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Canterbury - Walnut Stair Railing

2011-06-02T15:07:54Z

Stair railings on iron work can look very elegant if it's done right, but, as in everything, the foundation is the key to a good structure. The contractor chose to have his own people do the iron work on this project. The choice was a good one. The curves and transitions were perfect, ninety degree easements were truly ninety and the curves were clean and flowing. This foundation made our job much easier and the finished product very pleasing to us.

The front staircase was quite a challenge, having the steepest volute we've ever done. It started as a six inch thick block of walnut. Because the stair flared and the steps were different widths, the railing to the volute arched downward, which made it a compound curve. The railing on the opposite side had an up-sweep for the same reason. At the top of the stairs, the horizontal rail was a pretty sweeping piano-shaped curve terminating at the wall.

The back stair was part wall-hung and partly on iron. The sections were joined with an “S” shaped
fitting not attached to the wall at all, creating a floating look. The fittings attaching the rail ends to the walls are attached with blind hanger bolts and plugged with walnut and the rail supports were mortised in.

Below the back stair is the stairway to the basement. This was a combination of wall hung and iron supported as well. All free railing ends were done in a ball shape picked out by the customer.

This kind of work requires both shop work and extensive field work as most of the curves and the
volute had to be shaped to the installed iron.
We are quite happy with the finished project.

A Distressing Situation

2011-04-21T20:45:29Z

We were asked to make three rooms of new white oak woodwork look old. The wall paneling , book cases , ceiling, cornice and kitchen were built and installed by others. Our job was to distress it all. The first thing we did was to make and install over a thousand square walnut pegs at the appropriate places in the raised panel frames. These pegs were cut 1/16” proud of the surface for later sanding. We used hand planes, carving tools rotary tools, wire brushes, logging chains, hatchet, a world war II combat knife and whatever else we could get out hands on. There are worm holes, cracks and wear marks wherever appropriate. The real job was to know where things would get abuse over a century or two. We then finish sanded all surfaces in preparation for finishing.

Included in the distressing was a full wall of painted cabinetry in the hallway to the garage.

We also provided carved pilasters at the front of the counters and on the back unit in the kitchen and the three louvered air conditioning returns. This was quite a job and took a full three weeks labor and a lot of sandpaper.

(Click on the image to view the gallery)

Pine Cone Newel Post

2011-02-21T15:31:19Z

My advice to all woodcarvers, don't carve southern yellow heart pine. It's hard, and doesn't hold detail!

This newel post was commissioned to have a pine cone carving done on top. I used basic carving tools along with appropriate power tools on this and the tedious nature of this kind of carving really made itself apparent after a week or so. I'm quite glad to have it done.

Unfinished Spanish Cedar Entry Door

2011-02-21T15:22:18Z

This large door of Spanish Cedar was left unfinished to weather naturally.

Custom Original Design V-Groove Doors

2011-02-21T15:01:40Z

These doors were designed with v-groove tongue and groove panels that had a chamfered edge detail surrounding the panel. The door stiles and rails had a matching chamfered edge detail. When assembled, the two chamfered edges met to form a v-groove surround. This required far more accuracy than a normal tongue and groove door. It also required custom stick and cope knives.

Patrick Henry Gate

2011-02-18T15:04:33Z

Our customer had several pieces of Bermuda Cedar that he had been carrying around for several years and asked us to use it to replicate a gate that he saw at Patrick Henry's home in Virginia.

We were able to use some of it along with Spanish cedar. The resulting gate is probably the most pleasing one we've done so far.

Patrick Henry Gate Construction

2011-02-18T14:07:08Z

The sweeping cross brace of the gate as well as the horizontal rails are two piece laminations. Both the brace its mortises were done with a CNC router for a perfect fit. The stiles are also two piece laminations, but the mortises were cut by hand.

This is a sequential photo series of the process.

Mahogany gates

2010-12-27T19:45:09Z

If you are from Nashville, you probably know these massive gates. They are of sixteen quarter Honduras Mahogany. All full through mortise and tenon construction.

As of this picture they are twelve years old.

Master Bath in Hard Maple

2010-12-24T15:08:42Z

On either end of the vanities there are two multi-level medicine cabinets. They open like bi-fold books. Each section was hung on stainless steel piano hinges. The right hand vanity had to be tapered on it's end to accomodate a doorway so we put a section of open shelves there. The doors are all hung on European hinges and the drawers on full extension soft closing slides. We tried to utilize as much space as we could for storage so the pullout makeup drawer was appreciated. Matching mirror surrounds completed the elevaton.

We also built a towel seat in front of the tub. Note that the center section is removable to provide access to the plumbing of the tub.

Potting Room of Reclaimed Wood

2010-12-24T14:46:40Z

The beams were taken from a hand hewned log cabin on the customers proprety. We had them sawn by a local sawmill on three sides and beveled the edges for re-assembly so they were hollow and much lighter. We were able to install them as "U" shapes on pre installed blocking.
Reclaimed siding from one of their barns was used in the cabinet and walls.
The hutch is a combination of scrub planed and weathered chestnut from their barn. The biggest challenge was to protect the original patina of the siding during construction. Note the hand turned "bun" feet.
The casing is resawn ceder from trees cut on the property. Our new resaw came in handy for this.