Just a follow up on some of the install from earlier posts.

Here is the vanity and the bench installed.  Sink is temporary and we are still waiting on the sink that will be installed in the top from Italy.

Here is my sons workbench that he insisted I make during the build of my roubo.  He is absolutely loving the bench and is practicing his chisels skills on it with a dull chisel.  The only drawback is that he constantly tells me he needs my saws, marking gauges and etc.  This was a very easy small bench to build with scraps from my Roubo build and the dunnage from my recent lumber purchase.  It took about 3 hours to make and has dubbed as a handsaw bench for me.  I bought the veritas bench pups and tail vise and the surface clamp for all of his work holding.  Charles is awfully excited about his bench and asks about every night at dinner.  His excitement is an inspiration.

  Next on the list is a workbench for my daughter that looks like a princesses castle...........any ideas?  Piano bench is on the horizon and the slabs of samania are mostly installed and posts will be coming along later.

KAISER OUT !!!

Sa "MANIA" part 2

 Here we have a bark inclusion that the customer did not want to lose due to the figure around it.  What we did to save it is fill it with west system epoxy and some saw chip from the milling process.  This is the bartop that was poor filled in the last post.

 Here are some pics of the tops finished and ready for installation.

Here we have some pieces waiting to dry out.  The pieces will be panels that are recessed into the bar's leg below.

This is the bar's leg.  The lime green is going to tie into the colors in the bathroom off of the bar.  Once the installation is completed you will see how it all ties together.  Thanks for looking.  Follow to see all installation details.

Caine's Arcade

SA "MANIA"

Let''s start off by making one thing clear....it is retarded to move these things by yourself as I did and regret.  These are some pieces of samania that a customer of ours imported from south america.  These slabs came in very rough form as you can see in the background  photo below.  

The photo to the right will be a floating bench in a powder room.

 I started off by milling them flat and then dimensioning them.  All of the flattening and dimesioning was done with a router and sled on rails.  Something we also refer to as "decking" them.   The process includes getting 2 rails co planar to one another on the sides of the slabs and then running a router sled on them at a maximum of 3mm depth of cut at a time.

To the left another shot of the bench.

 Next is the belt sander with 80 grit to take out all of the scallops left by the router.  I usually use a pencil or piece of chalk and mark up the entire face to have a reference.  When my pencil marks are gone I know it is time to move onto the next step.  Then the same process with 120 grit belt, 150 grit random orbit, 180 grit random orbit and finally 220 grit.  The photo to the right will be a floating vanity top in a powder room.  Final installation post will be added when that time comes.

 Here is another shot of the vanity top showing all the figure around a knot.  All knots and cracks in this wood were filled with dyed epoxy too stabilize them.  The sink for the vanity will actually sit atop the knot.  The sink is in a flower shape ,so I only thought it be appropriate that the figure around the knot surround the sink.  All pores are filled on these, as this is a very porous wood and tears out horribly.  Then it's on to one coat of oil (boiled linseed and tung equal parts) and 2 coats of wiped on polyurethane for protection.  The reason for wiping it on and off is for a close to the wood look and not a thick film.

 To the right we have a bar top that will be installed in the bar in the basement.  This is showing the piece sanded and a slurry of pore filler all over.  We had a large piece of ingrown bark on this piece that we filled with shavings from the flattening process and filled it with epoxy and the chips wound up being suspended in the epoxy..........it looks pretty cool and when this top is finished I will post picks.....next time i want to throw chips of brick in there too.

On the left here we have the leg for the bar.  I had the joy of fabricating it today.  The leg is a substantial structure of steel, of which is needed, due to the fact that this bar weighs in at about 700 lbs.  This bar will have a dado or groove in the side that attaches to an angle iron on the wall and on the other end will have this leg supporting it.  this leg will be painted lime green and will have samania panels made up for it.

Til next time when we have installed photos.  KAISER OUT!!!  Any questions on the processes I use please feel free to contact me @ subtri@yahoo.com.

Let's get this blog started "ROUBO" style

Let's start this blog with one of my 3 biggest fans my son Charles Xavier Haniquet.  Get em started early or they will wind up like me.............chasing my tail.

 This blog is starting off on the right foot, for me that is.  It is going to go backwards for this first series of postings.  This is the end result of my first real woodworking adventure.  It is my split top Roubo workbench.  Species of wood are soft maple, walnut and samania.  All hardware is Bench crafted and this was built with the help of plans provided by Marc Spagnuolo of The Wood Whisperer Guild, and the discussion forums at woodtalkonlline.com.

 The condor tail on the end cap here makes up my daughters initial (E=Eva) and was based off of the Jameel Abraham method as outlined in Pop Woodworking.  The contrasting woods (walnut and Maple) really made this "E" stand out and I am very happy with it.

I only felt it be appropriate to incorporate an end cap with my sons initial (C=Charles).   I made it a reversed, what I call, whale tail.  I then   inlaid a small strip of walnut to outline the back of the "C".  This joint used the same methods as the condor tails.

  Next it was time to pay homage to the woman that gave birth to those 2 children, my wife.  My wife is a bit of an exotic mix, ethnically.  She is half Persian and half Roman.  So to honor my exotic beauty I picked out a nice piece of samania, of which is a south American hardwood that is not harvested very often.  I happen to have a customer that owns a banana plantation that took down one of these trees, and they were kind enough to give me a couple of pieces.  The sliding dead man/woman is made in the same dimensions of my wife scaled down.  It has beautiful grain flow, but does tear out horribly.  Up top you see my Moxon vise for all of my casework holding capabilities.

Here we are at the leg vise.  All of the bench crafted hardware was baked with five coats of flax seed oil.  Then lightly sanded with a 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to give it a patina.

Roller brackets made of walnut.  Below is another photo of the bench from the tail vise end.  I have to say this has been an adventure.  The amount of skills I learned in this build is not something I can put into words easily.  This bench is awesome and is a pleasure to work on.  Not that I have done a ton of work on it, but the little I have done has been a quantum leap from my bench that I used to build this project.  The top gives positive feedback when chiseling, sawing and planing.  This monster does not budge.  All of your force is channeled to the workpiece and not to bounceback and movement like racking and vibration.

In conclusion to this first post I would like to thank my wife and children for support and understanding of my absence during this project.  I would like to thank Marc Spagnuolo of The Wood Whisperer for the quick responses to questions and a user friendly guild for the begining woodworker.  Not to mention, his quirky sense of humor of which can be rather entertaining.

Not that I am any sort of expert, but if anyone has any questions regarding this build, I would be happy to give my take on it.  I will also be posting all different house building strategies.  I cannot promise I will be as diligent as a professional blogger, but I will do my best to respond in a timely manner.  This is not what I do for a living and house building is.  So, I will do my best to get back to any questions asap.  Thank you for checking us out.  Til next time.    KAISER OUT!!!subtri@yahoo.com