Craftsy was here & Rob is a star again

In May, we had the pleasure of hosting three awesome members of the Craftsy crew here at the shop for a few days. Their mission? To film a course designed and taught by Rob to share with the woodworkers of the internet. Craftsy is a site designed to offer online courses taught by experts to learn crafts at your own pace, in your own space, and on your own time. So, with the wonders of modern technology, you can now learn all about making doors and finishing wood from Rob on your tablet in your basement shop at home. Woah.

Jared, Nathan, and Tony brought bright lights, cameras, and an overall feel of Hollywood from Denver to our dusty, farm shop in Pennsylvania... it was awesome! We got to see the fancy camera swoop-ins, hear the snap of the slate, watch live editing, and all the other fancy movie-making magic. The roosters didn't care about the sound sensitivity factor so the background noise is filled with authentic shop/farm activity.

For three days, Rob taught lessons on how to make doors for fine furniture and cabinets; Suitably, the course is titled Doors for Cabinetry & Fine Furniture. A couple of weeks later, Rob was off to shoot an additional course called Flawless Finishing. Meanwhile, I was dubbed "Rob's Assistant" for the week which means I am taking it upon myself to claim a small degree of fame by association (and because I was lucky to be featured as 'glue up partner' in one of the lessons).

In the Doors for Cabinetry & Fine Furniture course, Rob covers everything you will need to make doors for your furniture/cabinets. He discusses choosing the right materials, designing doors, proper joinery terminology and execution, hardware installation, and, of course, actually making and assembling doors! He covers raised-panel doors as well as flat panels and discusses how to resaw pieces so that it's easy to create those panels with bookmatched grain patterns. The course is broken up into digestible lessons complete with downloadable course materials that include materials lists and jig plans.

Flawless Finishing is all about the Lohr Woodworking approach to finishing any type of wood with a smooth, perfect-sheen finish. Rob flew out to Denver to shoot this one. Wait, did I mention that it's free? Oh yeah, kids, it's a free for all mini-lesson. Get it while it's hot! Rob teaches four lessons (totaling about an hour and a half) covering the process we use to ensure natural, stunning color that is then protected by a smooth, durable finish. He walks you through the step-by-step procedure we use ourselves at the shop for all of our furniture. He covers various finish application methods and rub out materials to provide surfaces that will resist ringing when wet as well as feel smooth and soft to the touch. 

For those who have taken classes with us, you know how much we care about the craft and harbor a love for teaching others about it. Now, we're so happy the internet world is getting a chance to learn something from us too. Even better, you can trust the instructor on the other side of your computer screen instead of crossing your fingers that the guy on YouTube knows what he's talking about.

Well done Rob, well done. And a big thanks to Craftsy for coming to hang out, but moreso for making such wonderful productions to help eager woodworkers learn a thing or two from home.

Now, readers, go enroll! Learn to make doors! And then finish them!

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!

Back to Building

On this beautiful Tuesday, we return to the shop and back to the grind.

As my previous entry states, last week we had the pleasure of hosting eleven wonderful students for another Practical Woodworking class. We are proud and grateful to all of them for being such great overall humans during the course. Congratulations to our most recent Lohr School of Woodworking graduates and you should all be proud of all that you learned and created this past week!

Now, what the "grind" entails is quickly approaching the completion of the Zelli Bar!

Here, we see Rob making his sternest bartender face as we carried out the final fitting of the bar faces' live edge detail. Each live edge piece of walnut was resawn and cut/sanded/fine-tuned to fit perfectly with the others to create a seamless frame. The live pieces that meet at the corner are formed from a bookmatch so they are essentially mirrored around that angle. The rest were chosen based on their natural shapes and colors.

After the pieces were confirmed to be fitted together properly, it was time to glue up! Face gluing requires an abundance of evenly distributed pressure to ensure that all pieces are attached completely and as flat as possible. As you can see, our evenly-distributed, abundant pressure was tackled with a variety of clamps... and a whole lot of them!

The long pieces of wood stretching across the length of the bar were elevated in the middle (via wedges) to make sure that there was even and heavy pressure pushing onto the live edge framing around the outer edges of the bar face. Using F-clamps, C-clamps, and bar clamps we made sure that every inch of the live edge board faces were held tight against the bar face while the glue dried.

Holding the title of smallest and most agile in the shop, it's my duty to crawl into any small and awkward spaces necessary to get the job done. I've learned to hold this title with honor as it has been part of my role in countless situations since I was young.

Thus, when it was glue clean-up time, equipped with a flashlight and a toothbrush, I crawled beneath the bench and carefully removed any squeeze-out. Because we are dealing with cherry veneer on this project, it is important to be scarce with water usage to avoid any chance of mold growth.

After the glue was left to dry for 24 hours, we unclamped and jumped right into finishing. As per usual, we used boiled linseed oil to bring out the natural colors and grain patterns in this piece. From the photo, you can see that there is a radical difference between the oiled walnut and cherry portions. Granted, a photograph doesn't do it justice but, these woods are beautiful when their colors are deepened and accented. Better yet, as the cherry ages, deepens, and reddens with time, the pairing of the dark walnut and the deep reds will be even more stunning than they already are!

The oiled bar sat untouched for the week during class thus allowing it the perfect amount of time necessary for the oil to dry.

Starting today and continuing over the course of the week, we will be spraying and brushing on layers of clear lacquer finish. With all the small additions and details done both inside and out, this bar is quickly approaching it's finish line. I am more than excited to see and share the completed project!