Happy New Year!

As we close out 2015, we are grateful to all of the commissioned pieces we've been honored to create, all of the students we've had the pleasure of teaching, and all of the co-workers, alumni, friends, and family that make our daily lives as wonderful as they are. We are lucky to work doing what we love and we are eager for a new year of doing more of it!

As a last toast to the year 2015, I'll be a lady of fewer words that normal and use this chance to take a glance back at some of the wooden pieces that have been completed this year at the Lohr Woodworking Studio.

First and foremost, we made ourselves a fancy new roadside sign.

"Griffin": The English Brown Oak Burl dining table

"Buried Treasure": The black walnut coffee table (with 20 year old captured walnut)

Rob's Walnut & Curly Maple cabinet 

Larissa's Red Oak Toy Box

Monogrammed Hand Mirrors (as featured in my Woodcraft Magazine article!)

[There are more finished projects, I don't have photos of them yet so check back in the new year for updates on those guys.]

Cheers to another year of being part of the best work team the world has ever known. Bring it on, 2016! The Lohr Woodworking crew is ready for ya.

Happy New Year, folks

Recap: Long's Park Art & Craft Festival 2015

Long time, no see! Which is entirely my fault and I appreciate your willingness to read my sporadic updates.

The last time I took a seat in the blogging chair (which in reality is a wooden stool at a work bench in the middle of the shop) was a couple of months ago as we finished up "Buried Treasure" and before our big annual trip to Long's Park Art & Craft Festival in Lancaster, PA. Labor Day weekend the one time a year we break down and load up all of the immensely heavy speculation furniture pieces we have into a horse trailer and set it up under a tent in a beautiful park for the world to see/sit/touch/buy. Care to hear about it? Cool, because I'm going to tell you about it.

The week before the show was spent collecting all of our unsold speculation pieces into the shop for a mock-up of what we wanted to the booth to look like. When you have so many large pieces paired with the aim to make a tent that's cozy and inviting (instead of intimidating), it's good measure to do the rearranging and 'hmm, maybe try that over there' dance while we have the time and space in the shop. Amongst other things, we were taking along the big live edge walnut table sofa, our two live edge walnut desks, and the Morris chairs and so we wanted to create a living room environment you couldn't resist taking a seat in even if it was located in a tent in the middle of a public park. When the furniture placement was decided, everything was dusted and detailed, broken down into it's smaller parts, wrapped up, and packed into the trailer, truck, and cars. The biggest and heaviest pieces were stacked onto a big cart tetris-style and pulled into the trailer with a block and tackle pulley system. Then it was onto days of gathering all the last minute boring stuff- price tags, box of cleaning supplies, tool boxes, business cards, overhead lighting, signs and posters, a lot of zip ties, etc.

Upon a bright and early arrival to Long's Park on Thursday, we rolled the cart out of the trailer and begin the unloading process. Thanks to Tents For Rent, our necessarily enormous tent was set up and ready to go so we just had to unwrap and assemble everything we had brought. It's the finer details that tend to take the longest- hanging lights, unwrapping moving blankets, attaching the price tags, assembling the 'Apprentice's Corner', and doing the final polishing. All in all though, I'd say (with the gracious help of my dear friend Abby and one of our stellar alumni Jimmy) we did a good job setting up a rockin' tent. Before we pull down the sides of the tent and tuck the furniture in for the night before show day #1, we all crack a beer and cheers to the hope of good weather, big crowds, fun times, and lots of sales!

The weekend was not only fun, but also a success for the Lohr Woodworking Studio. "Buried Treasure", the live edge walnut coffee table with a twenty year old walnut captured in the crotch of the slab, was sold before we even wrapped it up to bring it to the park. One of our alumni called up and bought it as a wedding present for his son before the public got the chance. Thanks, Dan! Beyond that, we said goodbye while the Bowmans said hello to Jeff's brown oak burl cocktail table which was made from what small bits remain of the infamous all-burl oak log that came to us from the UK to make "Resurrection" and "Frontier". Rob's ghost/ambrosia maple coffee table found it's forever home with a favorite loyal Lohr School of Woodworking alumni, Rob & his wife Deb (although I think it's safe to say the decision to snag the table was all hers). I even managed to sell a few smaller pieces from my Apprentice's Corner!

When the weekend wrapped, we were most excited at the lack of rain that was coming down. Last year we found ourselves in the midst of a monsoon as we tried desperately to protect and pack all the wood furniture. An event like that will make you appreciate a sunny Sunday more than you can imagine. Anyway, it's amazing how much more quickly packing up must be than unpacking. The show closes it's doors at 5pm on Sunday and it's always a personal goal to hit the road before it's completely dark. We count ourselves damn lucky to have the kind of amazing and kindhearted students we do because Jimmy & John traveled more than a few miles with smiles to help us and Eoin pack everything up in record time. Thanks fellas, you are truly the best!

There are few things better than a weekend spent among fellow artists, craftsmen, admirers, and shoppers in an open air, late summer park setting. It's always such a treat to get to talk with so many new and different people from all over the country. I am especially grateful to have the chance to step into such a creative and motivated world at such a young age and being so new to the game. I am beyond lucky to have fallen into the arms of Lohr Woodworking and it's weekends like this I'm proudest to show the world what these gents have taught me and what wonderful things we do together.

A HUGE thank you to the organizers of the Long's Park Art & Craft Festival, the festival goers, the fellow artists, and especially the people who fell in love with our work enough to take it home with them. Cheers to the end of a beautiful summer and the start of a cool autumn. Keep your eyes open for upcoming posts on several projects we have starting up for this winter!

[Inside Scoop: There's a desk, a veneer cabinet, a Woodcraft Magazine article, and maybe even the start of a new show room in the works for winter- and that's just the beginning!]

A new Lohr Woodworking live edge table is in the works!

There's another all-new, all-original Lohr Woodworking live edge table in the works, kids, get excited! The Pirro family needs a dining room table and we're hard at work to make that "need" into a "have". This dining table will be the very last to be made from the famous 300 year old English brown oak burl log that resulted in the "Frontier" and "Resurrection" dining tables.

First things first, we used a router loaded with a bottoming bit and our massive router sled to level and smooth both faces of the slab. When the slab was milled, we brought it up to the shop where it was prepped for void repair. The log that this slab was cut from was covered in burl clusters from top to bottom. Because of this, the grain is highly figured, colorful, and beautiful to look at. The downfall? The slab is completely filled with natural voids, splits, and knots.

In many cases, we would opt to leave the natural flaws as they are (much like George Nakashima) however, in this case, as it will be used as a dining room table, the voids need to be filled for ease of cleaning and to provide a consistently smooth surface. To prevent the epoxy mixtures from draining through the voids, Jeff created a setup that seals the holes from the bottom- it's plastic, carpet padding, and melamine stacks that are screwed to the underside of the slab to create a damming system that conforms to the voids. We can then flip the slab over and fill the voids from the top side while the damming pieces allow the epoxy to pool and fill the spaces until it has time to dry.

This highly figured slab was not your average epoxy void repair job. The size of each void/split/knot and its location with respect to the edges of the slab, determined which kind of epoxy and filler we chose to use.

For the larger bark inclusions and knots, we used some serious chemistry skills (with massive aid from the ever-genius Linda Lohr) to mix up clear EpoxAcast 690 casting epoxy so that the natural bark can be seen through the filled void. The casting dries completely clear and maintains somewhat of a flexible property that allows it to move with the wood as it expands and contracts with changing humidity. Mixing the casting epoxy required some careful weighing, a desiccator vacuum chamber (to remove bubbles before pouring), and a blow torch to rupture any bubbles that collect on the top of the poured casting.

The clusters of smaller splits and voids were filled with a West System epoxy, sawdust, and crushed bark mixture. The sawdust and bark were taken from along the live edges of this slab so the color would remain a natural match. Each batch of epoxy mixture has about 7-12 minutes of open time so to ensure each individual void was filled, one batch was mixed to fill one cluster at a time. For larger voids, we would search for a piece of the natural bark from the same tree to fill the space as best as possible.

Needless to say, filling the voids that covered the entirety of the table top took about a week. When all the voids were filled, whether it was epoxy-and-sawdust or EpoxAcast, it was left to dry for 24 hours. After the damming materials were removed from the bottom of the slab, both faces were smoothed with a belt sander. As you can see from the photo to the left, the filled voids are brought to life and add an exciting element of contrast when they are filled with the natural bark pieces. The base will be made of walnut so the colors match perfectly throughout the entire table.

Now, how to keep such a long, continuous slab from warping and cupping as the humidity levels change throughout the year. The table will be attached to the base which will offer a certain degree of stability but, to ensure the table top stays flat for all time, we will add some breadboard ends.

We used a fence jig that clamps onto the end of the slab from both faces to ensure that the cut is exactly the same on both sides. Then, we used the router with a straight-cutting bit to carefully create a long 1/2" thick tenon across the ends of the slab by cutting down from both faces. The tenons were cut to be longer than the breadboards are wide so that we can make tongues that go all the way through the breadboard ends for strength and to accent the joinery.

The breadboard ends themselves are made of straight-grain, rift sawn white oak to ensure a strong, ever-flat hold on the ends of the slab. There was a 1/2" plow cut along the inside edge of each breadboard to fit perfectly onto the tenon we cut into the ends of the slab.

Meanwhile, brainstorming of the base was underway. As the table will accompany a built-in banquette style seating arrangement, we needed a base that was easy to slide in around and provided leg/foot room from at either end. While searching and sketching up ideas for a simple, curved, trestle-style base, we broke out our Sam Maloof book for inspiration. If you are unfamiliar with Sam Maloof, do yourself a favor and treat your eyes to some of his beautiful woodworking. Ultimately, plans and patterns were decided and drawn up for Jeff's sketch you see to the left.

 

Using the patterns to ensure they were identical, each piece of the base was cut to shape, then joinery for the top rails and the mortise for the trestle was cut into the base ends. From there, the individual pieces were glued together with floating tenons and plenty of epoxy.

The long rail supports that connect the ends, and soon attach the table top, were cut to rest perfectly into the top edge of the base ends. And, already, the base stands on its own. Today, work begins on the trestle itself that will run through the middle of the base ends.

With that, you are officially caught up on our progress on the Pirro Live Edge Brown Oak Burl Dining Table. Taking only a brief hiatus to welcome 2015, we will otherwise be hard at work on this project so look forward to another update soon on how it comes together! Until then, Happy New Year to all! Cheers to a new year, new adventures, and new woodworking projects!