Live Edge Walnut Desk in the Works!

Summer is in full swing, kids. I know, I know, summer "officially" starts this weekend; It's been over 80 degrees for over a week and that means it's summer, I don't care what anyone says.

As summer begins, we at the Lohr Woodworking Studio have our eye on Labor Day weekend. Why? Because it's Long's Park Art & Craft Festival and we're going to be there with bells on! The past few weeks we have been hard at work on a new, collaborative project to bring with us to the show. The piece is well on it's way
to being a live edge walnut desk (that I wish I could keep for myself because it's awesome). The walnut slab was the result of Jeff bidding (and winning) the flitch at a charity auction held at Hearne Hardwoods. The proceeds from the sale went to support the Moringa Community Project- a non-profit organization started by Jeff and Linda in 2008 in Ghana where they (with the help of their African project director, Abu) built a woodworking school and taught sustainability via food preservation.

Jeff designed the overall plan for the desk and as the development began, we were each put in charge of different aspects in order to make it a collaborative project. Jeff took command of the trestle base of the desk. He hand sculpted the legs on the shaving horse and incorporated a flowing, curvy aesthetic to marry with the live edge of the walnut table top. With the legs at an angle, I can attest that every aspect of this base took careful planning and execution to fit together perfectly- there was some careful routing and chiseling involved.

I was assigned to dovetail bones to be inlaid into the top surface anywhere there were crack, splits, or voids that needed repair. I was in charge of designing and making the shapes and sizes, picking their placement, and finally inlaying the bones; And, the apprentice steps up to the plate! I made twelve bones. As per usual, they were bandsawed to rough shape, fine-tuned with sanding drums on the drill press, double-face taped in their place on the table top, and traced with a marking knife. The high-anxiety came with having to carefully router out the shape of each unique bone as perfectly as possible. And, finally, they were glued in with epoxy and sanded down level with the surface.


Rob was assigned drawer construction. As usual, he killed it with the dovetails. The design of the base calls for the drawers to be able to be pulled through from either side of the desk so he crafted double live edge fronted drawers. There, of course, is a curve to the natural live edge drawer front, and he did a stellar job of making some dovetails to accommodate. The longer, wider drawer is even more impressive but you'll have to wait for the finished desk photos for those!

Today was the big day- boiled linseed oil the desktop day. Between the figure in the crotch, and the pop of the maple bones against the walnut, the application of the oil was just as exciting as we anticipated. These are the moments we look forward to throughout the whole process.

We break on desk construction for a Practical Woodworking class next week but, check back for updates as we near completion on this beaut! Happy Friday to all.

Photographs of Our Latest Finished Live Edge Tables

As promised, I am excited to share with you, readers, some of the photographs that Eoin so skillfully captured of our three live edge tables before they were shipped to South America! The photographs speak a thousand words so I will only label them with a brief description. We are happy and proud to have been commissioned to make these pieces. We hope that they'll be enjoyed by visitors to the Vik Hotels in Chile and Uruguay for years to come. If you're interested, read about the history of the projects from day one in my previous posts: the beginning stages, dovetail bone joinery and oiling, and packing and shipping

Live Edge Bigleaf Maple Burl coffee table with figured, curly Maple base

Curved joint with Maple dovetail bones joining the two Bigleaf Maple slabs together to compose the top of the coffee table

The textured live edge of the Bigleaf Maple slabs with bark removed contrasts perfectly with the straight, angled base

Brown Oak Burl live edge table with turned legs and Walnut dovetail bones

Brown Oak Burl live edge table top with natural voids left in their natural state in the vein of George Nakashima style

Live Edge Chestnut Oak table with turned legs and Walnut dovetail bones

Walnut dovetail bones used to strengthen and ensure the natural splits and cracks don't grow over time

And, finally, the proud Lohr Woodworking team sitting on the finished coffee table to show it's strength and functionality. Cheers to another successfully finished project, gentlemen!

Advanced Joinery Class of August 2013!

Although my absence for a week may have suggested otherwise, we have not had a dull moment here at The Lohr School of Woodworking! Last week we were graced with the presence of 8 eager and animated gentlemen as they tackled the Advanced Joinery class.

Ted, Buzz, Mike, Steve, Stephen, Chris, Randy, and Randy aka Arkansas were dedicated and quite amusing as they learned the more detailed and intricate techniques necessary to complete the project for this course. The more intricate details I refer to include drawer construction, mortise and tenon joinery, dovetail (hand and machine cut) joinery, buttons, floating shelves, Green & Greene style breadboard ends, and so on.

All students are required to complete the Practical Woodworking course at our school prior to enrolling in the Advanced Joinery class. Because of this requirement, when these gentlemen walked through our shop door last week, it was their second stay with us. It seems that having spent 6 long and busy days with us during the Practical Woods class in the past causes students to walk through our door excited, comfortable, and prepared for round 2. The comradery was instantaneous and carried on throughout the entirety of week. Even though I haven't assumed any formal teaching role in the advanced course yet, and hadn't had the good fortune of meeting most of these men before last week, I still felt like I was hanging out with 8 close friends by the end of the week.

As you can see, the sanding pavilion was in full swing thanks to the weather treating us so well as the students learned and created some stunning walnut and cherry side tables. The men made jokes as they got their hands on countless additional Jeffry Lohr original jigs paired with the usual machines; bandsaw, mortiser, routers, and tablesaws. This time around, however, students get their hands on far more hand tools and operations than the Practical Woodworking course requires. The gentlemen had to fine tune their hand saw, marking knife, chisel and mallet, and detailed sanding and gluing skills. All the while though, Rob and Jeff were there to remind us that most any question can be answered with the Jeff Lohr mantra, "All things will be revealed."

One of the more interesting (and often frustrating) operations in woodworking is learning to deal with dovetails. The joinery is undeniably beautiful and strong but, the jigs aren't always willing to be easy on the user. After the bulk of one day of the course being dedicating to hand-cutting dovetails, the students move onto the routers. Jeff does a thorough job explaining jig types and how to adjust them in order to provide fitted and proper dovetails but, that doesn't eliminate the fact that each student needs to adjust those jigs when they sit down to being their drawer joinery. Luckily, we had a shop full of students like Steve (pictured left) and his constant enthusiasm to bring light to even the most challenging tasks.

As I said, comradery was not missing from this bunch of guys. When glue up day finally arrived, a strong desire for perfection was not lacking so teamwork was essential. In order for the tables to function as intended (drawers that open and close, shelves that float perfectly between legs, and breadboard ends that hold everything in place), all things needed to be level, square, and aligned. Just as they did throughout the week, the gentlemen showed full dedication and soon enough the room was filled with assembled tables. In six very busy, rather intense days of instruction and work, there were 8 beautiful tables ready to find their way home.

A huge thanks to the Advanced Joinery Class of August 2013! Although the week demanded a lot and was fast-paced at times, you all wore a smile and delivered in production. I am happy to have had the chance to spend the week with all of you gents and I hope to see some photos of finished tables in the coming weeks! A special thanks to Chris & his thoughtful daughter for making the staff some fantastic (and incredibly appropriate) t-shirts! We'll wear them with pride.

And, as a final note, I will mention that Rob will grace the cover of Woodcraft Magazine on October 1st's issue AND we are working on the construction of a new website so keep checking back with us to see it's official launch!

Advanced Joinery

Another week has come and gone at the Lohr School of Woodworking and another graduating class has earned new tables and certificates!

Last week was one of the two advanced course sessions that we offer at the shop each year. The advanced course is amazing in more ways than one and is open to Practical Woodworking alumni. This course definitely takes things up a notch or five.

Quickly, the stacks of milled walnut and cherry pieces that Rob and I worked on two weeks ago morphed into a room of stunning accessory tables complete with dovetails, breadboard ends, floating shelf, and drawer.

As I did the Practical Wood class, I doubled as a student and apprentice for this course. While being on call to lend a helping hand in any way I could, I also got the chance to watch all the lessons, learn all the new techniques, and construct a table of my own!


The course is filled with lots of hand detail, new machinery (as compared to the Practical Woodworking course), and, of course, jigs!

Jeff, Rob, and Eoin conduct the usual riveting and informative demos each day so that students can see the processes carried out correctly and safely before they try their own hand at it. The demos include (but are surely not limited to) handmade dovetails, machine-made dovetails, how to make and use buttons, Greene & Greene style breadboard ends, cloud lift making, drawer construction, and shelf construction. Naturally, we used the knowledge acquired from the Practical Woodworking course to create mortise/tenon joints, biscuit joints, sand properly, assemble and glue up, rip, joint, and plane.

I could really appreciate this class because although it was an ongoing challenge for six days, it was incredibly rewarding to see the progress unfold before your eyes. The finer details that make Lohr and Spiece furniture so unique and beautiful are taught to you by the masters themselves. Because so much of this course is hand detail and another dose of days worth of new information, I'd say it's quite a bonding course. It's easy to sit and chat/encourage/share with your classmates as you sit and perfect your buttons so the environment is calm and inviting.

At the close of the course, there is a short finishing demo. I was fortunate enough to be able to use my table as the means to exhibit how boiled linseed oil makes natural grain colors and patterns pop instantly. I was the fortunate one merely because I didn't have to toss my table into a car and drive it back to a distant part of the area/state/country. Regardless, working at this shop, I have seen my fair share of grain pop from boiled linseed oil but there is nothing quite as satisfying as watching cherry grain jump out of your carefully-crafted breadboard end table top.

I hope that my fellow May 2013 Advanced Joinery graduates will send along some photos of their oiled/finished tables so I can share them. Moreso, I hope they find the satisfaction and gratitude I did in the final stages of the project's completion.

The end result of the course looks like this (pictured above). The carcass of the table is made of walnut. Buried in it's inner workings you would find two hand-cut dovetails, several fitted mortise/tenon joints, drawer runners and spacers, and skirt boards with a cloud lift detail. The floating shelf, table top, and drawer face are made of cherry. The tabletop was constructed using the Greene & Greene style breadboard ends and button detail along the outer edges. The drawer is joined with router-cut dovetails as a result of a thorough lesson on how to adjust and properly use a (often incredibly infuriating) dovetail jig. We finished up with making walnut drawer pulls and buttons.

With my parting words for today, I want to thank the Advanced Joinery class of May 2013 for being positive, eager, and helpful. I will also thank my ever-impressive colleagues for being such wonderful instructors dealing with our varying paces and learning styles.

I am more than pleased to have stepped into a deeper level of woodworking knowledge. I am thankful to be constantly surrounded by masters, teachers, students, and creative, driven minds.

Look out for a Zelli Bar post in the next day or two; the progress continues on the classiest drink-slinging apparatus you'll set your eyes on!