Apparently, there is some interest in woodworking in Lexington. The local cable media (lexmedia) came to my house, shot footage in my shop, and interviewed me in their studio. They have to be be desperate! I blathered, stepped on my tongue, and was otherwise incoherent, and they said they had enough and went away. Theoretically, they will edit the footage into an interesting half hour (I have no idea how) and air it "sometime in the future". Stay tuned........
award winning chair
We saw a lot of great entries in our Summer Projects Photo Contest. It was tough to choose a winner, but we really loved this rocking chair made by Steve McKenna. Congratulations Steve. Thank you to everyone who entered, and keep up the amazing work!
LIGNUM VITAE
Lignum vitae is one of the most amazing natural wonders of the world. The quotes below are from wikipedia and are verified in numerous places. I am truly amazed by this wood.
"Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded (density: 1.23 g/cm3 [3]); it will easily sink in water. On the Janka Scale of Hardness, which measures hardness of woods, lignum vitae ranks highest of the trade woods, with a Janka hardness of 4500 lbf (compared with African Blackwood at 2940 lbf, Hickory at 1820 lbf, red oak at 1290 lbf, Yellow Pine at 690 lbf, and Balsa at 325 lbf)
The aft main shaft strut bearings for USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, were composed of this wood. Also, the bearings in the original 1920s turbines of the Conowingo hydroelectric plant on the lower Susquehanna River were made from lignum vitae. The shaft bearings on the horizontal turbines at the Pointe du Bois generating station in Manitoba are made from lignum vitae. Other hydroelectric plant turbine bearings, many of them still in service, were fabricated with lignum vitae and are too numerous to list here."
Furniture Pricing
A friend suggested that I explain how my prices were set. I've written this on the furniture pricelist page and thought I would also put it in my blog.
A word about how my prices are set: because of the shaped (carved) nature of the furniture I make, I use almost exclusively 2 inch (8/4) stock. I buy this rough sawn, as it comes off the mill, at a saw mill in Kingston, N.H. They have consistently the lowest prices and steadiest, high quality, supply of any lumberyard I've found. It takes me 3 hrs. round trip to get the lumber I need. Lumber bought this way is measured and paid for by the board foot. 2" X 6" X 12" = 1 bd. ft. You may get a little more waste buying it this way but I can get more of the figured lumber that I want. It takes about 30 bd. ft. to make a chair (with waste) for an example. Black walnut costs $10/bdft, cherry is $7.20/bdft, white oak is $7.50/bdft (quarter sawn), $5.50 plain sawn.
As an example, a rocking chair (30bdft) in walnut costs $300 in lumber. It takes 200 hrs. to make the chair, so at the price of $5950, I'm making $28.25/ hr. It costs me $20/ hr. to run my shop- investment in tools and the cost of parts for maintenance, electricity, blades and bits, sandpaper, insurance. I know it seems "pricey" but this is not production run, factory furniture. This is one of, custom built furniture. I really have to be doing this because I love it.
English Brown Oak
I found a chunk of wood on the beach at Martha's Vineyard, about 18" X 6" X 6". It was so chewed up I couldn't begin to identify it. It was very heavy, but might have just been waterlogged, I was interested. I lugged it home, dried it out a bit, and cut it open.
To my surprise, it was a piece of old growth English White Oak which, I read, is called brown oak after a fungus attacks the tree, turns the wood brown, and eventually kills the tree. It is a very hard wood, and apparently very resistant to anything that chews on wood. The piece above is about 3/16" thick and marine borers have only had very limited success in getting that deep into the piece, even in the end grain. A most remarkable wood.