Hanging Lights

I had a reader from the Yahoo Greene and Greene group I belong to request information on an Arts & Crafts style hanging pool table lamp. I built a couple of hanging lamps about 6 years ago for a client and went back and found the photos and drawings. I was just learning CAD then and the drawings are cluttery and crude, but still, (possibly), legible. Click them to enlarge them so you can read em ... Between the drawings and the photos and maybe by making yourself a full size cardboard mockup (which we did at the time ) once you have the parts on hand, you should be able to piece together your own lamp design. The crude steel hangers we made when my son was just starting to fool around with metalworking. As I recall, we had an anvil and maybe a forge, but not much else, including experience ... with some tinkering on site though it all worked out ... I've always wanted to build more of these, but the clients just never appeared ... They take some time and therefore aren't cheap ... Leave a comment if you have a question or send me an email through my website ... I have also added a "greene and greene' category to my blog. I'm not a strict reproductionist of any style, but I do enjoy using some of their elements and influences in my own designs ...

Shows some dimensions and inlay layout though i'm certain they are not totally accurate.

Other early cad versions .. I think the lamp should be roughly a little longer than the spot to spot dimension of the table to get the light over the whole surface.


The finished lamp with the other lamp in the background

Lamp over the table (+/- 30" above it in this instance ... I prefer them a little lower than this client did

Looking up .. commercial brass lamp parts purchased at the local lighting store .. Also not the copper heat shield spaced down an inch from the wood top. The wood top had slots to let the heat escape too .. I think in the end we used flood style bulbs ...

Ceiling support ... a simplified version of the ceiling plate on the light below, secured with round head screws

Our first hanging fixture, actually, coincidentally, over the dining table in a recent post about a table leaf. The lit panels are big leaf maple burl veneer on the outside, attached with 3m Spray 90, to plexiglass panels, held into rabbets with small brads

Looking up into that fixture ... four bulbs, hand blown and cut glass rondells, copper heat shield and slots in the fixture top .. It gives off a very warm funky light with interesting shadows from the rondells..

The whole fixture including the ceiling support and sconces we made in the background

TV Cabinet Update

After last week, we're on the home stretch of the construction of the large tv cabinet we have been working on (See the previous post). This past week we fitted and hung the doors, made the moldings and the base and tomorrow we will attach the base and make the final adjustments to the doors and it will be ready for finishing ...

The ply frame for the base and the base face pieces on the cabinet break ... Normally we would make this first, but the way the carcase and end panels were configured, I wanted to fabricate and attach the end panels to be sure the projections of the base were correct ... Unusual, I admit. Click the photos to enlarge them ...

Backing the crown molding with pine for a nail free attachment to the case

The layout of the molding and backing in the rectangular stock...

The finished crown molding

Attaching the cornice with glue and screws from the inside

The cabinet with the doors opened and recessed into the cabinet ..

730 Days of Blogging

12/6/09 ..... Whoa ... Another year goes by. This was the 30th year for Dorset Custom Furniture and my second year of writing about it ... Stephen King, in 'On Writing', says 'Writing is refined thinking.' I agree with him on that. For me, photographing and writing about what we do makes me 'think' differently about work and life in general, the interactions with clients and friends, nature and family, and everything else that goes by in our sometimes rushed charge to get through the workday. It was a challenging year but we still had some very interesting projects ... a stairway we built in Vermont and sent to California, a desk interpreting the style of a famous British architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, a banjo project, a room of walnut paneling, some slab top tables, some very cool metal chairs ... and many others. Thanks for reading and if we made something for you this past year, thanks for that too ....

Sunrise 12 4 08

Well, a year ago I told myself I would write a blog for 6 months and see how it went .... Writing ... it's interesting. It makes a record .... I can see the broad scope of the last year by scrolling back through the posts .... While it's not all here, it's more than I have for the previous 28 years of doing what I do. Those other years are mostly a bunch of little pictures in big portfolios. Nice to look at, but essentially, they're just pictures in books. Ditto the website .... There's not much life there. Pictures of furniture I can see pretty much anywhere, but this year, we have projects, processes, people I work with every day making things, asides like 'a walk in the woods', golf, 'repairs' and 'making a casket', more like, really, the actual stuff of life and work. Definitely not just the pictures. So, on we go .... making stuff. Sharing our methods, keeping our clients in the loop .... Year 30 coming up .... Looks to be a challenging one, but on we go, not knowing what lies ahead except that it will be interesting. Thank you all for reading and responding; I've met some great folks on line here and hope I helped some of them with their projects and inspired others to reach higher with their craft. While I'm rambling, Kit and I send you our best wishes for the Holiday Season .... Peace ....

The Real Ladderback Prototype

It's actually astonishing to me how much time and effort it takes to get a (sort of) new chair design into the production mode ... I have made more than a thousand chairs, probably more like 1500, over the last 30 years and if they're not Windsors (one of my bread and butter items starting out) they're not easy. I've said it before and I'll say it again ... Chairs are sculptures. They have to be comfortable, they have to stay together over time, people have to be able to lean back in them, stand on them, throw them .... the whole deal ... Anyway ... This is I think the 4th edition of this 'new' design and it's the real thing ... We're pleased with it .. it's light, it's comfortable, it's relatively straightforward to build and it passes the 'looks good from all directions test'. Click the pictures to enlarge them ... I really need to put it at a table rather than up on a workbench ...

Hopefully I'll get some finish on it this weekend and get it to New York City

The black one is one of my first 'square' chairs from the late 80's..definitely not a comfortable as the new ladderback

rear silhouette

side view

comparison view

We did a little work on the ladderback prototype (see previous post) at the very end of the day today ... made four rough new smaller, thinner spindles and we think they can be just a shade more delicate yet ... The prototype is definitely more comfortable with the splats closer together ... We're considering lowering the whole chair back from 40" where it is now to maybe 38.5", taller than the "windsor" metal chair at 36.5". Lowering all four as a group will make the negative space between the top of the seat and the bottom of the bottom slat just a bit less empty looking ... It's just a thought and we'll await client input. I'll photograph it this weekend at a table too ... One of us actually likes the 'tallness' of it.... We'll see ... happy halloween .. !!

Sam's Railing is Installed !

Sam finished up his railing Wednesday .... He and Jim spent an hour and a half on site bolting the posts to the shoes ... It took longer to drive there than to install the whole thing ... Good measureing and careful planning get the job done ....

Approaching the terrace .. Click the pictures to enlarge them

Now you know why they needed a railing

This has been kind of a big railing project. It's out of town, (New Hampshire), it's a long one. (40' or so) and it's complicated. The builders placed tubes in the ground where they wanted the posts and backfilled around them, planning to pour the posts in place also, I believe. It turned out to be more complicated than that. Sam worked through it, and even though it made for some extra work on his part, he went the extra mile to get it right. There's a gate on the left end where the steps are ....
To start, we decided to make a portable form and construct the posts with detachable 'shoes'. Each shoe with a piece of 3/4" rebar welded to the bottom of it. The form was designed to hold the posts level straight and square while the concrete was poured and setting up. He had to go back after the concrete set up in the tubes, snap his level top lines and measure from inside of post to inside of post on each section. With the jogs and level changes, it involved a little fancy engineering, but when he makes the two hour tip this week with the finished railing parts, we're both confidant that it will bolt right into place. I have not been to the site, but it's on the Connecticutt River and appears to be a striking spot .... Click the pictures to enlarge them.

Setting up the jig for a test run outside the metal shop in the backyard

The posts with the 'hangers' welded on

The 2" tubing with caps welded on and ground smooth...

Some of the spindles and frame parts

A close up of the connections

Ready to paint

Stephen King Comes To Town

As I have mentioned before, we have The Northshire Bookstore, one of the finest independent bookstores in the country, right here in our town. Famous and not so famous writers come by almost weekly. Paul Krugman was here in October. Bill McKibben was in town not that long ago ... Ken Burns called in sick Monday night and is rescheduled for the 15th ... We get a lot of of them ... Tonight I went to see Stephen King. We took the boys when he came to town in the mid 90's and I remembered it as fun evening. Tonight was also fun, with a bonus introduction by local author John Irving. I recently finished reading Mr. King's book 'On Writing'. As I am about to receive my first paycheck as a professional writer, (you'll hear about that soon enough), I thought it might be a good idea to see what real writers have to say about the writing process. I was not disappointed by his book. I was educated and entertained by his stories and advice, and, in the end I realized that what he said about writing can apply to most any craft ... To wit:

to be a good writer, read a lot....pay attention to what other folks do
have a good toolbox and keep your tools sharp ...
enjoy what you do and approach it with some seriousness ...
but have a sense of humor ('please God you have one' he says) and fun ...
keep it simple without over embellishing ....
do some work everyday if you can ...
don't do it only for the money...

There's more, but you should find out for yourself ... Or if you just like Mr. King's books, he's got a new one out called 'Under The Dome' and as he informed us tonight, 'it's about a town... under a dome'. 1074 pages about it ... 'you can use it as a doorstop when you're done reading it'.

The Chandelier Project

We made a nice big recycled chestnut table for a client back in January and since then, they have acquired a very appropriate chandelier to hang over it ... The fixture was meant, I think, to hang a bit higher overhead, as the builder left the wires and ends of the tubes exposed. In this instance, however the wires were eye level and in your face so my client's design assistant called us in for help ... It was a challenge first to imagine how to cover them and then to actually do it. We all thought it came out pretty good though ... We were even able to kind of match the funky finish on the rustic fixture once we bought a new toy to help us .. Click the photos to enlarge them ....

The fixture with the new piece on it

The 'before' shot

In process before the first test fit and onsite routing

Will, operating our new toy, a 500,000 ??? btu torch, with which he toasted the fir to get the black, irregular surface on the finished piece ... Essentially, you get some flames going a little... (they die out when you move the torch away), sand the results and add the stain and finish ... presto ... old looking wood ... I imagine it works best on softwoods like fir, with flammable sappy wood .. The torch was handy on another project already too, blackening some piano hinges for the big tv cabinet ... update on that later

The finish sample on a cut off of the recycled fir plank