New Hamilton Gauges

Just got the" beep beep "from the mail lady. Low and behold, she had the package I was waiting for. For a few months , Jeff Hamilton had been working on a matched set of marking gauges, panel gauge and his new type of marking gauge, all made from birdseye maple.

I sell Jeff the tiger maple that he uses on his gauges. We had talked over time about some of the lumber I have. I get some real different stuff in odd sizes once in a while. I had some ok birdseye in 5/4 that I sent along with his last wood order. He said he would make me a set when he had time. Now, if you know of his gauges and how nice they are, he does not have a lot of "extra " time. He is one busy guy with the gauge business and his other work. We have talked on and off over the months and we talked about dying wood and finishing. I asked him to dye these. I like color in my wood and white birdseye is not too appealing to me. Plus this birdseye was not all white to begin with. Below are a few shots. Sorry they are not the best, but I did find a great photographer to take shots of my furniture. But that is a story for another blog.

You can find Jeff's gauges here
http://www.hamiltontools.com/

Tell Jeff I sent you. He makes great tools and he is a really nice, honest guy. Can't ask for more. bob

A few new things

I have a couple new things that will be going out this week. The solid flame birch desk is done with a light golden walnut dye as is the top and drawer on the other desk also. The birdseye maple small table can be used as a desk or a small dining table. It just has a clear finish on it. I really love the curl in the flame birch legs. Looking at them, they remind me of the old barber poles. The curl just wraps around the leg so nice. The tops on the 2 desks are 30" wide. Nice 3 board tops. The birdseye table was 27" wide. I usually try and build with the most I can get out of a set of boards. It much easier to do that then try and find enough to make what you think you need. The combination of the black and figured wood has always sold well. It looks very rich together. I use a black spray lacquer for that and then a couple clear coats over that. The pictures make the flame birch look red to me, but they are golden. Got a lot of things to do. Hope to put some more up soon.

Figured lumber and how I find it.

A pile of birdseye maple. Its one of those things that when you find some good stuff, you get as much as you can. I have a lot of lumber around my shop and old shop and , well a few other places. I am a lumber junkie. There I said it. I love to find great figured wood. I get log sets and try and keep them seperated. That is not easy.

These are racks of flame birch, curly cherry,curly hard maple and slabs of spalted sycamore. There is some applewood on the floor along with some heartwood curly maple.

Here are some flame birch, curly hard maple, 8/4 plain maple, some slabs, some wide 6/4 white pine and 16/4 clear white pine. More birdseye and somewhere in there is some plain hard maple.  You just never have enough. My shop is full also. What can I say. I am a fortunate man. I look at each piece as i unload and stack it and think of what I can make with it. Lordy, there is some wonderful stuff in these piles.

Guess i didn't get to where to find this stuff. That will have to wait for now. if you need some, let me know....

A day for dyeing....

Today was the day I dyed the lower case of the tiger maple stepback cupboard I am working on. Got all the grain raising and sanding out of the way. Got the coat of oil on and then the 1st coat of sealer. It is looking really nice. This is some incredible tiger maple I am using.

Tomorrow will be sanding and cleaning and starting with the finish coats. The weather has been just wonderful. It was almost 80 today with low humidity. Sounds like this might last for almost another week. Sure makes time in the shop go fast with the doors open and the sun shining.

Thanks for looking in. Hope to have some stories of some of the folks I deal with coming . They are pretty interesting people, at least to me. Hope you all have a great week!