With the table stronger than ever and returned, I started on a quick bed post repair which I truly enjoyed. It didn’t take long to turn this project around. I used a lathe to create a new pin in an old mahogany finial.

The gallery of photos shows how I step by step fixed a broken dowel which was part of the original turned finial.

• I cut off the broken peg flush with the finial base and also removed the end broken off in the bed post.

• Using a block of walnut stock – (Sorry, I know it’s a mahogany bed but walnut was on hand) I turned a blank peg larger than the 3/4″ peg diameter.

• Into the new peg blank, about 1″ thick, I cut down a length to the 3/4″ thickness and chopped off my replacement dowel.

• I inserted the 3/4″ end with glue into the finial.

• Centering the old finial, whose chuck marks easily aligned on the lathe, I spun the whole assembly.

• Cutting the peg to 3/4″ while spinning, allowed for a precisely centered peg.

With the doors assembled they needed a place to hang and I found just the piece to build in my copy of Antique Country Furniture of North America and Details of Its Construction, The Pennsylvania German Hanging Cupboard.

In addition to sharing some of my work on WoodDance.com and hosting an archive of tools on ToolboxBlog.com, last year I created a website dedicated to projects from reclaimed and recycled materials, ReclaimedRecycled.com.

I start a recycled wood project with rough boards that I’ve stacked on shelves over the decades. In the photograph is 5/4 mahogany from a Frank Lloyd Wright original home. I begin by extracting nails and other embedded metal, then thickness plane the old finish off. These mahogany pieces are 50 years old and have several layers of varying finish. Some chestnut I recycled from a 1600′s home was covered in urea-formaldehyde foam insulation.

With my parts list roughed out from the reclaimed wood, I begin to build a place to hang these raised-panel doors I started 10 years ago. There is no more appealing a project than one involving such beautiful and easy to work materials as this recycled FLW mahogany. Reclaimed wood has a bounty of marks telling it’s age and imparting it’s history.

The Pennsylvania German Hanging Cupboard required doors almost the exact dimension as the ones I built and styled the same; beveled panels with flat rails and stiles, my personal favorite. I finished the mahogany with Amber Shellac. Still missing replica hinges, turned knobs and the latches on order, I hung the cabinet in my kitchen.

From the same Reclaimed and Recycled wood, I cut a matching shelf with some custom corbels of similar design. The glowing brilliance of this recycled-mahogany cupboard accents a board that my great-grandmother painted with sunflowers over 100 years ago.

Giving new purpose to such significant reclaimed wood in creating this replica of early American antique has been deeply satisfying. The piece is exquisite albeit simple and un-Wright.

Check out a few other recycled wood projects at ReclaimedRecycled.com.

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Inspiration for multiple handmade gifts came after turning two garden tool handles. Using salvaged cherry and maple flooring I glued up some blocks for turning on the lathe. Surprisingly, with one exception, these are the first handles I’ve ever turned.

I liked the idea of giving a gift made with love for a specific person and to keep the theme I picked up a few more kits. The ice cream scoop uses the same Cherry and Padauk combo I used on the garden fork handle. The coffee scoop and knife handle are made from Cocobolo.

My daughter seems to luck out with the neatest projects and this year I was excited to present her with something very close to what she asked for. My instructions were to make a wood plaque of the Abbey Road album cover with The Beatles above and that’s pretty much what I did, after finding a metal reproduction of the very album.

Using two pieces of reclaimed wood from a Frank Lloyd Wright house I roughed out the entire cut list. I downloaded the right font, printed “The Beatles” and transferred the letters to a slice of the mahogany. (later downloaded the Apple Corps logo to ensure it’s true shape.)

I cut out the letters first then made the picture frame and drawers. For this project I only had to purchase flocking and an 1/8″ band saw blade. I looked for little round rock buttons at music stores to use for drawer pulls but ended up using two large square Beatles pins.

This Beatles Abbey Road shelf is made from 1950 mahogany coated with Waterlox and Bartley gel varnish. The drawer interiors are coated with wine color Suede-Tex flocking fibers which really compliment my little wood projects nicely.

I was going to make the drawers big enough to hold The Beatles Mono Box Set that I got her but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy my sharing it online.

Here is a gift I made for my daughter this Christmas that I thought I would share. Constructed of Philippine mahogany with 1/4″ birch-ply backing it’s mahogan-’E’. Based on multiples of 5 1/2″ the boxes will fit in any location on the shelf; 3 across the bottom, stacked several high or one here one there.

The shelf was finished with Sikkens Cetol Log Decor then a low-lustre BL Interior Clear topcoat. The boxes were colored with Master’s Solar-Lux dye then covered with 3 coats of Sikkens Interior Clear.

The lumber was all milled to 5/8″ or less and finished with two coats before assembly with a pin nailer. Because of the ultra-low profile of the 23 gauge brads, I only used glue and many pins for the assembly. I predrilled two holes in the birch ply 16″ o.c. for mounting and wrapped each box separately with another wrapped gift in each one.

I enjoyed the result of the letters I made for pulls. Before setting to the the bandsaw, I decided a hand drawn letter looked much better than a stencil or ruler drawn letter and all three of these came out matching italic capital letters.  After finishing each with a chisel, sharp knife, sand paper and dye they really look sharp!

In 2002 I was called to make some alterations to an interior room that I had previously worked on for the same homeowner. The task was to eliminate an interior door opening and laminate the Mahogany wall covering over the opening, closing off the door permanently.

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After machining pieces of mahogany removed from an office wall and stored in an outbuilding on site, I applied them to a new hollow-core flat panel door fastened in the opening. On the reverse side the homeowner hired an artistic painter to replicate the view outside the office window.

Well, …it wasn’t permanent! Another beautiful job well done but a few years later and a new homeowner and whamo; I destroyed this work and replaced the original door.

Zen.

Each Frank Lloyd Wright home was custom designed for it’s owner and given their name. This one is the Frank S. Sanders house, situated on rolling rock-covered hills, here in Stamford, Connecticut. Built in 1952 the Sanders house sits atop on a brick foundation rising from a large rock base and features a large cantilevered balcony and deck.

The first gallery photos show the condition I found this beautiful but damaged home when I arrived there in July of 2000. I snapped pictures of the entire house, it’s features, interior spaces and landscape and then spent some time with the client to discern her desire for the deck space. The homeowner at the time did not want me to ‘fix’ the damage and ‘restore’ the deck. She wanted me to change it. It was my job to come up with a different design that would allow her to view the forested property while seated on the deck and to built an enclosed screened-in area on that portion of the famous cantilevered deck!

We came up with a design which stole elements from the interior and cut up the old deck. I found a weakened structure; rusted steel beams and a flitch plate that was no longer attached to the now completely rotted 2″ x 12″ framing.

Some temporary supports then steel work and reframing and the deck was ready to be rebuilt. After extensive research on sail cloth flooring, which is canvas cloth pressed into lead-based paint, we agreed on a fiberglass floor.
I hired a boat builder to fiberglass the new deck. Accommodations were made for an ultra smooth and sound subfloor and the glass was applied. Custom made mahogany siding and rails were manufactured in N.Y. state and shipped to the jobsite by late September 2000.

Changing the design of an FLW original is an absurd idea considering the appreciation and few lasting examples of such an inspirational Architect but we did it, for better or worse. The alterations in style were to accommodate a functionality (over form) for the client. In that sense it was in keeping with a designed-for-the-user aspect.

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One change to the construction of this deck I affected positively was the milling of the mahogany siding for use on the inside faces of the deck walls. The original boards sat one on top of the other with no lap joint. They were butt joined and since each board steps up and sits in, each left an exposed shelf which collected water. Without anything to stop it, the water would run behind each board and down the inside, eventually destroying the infrastructure. I manufactured a ship-lap joint for those boards and they haven’t leaked since.

The new screened in porch, railings and beautifully colored mahogany siding lasted without signs of wear until 2006 when I was hired to demolish all of this work and rebuild the original deck!