The Affordable Healthcare Act helps JD Lohr Woodworking!

While we've all heard various media complaints about the Affordable Care Act, all of us here at JD Lohr Woodworking can say is that the new law and the ability to enroll sure was fantastic for us. As a company benefit, we were offered enrollment with a leading health care provider. Better yet, we even had plan options!

We all are relieved to finally be able to have respectable "real" health insurance provided by the company. Boss man Jeff is ecstatic as he was previously unable to get health insurance due to the earlier pre-existing conditions clause insurance companies were able to use to cherry pick who they insured. In the end, January 1, 2014 was a big day for employees of JD Lohr Woodworking as we rang in the new year by finally getting respectable health insurance. It's comforting to know that as a small, hard-working business, we can all rely on staying healthy to keep the eager woodworking students educated and the one-of-a-kind furniture being made! We still, however, committed to keeping our fingers.

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!

Live Edge Tables Begin their Journey Overseas!

As the snow fell down this morning in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, we bid farewell to the three live edge tables as they start their journey overseas to their new home at the Vik Hotels in Chile and Uruguay.

The Handcrafted Delivery truck made it's way up the long driveway to the shop bright and early this morning. We were lucky to be sent Mike and Mike, the masters of packing and moving, to carefully prepare our tables for their trip. Handcrafted Delivery will take them on the first leg to Connecticut. In Connecticut, they will be loaded in a container to head over to the South American hotels.


We admired the work of Mike and Mike as they wrapped layer upon layer of protective covering around the tables. Plastic then cardboard was used as the first layer to protect the fragile and curvy nature of the live edges. Then blankets were wrapped around every inch of each table and held securely with large quantities of packing tape.



It's quite a relief to know that any concerns we may have had about safely shipping these one-of-a-kind pieces such a long distance is a concern we need not have. Watching these two guys at work made us nothing short of confident that the tables will travel and arrive safely at their next destination. A huge thank you to Handcrafted Delivery and the fine employees they have in Mike and Mike!

We wish the tables a safe adventure as they make their way overseas. And, we are hopeful and confident that upon their arrival, Vik Hotels and their visitors will admire and appreciate the pieces for years to come!

Keep your eye out for a blog post early next week sharing the photographs Eoin took of the finished tables last week. Be ready for some phenomenal images of the tables and their intricate details. I am eager to share them with you, readers!

Photographing the Chile-bound Live Edge Tables!

As the new year opens at Lohr Woodworking, we have finished, rubbed out, and are preparing to say goodbye to our three live edge tables as they near their Chile-bound shipment date. During our final days with the tables, we have been prepping for their official photo session.

One wall of the shop is an infinity wall (aka cyclorama) and is built with a curved edge joining the wall with the floor. The wall is designed for photographing our finished furniture without a distracting, harsh corner to catch shadow. Last week, we cleared the back of the shop, removed dust and dirt from all places we could get to, and repainted the wall/floor a clean white.

Today began the official live edge Chile tables photo shoot. Eoin came with all the photography equipment we could imagine to capture these pieces as beautifully as they appear in person. After a morning of setting up the diffused lights and playing with exposures, f-stops, and all those other fancy camera terms, he spent the day hard at work behind the lens.

He did an amazing job of capturing these pieces in their entirety down to their finest details. Each table is live edge piece made but of different hardwoods and varying drastically in size so it was impressive to watch him crawling, laying, standing, and climbing ladders to be sure he/we can share them with admirers without any question that they're presented beautifully and accurately.

The majority of the day was spent photographing the huge live edge Bigleaf Maple coffee table. We completed the maple base before Christmas and finished the entire piece just in time for it to be the star of this shoot.

Everything about this piece took thought, creativity, and precise hands to build. Eoin was a master at documenting the live edge slabs, the carefully constructed strong base, the strategically repaired natural voids and flaws, and the complex joinery. We are lucky to have such a skilled photographer-and-woodworker amongst us in this Irishman.

He was sure to capture the live edge oak library table as well as the live edge oak crotch slab table before we called it a day. Each table is so unique in it's shape, grain, color, function, and overall appearance so it was so stunning to see each one have their moment perched in the spotlight. They each sat with the infinity wall behind and the careful lighting shining from above them caused them to look as if they were floating in thin air.

And, don't you worry, there were plenty of the four of us, Lohr Woodworking team, perched upon this piece. First intended to show the strength, functionality, and practicality of the table, it quickly turned into a family photo shoot with fun poses and jokes between snapshots.

What an exciting day! Thanks to Eoin for his skills, equipment, and company. And, thanks to Jeff for constantly designing such exquisite furniture for us to work on. I am one lucky apprentice!

Progress on Chile-bound Live Edge Tables

Greetings and a belated Happy Thanksgiving from us at Lohr Woodworking!

We are hard at work on the three live edge tables we have been commissioned to make for a Vik Hotel tucked in the hills of Chile. In my last update, we had joined two Bigleaf Maple slabs creating a coffee table with a curved joint held together with floating splines, dovetail bones, and West System Epoxy. Then we removed the bark and sanded her down. Since then, the 12' slab has been treated with boiled linseed oil to bring the unique, detailed burl grain patterns to life. The oil was left to absorb into the wood for a week before we started the finishing process. Jeff is using General Finishes Arm-R-Seal semi-gloss applied with a foam brush to the surfaces of the slab. The top of the slab will have 4-5 coats when all is said and done to ensure that it will protect against the plentiful wine glasses that are sure to grace it's surface. In between each coat, we carefully sand with 400 through 1500 grit to smooth and even the surface before applying the next coat.

Aside from the coffee table, we have been in the midst of creating a small table for the library at the hotel. Another burl slab provides such interesting and lively grain patterns. We tended to the natural splits with a series of small walnut bones.

You can see in the photo to the left, the slab has such a beautiful shape and live edge. In the vein of George Nakashima, we have chosen to leave the natural voids and crevasses as they are. The alternative would have been to fill the voids with epoxy and crushed bark but it was decided that the textured spaces marry too well with the splits to fill them.

This slab, like most of our furniture, was treated with boiled linseed oil. You can see in the 'before' and 'after' photos to the left what a world of difference the oil makes. The slab was then finished with gym seal finish and is currently awaiting the final rub out (using 0000 steel wool and mineral oil to smooth and reduce the shiny/glossy appearance) and the construction of it's base!

The third and final table in the works for this project is a Pennsylvania Brown Oak crotch slab. As the slab was dried, it developed a large split down the center of the crotch but the shape and size were right so, we got the chance to be creative with more bones! Jeff printed some inspirational, skeletal images so we could cut bones in shapes as true to life as possible. As they are structural additions to the 'flesh' of the wood, it is important that they are beautiful and strategically placed. He carefully selected pieces of figured walnut to cut the bones from and designed their shapes and placement.

Next, it was my job to take to the router! After the bones has been cut and shaped, I double-face taped them in place and traced carefully around their edges with a marking knife. When the outline was clear, I removed the bones and loaded the plunge router with a 3/8" plunge bit with the depth set to roughly 3/4 the thickness of the bone itself. I set up desk lamps so ensure that I had a most-than-necessary amount of light shining on my work area since the router cuts need to be incredibly precise. I then carefully routered out the space within my outlines, getting to within a 16th of the knife line.


My final passes cut out the material right up to the outline, watching carefully as the fibers split away from the knife lines but doing all I could to avoid going beyond them. From there, I would test the fit of each bone keeping in mind that the goal was to have them fit as close to perfectly as possible. The bones needed to be snug in their holes (enough that they should need to be tapped in with a brass mallet), but not so tight that they would split from the pressure of being glued in.

You can see to the right that when I was finished, the bone slots were shaped for each individual bone and didn't cut all the way through the slab. These bones will serve as a strong structural element to hold the split from getting wider with time and wood expansion/contraction. The board I am holding in my left hand was what we used to apply even pressure to the bone as we lowered it into the slot for the final glue-up.


And then came the glue! We used a two-part epoxy to hold the bones in place. After trying the 5-minute epoxy on the first bone, we realized that it was too thick and the open time wasn't quite enough for us to feel confident that each bone would be bottomed out and placed perfectly before it started to tack. Onto the West System epoxy we went! Although the dry time for the West System is longer, the consistency was much easier to work with and it allowed us ample time to set the bones just as we wanted them.

In the photo to the right, you can see our brass mallet and hammering block on standby to tap the bones into their slots. The two boards underneath and on top of the slab were pulled together (like a sandwich) with c-clamps and helped us to lower the bones toward the edge into place evenly and slowly. It was important that each bone bottomed out into its routered slot so that they fulfill their role as structural and strong additions to the piece. We want to make sure that 100 years from now, the split in this slab remains harnessed, un-extended, and beautifully treated.

Finally, after the epoxy had a day to dry completely, we belt sanded the bones down to be level with slab's surface. The entire slab was then sanded with 80, 120, 180, and 220 grit sandpaper via a random orbit sander. The blunt ends were rounded with files and sanders as well to create the soft, round ends you see to the left. The live edge was de-barked and otherwise left in it's natural state.

And, for the third table in a few weeks, we treated the table top with boiled linseed oil. The brown oak slab now lays drying for the week before we jump into applying finishes to its surfaces.


Now that the table tops are nearly complete, we are onto the design and beginnings of their bases! Look out for an update soon about our current Practical Woodworking course as well as the base construction for these beautiful tables as they make their way to completion!

Practical Woodworking & Gift Certificates!

A short entry for your Saturday evening:

A huge congratulations to Nancy, the Steves, the Matts, Brian, John, Jim, Mehmet (who came to us all the way from Istanbul), and Gary for being the newest Practical Woodworking graduates! After a week of seemingly overwhelming amounts of information and even more hard work, we have ten students (each still with 10 fingers) who should be nothing short of extremely proud of, and confident in, their woodworking skills. They started the week having their brains filled with wood theory and characteristics and, just a few days later, they have filled the shop with 10 beautiful red oak tables that will stand the test of time. We are lucky to have had the chance to spend the week with these wonderful people and we are hopeful they go on to create (and share) all the wooden masterpieces they can dream up!

In other news, we are happy to introduce JD Lohr School of Woodworking gift certificates in time for the holiday season! Are you a woodworker who has been taught by youtube videos and trial and error? Are you the spouse, parent, sibling, or friend of a woodworker that you are fairly certain runs the risk of losing fingers or limbs every time they head out to the shop? Practical Woodworking is a course built for these folks! What better gift that to give them the gift of a week on a farm learning practical, safe, and repeatable woodworking techniques and practices from a master?

Zero-experience through advanced woodworkers are welcome and encouraged to enroll. Students of all skill levels will walk away from the course with a guaranteed wealth of new information.

Please feel free to learn more about the gift certificates in our online school store!


Until next week, ladies and gentlemen. Check back for an update in the near future about the happenings of the Bigleaf Maple live edge coffee table as we start finishing the top and begin design/construction of it's base! Exciting!

What? Another Shreiner Log Delivery? YES!

Mr. Steve Shreiner has done it again! The alumni of the Lohr School of Woodworking are truly the cream of the crop. On Friday, we were lucky enough to see a Shreiner Tree Care log truck making it's way up the driveway. Rich, the greatest log truck driver in the land, arrived with a filled-to-the-brim load of beautiful logs. Cherry, Walnut, and Oak galore! We couldn't be more excited to receive such a wonderful delivery. We are grateful beyond words. Thank you Steve, Rich, and all those at Shreiner Tree Care!

Rich piloted the huge log-grabbing claw from atop the truck as we watched in awe from below. It was awesome to see huge logs lifted, moved, and twisted with such ease. Rich was up there sorting massive tree trunks; placing the smaller ones aside while he put the bigger ones where they'd be easier for us to move for saw milling. Jeff merely had to point to a space in the yard and, within seconds, Rich dropped the log in it's place. Our usual log-moving routine involves tractors, digging bars, gantries, and some serious muscle, so watching the Shreiner truck in action was a treat. I'm a lady, so I can say it was much like a ballet of log stacking.

It is often said around Lohr Woodworking that one of the best parts of working the wood from the source (log form) is that we are the first to lay our eyes on what is inside of a log when it's cut open. A tree spends it's entire life growing and forming it's rings and grain patterns and we are lucky to, not only reveal the natural patterns to the world but, create furniture that will present them to the human eye throughout the test of time. We now have a yard full of logs just waiting to reveal their inner grain patterns! I can't wait to see what our newest Shreiner logs has waiting for us.

As a new week begins, I can only assume that much if it will be spent at the saw mill breaking into our new goodies. We are excited to know that our saw mill, drying yard, and kiln will be operating at maximum capacity for the coming months. I want to send our greatest of thanks to Steve and Rich for all of their generosity, time, and stunning material! We are grateful to have the pleasure know these kind gentlemen. If you have any tree or landscaping needs, we can assure that you'll receive the utmost care, kindness, and dedication with Steve and the lovely people at Shreiner Tree Care.