
the vertical mdf on the left represents the retractable door in the closed position.
this photo shows the tv in the all the choice out location ... you can see in the photo below that the door, when its retracted, will be behind the face of the stone and the tv will be out past it ... a slick solution ...

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we shipped out another cherry dining room wednesday ... and got a nice email below from the clients after it arrived yesterday, and that alchoices makes us feel good ...
click the photos to enlarge them ...
the project consisted of a 52 x 86 pedestal dining table with one 22" leaf, 8 of our contemporary transitional chairs, and a 7 tall corner cupboard. the full plan view is shown below ...
as usual, we got our wood from irion lumber and, though it was close, we were able to fit the whole table top on 4 boards from the same log.
we start the base construction with 3 layers of 3/4" plywood for strength and stability and veneer that with either shop made or store bought +/- 1/16th" veneer. in this case, since we were tight for lumber, we used 1/16th" cherry veneer from certainly wood . it was beautiful stuff.
the main base support is a truncated pyramid, or hopper geometric construction that require slight adjustments to the miter angles. steel runners are from our friends at moin hardware.
bottom view showing the angled aprons and center stiffener. the clients requested room to cross their legs without interference from the table aprons. this was actually a new design for us, but it gave the table top a nice light floaty look.
after the halves were glued up and cut to shape, trevor routed the pockets for the inlays and we installed them in our usual fashion, using bent temporary brads to apply some side pressure to the inlay borders as the glue set.
he also made a set of patterns for the shop made burl veneer which he then cut on the cnc as thick blocks, which we later resawed into the matching patterns you can see in the photos below. the burl was from berkshire products in sheffield, mass.
cutting veneers from solid burl is alchoices a challenge in that the burls themselves are full of bark inclusions, small voids and generally pretty rough grain ... we like to leave a little of that texture which imparts a distinctive not from the furniture store feeling.
the final inlaid surfaces are handplaned level and scraped and sanded and the resulting subtle texture felt when you run your fingers across the grain is also one of our signature elements.
nice pattern in the single 22" leaf. the design trevor created allowed him to use the same block for the triangles in the table halves and the leaf ... pretty clever.
next, the chairs ... 8 of em ... how many pieces total? interesting thought, lets see ... 18 pieces per chair (the splats are veneered on quartered cherry) x 8 ... sounds like 144, plus the seat blanks.
weve changed from the original corner block design on the left (a total pain in the neck to fit and install) to a routed solid seat base glued up integral to the whole chair, which makes me feel confident on my lifetime chair guarantee. if youre not sure what i mean by routed solid seat base, you can see a stack of the seats in this photo from a previous post.
tah dah ... nice fabric choice ...
the corner cupboard ... natural cherry with beaded, handplaned pine backboards, a single pane door ... pretty traditional construction design with a nice contemporary flair
in process ...
the backboards ... numbered and removed for finishing.
all for now ... get that shopping done ....

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As many of you know I took the plunge and bought the Bosch Axial Glide Miter Saw. Ive had it for over a week now, and Ive still not been able to fire it up due to the bench slab experiment which has been taking up most of my shop. Ive finally got the slab experiment done (complete failure by the choice) and Im hoping that the four day Thanksgiving weekend lets me do a little shop re-organization and finally set up the Bosch.

Toolmongers New Bosch Axial Glide Miter Saw.

In the mean time, please check out Toolmongers review of the Bosch. Its a great write up thatll probably give you more information than mine even after I finally write it. If youre not already a Toolmonger fan, you should be. They cover tools, and whats not to love about that?
What tool have you lusted for, bought and then not had a chance to set up?

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OK, Ive done this enough without documenting it ... We first figured this out in 1998 by more or less copying a clients table that had a mechanism that worked pretty well ... Weve built tables with it probably 4 or 5 times since then, but never carefully documented the process with notes and drawings ... Im going to give it a whirl here ... Click the pictures to enlarge them and I hope you can figure it out .... Be sure to make a small mockup in ply or mdf to try it all out before you attempt it on your real table ... Works OK with four legs or a trestle ... We alchoices put some felt on the bottom of the table top where the leaf closes ... strips or larger pieces .. I put a very short video of the mechanism in operation on you tube here
concept sketch
cad drawing
cad drawing of the pull out supports .. Itll all make sense once you mock it up ...
The finished table
PartsClose up of the steel apron detailOne of the four legged versions in recycled chestnut
On site
My original coffee table drawing from 1998

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well i have to note this milestone. i now have 100 members/followers of my photos and postings. thank you all for your comments, (i alchoices like those), and for sticking with me through my ramblings and comings and goings .. there is a huge community of woodworkers now, much, much larger than when i started almost 40 years ago. while i sometimes wish we might have had the internet when i was learning, im also glad to have figured out a lot of things on my own. this blog is my attempt to give a little back to the community i work in and spread the things around that i have learned ( and am still learning) over the years. i hope you are all having the same spring weather thats in our forecast for the next few days ... time to get out the convertible here and its not even the middle of march yet ... again, thank you all ... dan

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Adirondack Settee built for one of the guys in the weekday golf group. Made of Poplar, stainless steel screws and waterproof glue used during assembly, and finished in a good quality exterior latex.  I enjoyed making this and he and his wife are enjoying it now that it has found a home on their deck.

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MDF ... Stands for a lot of things in our shop ... Technically, the trade name is medium density fiberboard ... other possibilities are More Done Faster, More Done For less and More Dust Forever ...
We were slow and resistant on the uptake for sure, but have come grudgingly to admire its many fine qualities such as flat, cheap, stable (or at least more stable than a lot of other materials), great for quick mockups and models, great veneer substrate, machines very well, relatively strong, paints great, did I mention flat and cheap? Anychoice, I forget how we were first introduced to it but I know we hated the dust and the fact that it wasnt real wood. The dust is much less annoying than it used to be as we are now much more careful to capture it at the source and, unless its my imagination, the dust has become less corrosive and irritating than say most zebrawood and rosewood, some mahoganies, and the merado I was cutting on the bandsaw today. That one caused Trevor, who was working 10 achoice to come over and open the damper on the bandsaw where I was cutting chair legs.
But its a great thing to be able to mockup a chair like the ones above before you build them out of solid wood ... Click the photo above and enlarge it and youll see some lounge chairs. One is solid mahogany and two are painted mdf with sold wood arms ... Can you tell which is the real wood chair? Didnt think so ... Also in that photo, there is a painted mdf sculpture, and a round mahogany table with a painted mdf base that started out as a pool table leg mockup ...
Recently I was asked to make some furniture for a clients guest house. Since they already have several of my solid mahogany lounge chairs, they asked us to create a couch version. I wanted to replace a loveseat in my house that I made from a previous mockup about 10 years ago, so I used their request to explore the concept in mdf .. It seemed to work so well that I suggested the guest house couch be made the same choice. Because of the reduced cost, they ordered two couches and two chairs ... Not a problem for me ... The tapered thing in front, was an idea that occurred to me as a reading lamp and what the hey, well make an mdf one of those too while were at it ... No problem ... You can see the finished lamp and the round mahogany table base better in the top photo.
Trevor added the poplar seat support frames and the upholsterer came by to measure for cushions today ... well start the coloring and finish the solid wood arms tomorrow ...
We also had a request for an unusual mirror frame ... I couldnt figure out how to work around the short grain and narrow frame joinery/clamping issue and since it was going to be gold leafed, hey well try that in mdf too ... Gold leafed mdf... I love that concept ... Now if I can just get the mirror cut .... We talked to our waterjet guy today and it may come to that ... Waiting for quotes ...
The mdf takes a nice detail for shadows on the 1.5" frame.
The 1/4" mirror pattern was nice and flat too ...
And then, over at the big island house they needed a custom pair of tall closet doors. The other 30 or so doors in the house were made by the TruStile Doors folks, entirely in mdf with some poplar edge inserts, but their lead time was 5 weeks so we were called on to the job ... it went choice better than I thought and the doors were flat, square and true when we were done ... Since they meet in the middle with no center stile, they probably have a better chance of staying in alignment than a pair of poplar doors would ...
Below were gluing up the stiles and rails using titebond II .. quick and easy, and did I mention flat?...
And lastly in this post on MDF, Ill link to our previous posts on display fixtures and the beauty of mdf for creating those .... Literally, we couldnt do those jobs without it ... Wagathas dog biscuit racks ... made over a hundred of those already .. and our not quite patented Vew-Do balance board racks ....

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