Ajay Fay _ blog one

Shaker Furniture, 

I chose these furniture makes because of an End Table that a friend of mine has. I thought it was a small antique end table, and that is what it is being used for. I noticed how hand crafted it looked, and I asked my friend about this cool little table. She said its super old, and her great grandpa had it from the, “Niskayuna Shakers, I guess they lived in a town north of his? Long story short, I read the words shakers in the list of artist, and had to pick them.

I went back to further inspect the End Table, and realized it was a late 1800’s Commode. Came equipped with a ceramic cast Chamber Pot l! (aka a toilet)  And my friend told me that she used to hid her candy in the inside when she would go visit her grandparents so they wouldn't find it. Eventually they passed it down to her.. 

The Shakers furniture designs were some of the first minimalist to design furniture in the United States. They were a religious group founded by a couple james and jane Wardley. The group originally came to the States from England in the late eighteen century. 

The Shakers reached 6000 at there highest in the mid 1800’s and as of 2009 there was only a small handful left. Some say that there were three, or less true shakers. This is because the Shakers never procreated, they took in many orphans, and had converts. 

Shaker furniture design was simple strong, and has lasted to this day, just google the name shaker, or shaker furniture and tons of web sites pop up with modern Shaker furniture.  I think this is due to the thought behind their religion, and the words given from their, Mother Ann, the leader of the group. She is quoted to saying, Put your hands to work and your heart to God. And that their life's where dedicated to perfection. Its no wonder their furniture was so popular. 

The shaker chair was the first of many peaces of their furniture to become very popular. During the American Civil War the chairs put them on the map, and allowing them to open up several factories. Not only did the shakers chairs become popular to buyers, but other companies that made furniture became heavily influenced by them and began their own reproduction of the chairs, and other furniture. 

Early shaker furniture was strictly made for use, and functionality, later they design the, Ladder-Back chair, and it became very sought after. The material’s used in there furniture was mostly pine, which was cheap, and light in color. Their furniture did not stop at tables and chairs, but they invented furniture such as early models of coat racks called, a peg rail, all sorts of things were hung from them. From hats, to furniture not being used.  Even thought these hardworking minimalist were all about making furniture for function, like the coat rack. They too would soon be influenced by other skilled craftsmen, like those of the Victorian era. The early 1900’s gave way to some of the only decorative shaker furniture. Being influenced by the british industrial revolution, and the wealth of the middle class, this late  Victorian style began to show up in furniture designed by the shakers. 

The shakers began to slow down on production after the middle to late 1900’s because of newer cheaper technology. The furniture they made was strong, and lasting, but very costly because of its design. Mass production of furniture slowly began to put them out of work this along with the new law, that would minimize the amount of children being adopted by religious organizations, cut their numbers down to nearly zero by the middle 2000’s. And now they are believed to only be descendants of these once thriving furniture makers, the Shakers. 

Tuyen Chung

Blog #3 Japanese Carpentry

As I was preparing to make my final project (a coffee table), I decided to make my table easy to assemble and disassemble. This required some form of joint that did not include glue. I decided to use pegs that would fasten my mortise and tenon securely. I discover this kind of joint from researching Japanese joinery a while back. Japanese carpentry has been around for more than 1000 years. Japanese carpentry is known for its precision and ability to craft small to large buildings without the use of nails, screws, or power tools. This is possible by interlocking joints that keep the structure tightly secured. For larger buildings such as temples, tea houses, shrines, and homes, complex technique are used to assure strong joints. Often used in smaller projects would be the dovetail joint. Dovetail joints are considered a simple method of joinery.

Although dovetail may be a simple method of Japanese joinery, it takes time and precision to make it fit tightly. Large scale buildings require a great deal amount of sturdy and tight joints. Advanced Japanese joinery includes multiple pieces to keep everything in place, illustrated below. With such techniques, these types of joints allow for heavy duty weather, loads of weight, and dependability over time.

Japanese carpentry also cares for the wood they use and select. A popular wood used in Japanese carpentry would be the cypress, also known as hinoki. Cypress is known for its strength, clear grain and resistance to rotting as it ages. Cypress has been used for more than 1000 year in the Japanese carpentry culture. Though carpentry in America stands for carpet installation, Japanese has different names for carpenter and woodworkers. There are four major types, miyadaiku are experts in temples, shrines, and other large buildings. Second is sukiya-daiku, where delicacy and historic details are involved in the making. Teahouses are part of sukiya-daiku expertise. Third would be mainly in construction of furniture called sashimono-shi. Interior finishers are known as tateguya. Although there are four major type of carpentry, they all share the same principles of Japanese carpentry.

Japanese carpentry is a form of art in my opinion because of its form and function that are infused in the making of wood pieces. The process is very enjoyable and very much fun as I experience a novice technique with my coffee table. Japanese carpenter have perfect their joints over the past millennium and it shows in their finish products.

http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/wordpress/?p=60

http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/about/travel/carpentry.htm

Blog #2 Tusk Tenon

My second blog is about tusk tenon. I wanted to write about tusk tenon because I am trying to make a coffee table which is sturdy and mobile at the same time. Tusk tenon were used since the Middle Ages, like modern days, people seek portable furniture. During those times, households were limited to space so fold up tables were necessary. After a lost one, family would send prized furniture with them. Being able to disassemble a piece of furniture would make sending it easier. The problem with portable furniture is not the mobility but rather the sturdiness of the construction. Tusk tenon, keyed tenon or wedged tenon all involve a small piece which assert force to hold joints tightly together. The small piece which holds the joints together is called a peg. Pegs can be removed from a tenon with key-mortise if pieces need to be disassembled. Though tusk tenon were not favorites in English joinery, German furniture frequently had them.

It takes little to no skill to make tusk tenon. If you have not done any mortise and tenon, you might want to practice on some scrap wood before your piece. Tusk tenon is a lot like mortise and tenon except it’s on the same piece of wood rather than two pieces. The mortise happens to be cut into the tenon. This allows the peg to fall through holding it in place. Once you are familiar with mortise and tenon, tusk tenon would not be a problem. For tools, it doesn’t take much to make the mortise and tenon. Using only hand tools, it will require a saw and a mortising chisel. A mortising gauge will help with the marking of the mortise. Power tools will decrease the time spent cutting mortises. Drill press and mortising machine will take out the wood much faster for the mortise, but a chisel is still necessary to shape out the corners. In order for a strong joint, you will need clear and straight grain wood without knots or cracks. Good wood for tusk tenon includes hardwood such as oak and poplar. Softer wood would cause problem after a few assemble because of the force asserted to keep joints tight. The tenon should be long enough to have a peg fall through the mortise. It’s better to have a too long of a tenon than a too short of a tenon. This way you can cut the tenon down if it is too long.

For table furniture you will need through mortises and long tenon with key-mortise. Begin with the mortise which the tenon will go through. When making a mortise, you should drill from both side of the wood. Doing so will prevent tears from occurring once you drill through the wood. The size of the mortise will depend on the piece of stock you are working with. The mortise should not extend one third the width of the stock. If the mortise is too big, that will take away the strength of the stock. The rule applies to the peg as well, no more than one third the thickness of the tenon. Make the peg slightly smaller than the chisel you used to make the mortise. The peg’s surface should be grain running both sides. Finally the tenon with key-mortise, this tenon will go through the first mortise and fasten with the peg. This mortise is very important because it provides the force for a strong joint. If the mortise is too far from the shoulder then it has no purpose even with the peg wedged in. One of the ends of the key-mortise should not pass the first mortise because this will allow the peg to have tension. Tusk tenon is more of a fashion sense now a day instead of being a structural sense.

http://www.bloodandsawdust.com/sca/tusktenons.pdf

Blog Post #1 Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) became one of the best influential and imaginative architects of his time. His architectural career lasted nearly 70 years. In 1887, Wright designed his first building in Chicago working for Joseph Lyman Silsbee, a pronounced architect at the time. After Silsbee, Wright found himself working for Louis Sullivan, spending six years with the most influential American architect of the 20^th Century. His early buildings amazed the Prairie School of Architecture, architects who had a similar style as Wright. A style in which was to involve Midwestern lifestyle and the surrounding environment. Wright had a theory “Form and Function Are One.” In 1914, one of his wives was tragically murdered in his home in Spring Green, Wisconsin where he spent most of his childhood. His house was set to fire as well. However, many thought this would have ended Wright’s career but he was determined to rebuild his house called the Taliesin. During that time Wright’s work became very popular in the United States and Europe. His architectural and sociological philosophies were unique compared to other architects at the time. In 1932, Wright turned his house into an architectural fellowship for young architects to learn from him. As he grew older the winter of Wisconsin moved him to Phoenix, Arizona. There he built Taliesin West for his third wife and raised one child. On April 9, 1959 Wright died in his home at Phoenix, Arizona at the age of ninety-two. By then Wright was internationally recognized for his work and functions of his buildings. Throughout his career, Wright composed 1,141 designs and of that 532 of them got completed. Frank Lloyd Wright left us with not only famous landmarks but most importantly his influence on nature and the way we live.

In his final year, Wright designed his best work of all, the Guggenheim Museum and the Marin County Civic Center. The Guggenheim Museum took 16 years to build due to delays. In 1943, the director of Museum of Non-Objective Painting commission Frank Lloyd Wright to create a building for the Museum of Non-Objective Paintings. Director Hilla Rebay instructed Wright, “I want a temple of spirit, a monument!” Wright came up with six different plans and a total of 749 drawings. Wright designed involved an inverted-ziggurat which came with many modifications and additional property. Finally the constructions of the museum began in 1956. October 21, 1959, Wright’s designs came to life for the public. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum featured a spiral ramp riding to a domed skylight unlike ancient ziggurat. Ancient ziggurats were built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau. These were buildings with steep walkways to a massive platform where the main structure was located. Wright took the design of ziggurats and inverted to fit modern space for the museum. Wright came up with a floor plan which was accepted socially and culturally by architects at the time. Some even believe Wright’s design of Guggenheim was the model for every museum out there today.

In 1990, the museum was closed to the public in order to do some heavy interior restoration. This was necessary because it created 4,750 square meters of renovated gallery and 130 square meters of office space, restaurant, and storage spaces. This plan were included in Frank Lloyd Wright’s original plans but was not possible at the time. Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects added an eight-story annex to accommodate small rotunda, galleries, offices, workrooms, storage, and private studio apartments. The eight-story annex design came from Wright’s son-in-law, William Wesley Peters. The newly renovated Guggenheim Museum enhanced the exhibition of the museum without destroying Wright’s features of the building.

Frank Lloyd Wright primary influence would have been Louis Sullivan because Wright devise his theory on “Form and Function Are One” from Sullivan. Sullivan’s theory was “Form Follows Function.” Wright further expanded the idea of Sullivan because Sullivan believed that American architecture should not be base on European traditions, but rather the functions of American buildings. Wright also used the natural surroundings to give his buildings more function. For example, Wright would utilize low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs to provide sunlight into the building during winter and block out sunlight during the summer. He never painted and only built with natural materials. Even in Urban city, Wright’s design included skylight which kept the house bright majority of the day. Wright’s philosophical of his designs in building compares to a tree. He thinks that tall buildings should be built like a tree, with a central base made of concrete. The central base would be deep in the ground similar to tree roots. With a central base in place, floors like branches would be built off the base. Taller buildings would capture more sunlight and moonlight for the interior. Wright’s design of low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs also control the amount of sunlight allowed into the interiors. Low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs interested me because I had no clue of what low-pitched rooflines with deep overhangs was, until I searched it up. It was simpler than I had imagined and that this technique was used in the homes I lived in. I would like to learn about form and function from Wright so I am able to imply it into my pieces.

Frank Lloyd Wright- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

New York, 1959

References: http://www.cmgww.com/historic/flw/photo_guggenheim.html

Charlotte Perriand

As I searched through the list of designers, by images, for one that I did not know and who's work spoke to me. I discovered the chaise lounge chair of French designer Charlotte Perriond. This chaise has been used in countless design and fashion advertisements for many years. Although it has mostly been used as a prop, the chaise has never faded into the background. The chaise exemplifies simplicity, modernity, luxury, and most importantly comfort.

The B306 chaise lounge chair was designed in 1928!

Born in 1903, Charlotte Perriand went to the Ecole de l'Union Centrale des Arts Decorratifs, in 1920, to study the art of furniture design. After her schooling she went to Charles-Edoward Jeannet, better known as Le Corbusier, enquire about employment in his design firm in Paris. Where she was turned down because he believed women could only embroider. It wasn't until he saw Perriand's roof top bar, that he actually saw what she could do and offered her a job in his company.

Perriand is also credited with introducing the "machine age" to furniture design and therefore to the inside. The "machine age" refers to the movement in the early to mid 1900's that accentuated and emphasized the "industrialness" of the machinery of that era. Such as the developments, like the assembly line, needed for the mass production for the consumerism culture that was just in its infancy. Or like the chrome plating metal process that sped up the time and effort needed to give metal a mirror shine. This can clearly be seen in her use of chrome tubing in the B306 chaise.

After leaving Le Corbusier's studio in '37, Perriand traveled to Japan as an advisor to the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Once there, she helped Japan to develop products that would be more desirable for consumers in the West. As World War II broke out Perriand was kicked out of Japan, but was unable to return to France because of a naval blockade. Because of the blockade, Perriand ended up stuck in Vietnam.

The time spent in Japan and Vietnam was not in vain and later influenced her work after returning to France in '46. She adopted the Japanese technique of using screens to change the space of a room, and also the craftsmanship of the Vietnamese woodworking skills. She created book shelves that divided rooms and translated her chaise into wood.

Perriand also combined the two opposing attributes of her past works, the mass market ability of the "machine age" and the naturalness of wood. She created a wooden stacking chair that needed the cold, "machine age'" assembly line to make it affordable enough for the everyday person, yet contained the warmth of the wood. The chair needed machinery to bend the single piece of plywood into its shape, but it also displayed the proportions and the curves that it give it grace.

Perriand established herself as an architect by designing the United Nation's League of Nations building in Geneva and as a collaborator for the French Tourist Office in London. She also designed a series of ski resorts in her grandparents town of Savoie.

Perriand died at the ripe old age of 96 in 1999; a very accomplished, ground breaking, timeless, tireless, forward thinking, architect, designer, artist, woman.

Wilson Chao - Blogs

Blog #1: Gustav Stickley

The furniture of Gustav Stickley have a certain simplistic beauty.

Stickley wanted to reduce furniture to their simplest form using vertical and horizontal members in a post-an-lintel system. He wanted to enhance his work without sacrificing any structural integrity. So, he looked back to Gothic architecture, where flying buttresses were used both as a structural form and also as ornamental. Stickley despised surface decorations and see them as “a parasite and never fails to absorb the strength of the organism upon which it feeds.” With this view, Stickley looked for methods to reveal existing structural elements as ornamental. As seen in some of his furniture, he extended the tenons all the way through, revealing them. As a result, the joinery is revealed and is both used ornamentally and functionally established as what Stickley called “structural style.”

The furniture are made from oak, either red oak or white oak. This can not be certain is because of the finish applied to the furniture. Stickley wanted the finishing to get “the best possible results from the wood itself as well as the most pleasing effect in completing the color scheme of a room, and never the purpose of imitating a more costly wood in the finish of cheaper one.” He wanted to show the unique beauty in the wood and to show that beauty to the best advantage.

Sickley had a deep rooted nationalistic fervor. This was a key factor in the formulation of his aesthetic philosophy. He saw that America turned to Europe for its art. The result of this were reproductions, art transplanted to an environment unsuited for their nourishment and understanding. The furniture transplanted from Europe does not show the spirit of the American people. While other shops in the early 1900s were filled with reproductions, Stickley set out “to design furniture that would reflect the needs of the American people, not the historical whims of European aristocracy. This was needed because it arose from the democratic form of government and the practical, working-class identity of most Americans. As a result, his furniture would be created for “...the real Americans, deserving, the dignity of this name, since they must always provide the brawn and sinew of the nation...the great mass of American people hav[ing] moderate incomes with an unusual degree of mental cultivation...”

Stickley chose oak as the primary material for his furniture because it was abundant in American forests. As a result, this served as an expression of the natural environment of the people in whom the furniture is made for. He used the wood to its full advantage and he respected it. He saw that it should never be abused or forced into unnatural states.

To this day, Craftsman furniture is still beautiful. It stood up to the test of time.

Bavaro, Joseph J., and Thomas L. Mossman. The Furniture of Gustav Stickley: History, Techniques, Projects. Fresno, CA: Linden Pub., 1996. Print.

Blog #2: Greene and Greene

Greene & Greene and the Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a reaction to the mass production of the Victorian age and the choice to follow John Ruskin's call for a return to hand craftsmanship and nature. “Ruskin saw industrialization as a disease in society and believed that the worker's salvation from the monotony of being a mere aide to a machine was a return to a skilled production by hand, apparent in the historical example of medieval design”.¹ This was taken up passionately by William Morris from Britain. "The British Movement veered off towards the example of 'honest' medieval-style construction, with pegged mortise joints and through dovetails to show how a piece was made."² This resulted in going back to plain surfaces and the use of local materials. The British movement emphasized on hand craftsmanship and away from the factory aesthetic. On the other hand, in the United States, Gustav Stickley's philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement was slightly different. What was different was that Stickley thought that skilled hand crafts can be combined with the use of machinery can be combined to make beautiful works of art. These attributes of the Arts and Crafts movement not only applied to furniture, but to architecture as well. These attributes are obvious in the Blacker House and the Gamble house designed by Charles Greene & Henry Greene in their personal philosophy, the design of both of those homes, and the Japanese influence as an extension of the movement. 

Living in and designing during the Arts and Crafts movement affected the philosophy in which Greene and Greene designed their buildings. Charles Greene suggested three things that every prospective builder should know. The first is that “good work costs much more than poor imitation or factory product.”³ This goes hand in hand with the Arts and Crafts movement's call against the factory aesthetic and back to skilled craftsmanship. The second thing builders should know is “no house however expensive can be a success unless you, the owners, give the matter time and thought enough to know what you want for it.”³ Beautiful architecture takes time to make. The third and final one is “you must employ some one who is broad enough to understand and sympathize with you and your needs and yet has the ability to put them into shape from the artist's point of view.”³ The products resulting from these three philosophies are beautiful homes. In 1912, Henry Greene said “the idea was to eliminate everything unnecessary, to make the whole as direct and simple as possible, but always with the beautiful in mind as the first goal...”⁴ They stripped the decoration to show the beauty of the materials that they used.

Designing buildings during the Arts and Crafts movement, it was only natural that the Blacker House and the Gamble House have elements of Japanese influence. Greene and Greene “drew from both China and Japan, although their idealized vision of Japan was more of an influence.”⁵ In traditional Japanese temples, wood is used in its natural form, without any decoration. The wood is also visible, showing how they give structure to the building. These things are visible in both the Blacker House and the Gamble House. In the Blacker House (fig 1), the wooden post-and-beam supports give structure to the covered terrace on the left and the porte cochere to the right are visible. The wooden supports for the roof extend out, making them visible and as simple decoration on the exterior of the house. The visible supports are on the terrace for the Gamble House (fig 2).

The Arts and Crafts movement and traditional Japanese architecture highly influenced the design of the Gamble House and the Blacker House. Aside from the post-and-beam system that give support to the terrace in both houses, there are many other things on the exterior that show the influences mentioned earlier. The entrance to the Blacker House shows the simple beauty of natural wood, without decoration. The reason for this is that “there is in wood something that stimulates the imagination, its petalous sheen, sinuous grain, delicate shading that age may give to even commonest kind.”⁶ The pattern in the wood panels above the entrance are beautiful. The way the wood was finished, brought out the pattern of the wood. The delicate lines in the woods became visible. This is the same as on the Gamble House entrance way. In both of these houses, there is a sharp contrast in color between the windows and the doors against the exterior. The door frame and the window frames look like natural wood while the shingles lining the exterior look weatherized. It looks like Greene and Greene wanted to have an obvious separation of the exterior and the interior. The windows and the doors are the gate ways to the interior, where almost everything is finished in the same way. The interiors of both the Gamble House and the Blacker House are very similar, since they were built at around the same time. The staircases in these houses are similar. There are exposed mortise and tenon joints, with protruding pegs made of ebony. Any exposed edge throughout the houses were rounded over, making it softer and looking more like hand worked pieces. The rounding helps in giving flow, as in your eyes never stops at any abrupt edge. Throughout the houses, where ever wood was used, it was used in its natural form. There are no surface decoration, the inherit beauty of the woods brought out by the finish.

The Blacker House and the Gamble House have stood up to the test of time. They show the beauty in simplicity. These houses show the obvious attributes of the Arts and Crafts movement. The houses go away from the factory aesthetic and back to quality craftsmanship. Built over a century ago, these houses are still very beautiful.

Fig 1

 

Fig 2

 Fig 3

¹ Jeffery, Michael. Arts and Crafts Style. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications 8

² Andrews, John. Arts and Crafts Furniture. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club 9

³ Smith, Bruce, and Alexander Vertikoff. Greene & Greene: Masterworks. 28

⁴ Smith, Bruce, and Alexander Vertikoff. Greene & Greene: Masterworks. 27

⁵ Smith, Bruce, and Alexander Vertikoff. Greene & Greene: Masterworks. 17

⁶ Bosley, Edward R. Greene & Greene. London: Phaidon 106

Gustav Stickley

Gustav Stickley was the designer of furniture that filled my grandparent’s home. It’s richness in its ability to meld nature with utilitarianism, to strip away the extra froo-froo decoration and embellishment inherent of the Victorian era, leaving elegant simplicity is what makes Stickley furniture so unique.

Gustav Stickley’s love for working in wood began in 1876, when he was eighteen, while working in his uncle’s furniture factory in Pennsylvania, and in 1883 with two of his brothers, formed Stickley Brothers & Company, a furniture manufacturing and retailing firm in New York.

The writings of John Ruskin greatly influenced Gustav Stickley. Ruskin was an art critic also recognized as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist, who wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. According to David Cathers, writer of “Stickley Style”, Ruskin believed that factory goods were inherently inferior to works of skilled craftsman, and he called for a return to the practices of the medieval craft guilds, whereby the craftsman were freer, more creative, and happier than the nineteenth-century factory drudge, and these satisfactions improved his life and work while enhancing the whole of society.

By the 1890s many American followers of Ruskin rejected the ornate, mass-produced wares of the era in favor of the simple and handmade. Arts and Crafts societies were being organized, ushering in the Craftsman style with its elements of functional form, good workmanship, decorative structure, and a respect for natural materials. These were all qualities found in the designs of Gustav Stickley, and he applied this style to interior design, metalwork, textiles, and the design and construction of houses as well as furniture.

Stickley believed that the purpose of a piece of furniture should be immediately apparent in its design, and that furniture be durable and functional for daily use, not just to be admired for its beauty.

His furniture was of solid construction, made of sturdy oak. Stickley insisted that poorly made, poorly designed furniture was destructive of good taste and could actually shape one’s character in a negative way. He made use of tenon-and-key joints, through-tenons pinned with visible dowels, double dovetails, and other forms of exposed joinery. It was solid construction and beautiful at the same time.

Stickley was also very concerned about proportion in his design ideals. Every model produced was studied and tested and modified until it was found thoroughly satisfactory. A chair, for example, was designed to ensure the sitter’s comfort, and also designed at the right height, depth, width, thickness and shape in order to ensure a pleasing visual aesthetic. Stickley recreated the colors and textures of nature and applied them to all of his designs- wood, metal, and textiles.

In 1902, in order to create furniture affordable by the middle-class, he employed two-hundred workers in a factory, and made use of machine processes in combination with skilled hand craftsmanship, an idea opposing his original thoughts of crafting. A few years later he began building Craftsman Farms, a combination of a crafts colony, a school, and a demonstration farm. In 1913 he leased, at a cost of $60,000 a year, a twelve-story Manhattan office tower and opened it as the Craftsman Building. Eight floors were designated as retail space, two floors for offices, a club room, a library, a lecture hall and a Craftsman Restaurant at the top. Unfortunatly, quickly following this, a decline in the popularity of Craftsman wares began and Stickley’s firm went bankrupt in 1915.

Gustav Stickley died in 1942

Class Calendar

168 Calendar Fall 2011

8/24/11            Introduction

                        Video

8/29/11            Shop video

                        Shop walk-through

                        Shop test review

8/31/11           Shop test

                       Demo: crosscut, joint and plane a 2x4

                       

9/5/11              Labour Day, no class

9/7/11              Work time: Milling and ripping (finish for next class)

                        Demo: Rip, cut rabbet, cut bevel

                       

9/12/11            Work time: cut molding, cut bevel

                        Demo: Mitre, glue, spline

9/14/11            Slide show, discussion of purchasing wood

                        Work time

9/19/11            Field trip to Global Hardwood, then Aura Hardwood.

                        Bring back African Mahogany.

9/21/11            Turn in pine frames.

                        Sanding and finishing demo.

                        Begin milling mahogany.

9/26/11            First blog entry due.

                        Mortise-machine demo

                        Tenon demo

                        Work time. Homework: Rip mahogany and make                                                                                     molding.

9/28/11            Work day: mitre cutting, gluing frames.

10/3/11            Spline frames. Homework: sand and finish frames for                                                                         next Monday.

10/5/11            Slides and video, "Making a Shaker Table."

10/10/11          Mahogany frame critique.

                        Discussion of measured drawings. Homework for                                                                                     Monday: make a measured drawing of your table

10/12/11          Figure out wood-buying groups

                        Start milling, marking and mortising 2 x 4 sample

                                   

10/17/11          Mark and cut tenon in 2 x 4 sample. Start dividing up                                                                         and milling the wood for your table frame.

10/19/11          Discuss sample mortise and tenons.

                        Demo: Milling and marking legs

                        Mortising legs

10/24/11          Discuss measured drawings with me.           

                        Begin dividing up boards and milling them

                       

10/26/11          Second blog entry due.

                        Demo: Milling aprons, marking tenons

                        Homework: mill legs and aprons.

10/31/11          Demo: cutting and fitting tenons

                        Biscuit-slots in aprons

                        Work time: mark mortises, cut mortises

11/2/11            Demo: milling and biscuiting top

11/7/11            Demo: gluing up table top

11/9/11            Demo: tapering legs

                        Sanding

11/14/11          Demo: gluing up table assembly (part A.)                       

11/16/11          Demo: gluing up table assembly (part B)                       

Demo:             Demo: Cutting top to size on the sliding table

                        Routing the edge of table top

11/21/11          Demo: final sanding, attaching table top hardware,                                                                                     finishing.

11/23/11          Work!

(Thanksgiving Holiday Thursday and Friday)

11/28/11          Work!

11/30/11          Third blog entry due.

                        Work!

12/5/11            Work!

12/7/11            Final Critique

12/12/11          2.45-5.00 Final Exam day: photo shoot.

Shannon Wright

Blog Post #1
Martin Puryear's Use of Traditional Boatbuilding Techniques In His Sculpture

Folks, this is just an example for how you should do your blog entries. For your second one, go to "edit posts" and add the new one above this one.
-Shannon