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Wonderful carved horse:

12/1/2017

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This frisky guy came into the shop in pieces, with his head completely off and his marble eyes rolling around in a box of parts.  Hand carved in pine by an unknown artist, he was brought to me by the owner, who said he had been in the family for quite a while. The eyes and gems on his neck and body are large glass marbles. The saddle trim, harness and skirt are made of hammered brass sheet.
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Here he is getting his head glued on, followed by replacing various missing pieces, re-applying the hammered brass trim and touching up the finish. I was even able to find a replacement marble to replace a missing one.
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And he's off!

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North River Skiff...

8/2/2015

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photo sent by Michael M. of his North River Skiff at the family camp, upper Lake Huron. The skiff was built in 1993, yet still looks new.

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January 10th, 2014

1/10/2014

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Hitchcock chair edgeband stained and painted.

The steam-bent band was easier to finish on the form rather than on the chair. Here it is stained and painted with gold paint to match the original fragmented piece.
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HItchcock chair gets a new seat

9/13/2013

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Painted Hitchcock chair needing a new seat and tightening up of all joints. It also needs a new bent edge band around the seat. Here is how I bent the replacement:
The steamer set up at right is a pvc tube with steam pushed in the low end by a kettle on a camping stove. Below right I have pulled the end cap showing the blank in the steam. This is pulled and quickly wrapped around a premade form, below center, and clamped in place and left for a few days  to take the shape while other work was done. Below left is the chair re-woven and ready for the band to be installed, trimmed and finally, painted to match.









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March 17th, 2013

3/17/2013

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This is one of a set of six woven rush seat chairs I recently restored. They all needed new rush seats, and varying amounts of wood repair. Most needed partial disassembly and re-gluing. This one had a break through the leg where the seat rails were inserted. This is a weak spot and after many years of use, it gave way.

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To repair this I inserted both a dowel through the center of the leg, but also let in a piece of maple from a couple inches above the break to several inches below.

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The completed repair at left. If you look carefully you can see the outline of the piece that was let in to reinforce the leg across the break.
Above are the first three chairs after applying shellac to the seats and touching up the finish. They are ready to go home.
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"Local Expert"  

10/1/2012

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This past Sunday, 9/30, I got to be the "local expert" at the Schenectady Greenmarket. We had a booth full of photos, sample work, tools, a laptop for a slideshow, and my workmate workbench for carving demonstrations. The best part was having a number of kids try their hand at shaping a cedar paddle with a spokeshave. Check out the photos...
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Welcome to our new feature! The NRR Blog

4/29/2012

 
First post- a one-of-a-kind custom design- curly maple and wenge corner display unit
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The first step in construction was to build a mock-up of scrap plywood and cardboard which we used to try the angles and scale of the piece in it's future location. Changes were made to shelf heights and the thickness of the legs was adjusted.

Then the model was taken apart and used for patterns of the actual parts. The mock-up, left, is seen next to the actual piece during construction. Below is one of the legs rabbeted for the shelves but not yet dadoed for the wenge strips.



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