jonathan malphrus

figured i should post up some of the results from the latest batch of cherry wine racks.
enjoyed the coloration and grain in this particular stack of lumber. had some nice quarter-sawn pieces as well.

i’m still tinkering around with some dimensions on these, but rest assured, they will all be able to hold bottles up to 3.75 inches in diameter.
also considering a few new ways to connect all the individual hexagons together, more on that if i end up figuring out a better way than the sliding dovetails.

spent most of the morning down in the shop working on several cherry wine racks.

one of my favorite parts of building these wine racks is making the hexagonal back pieces for each bottle holder.
not really sure why, i just like the math involved and really like playing around with hexagons, i guess.

snapped a couple pictures during the process with my cell phone.

just prior to the last cut:

and just after the last cut:

one of my roommates recently moved out of the house that i rent.

it was while helping move his desk, bed, boxes of books, and the best rice cooker i have ever used, i realized with a solemn heart that not only was one of my closest friends moving out of our house and on with his life, he was taking his coffee table.

i’ve had a large-ish piece of kentucky coffeetree in the shop for a year or so.
i bought it on a whim. it was decent enough looking wood, but i tend to prefer darker tones, like walnut or cherry.
to be honest, i was drawn to it because i had never heard of it.

what better to replace the old coffee table with than a coffeetree coffee table.

turns out that i really like kentucky coffeetree. very easy working wood with a nice grain pattern and good feel to it.
i’ll probably do a few more pieces out of this species when i have the chance.

this is a fairly simple design; flat, rectangular top with legs crossing in a half-lap joint underneath.

made it a bit taller than most coffee tables because we regularly eat at this table and i occasionally use a laptop on it as well.
overall dimensions were somewhat dictated by the fact that i only had one board.
pretty fun to make a whole piece of furniture out of a single piece of wood.

finished with two coats of hand rubbed teak oil.
i’m interested to see how this very simple finish holds up to the abuse a coffee table can get in terms of physical wear as well as spilled liquids.

it goes against all my instincts to not use a coaster, but i’ve been able to let go a bit in the name of research…so far so good.

i’ve decided to try something completely revolutionary for a small furniture business:

selling things.

i’ve had an etsy account for a while and have wanted to try selling smaller items online since i started building furniture, but other than buying some stuff with birds on it and a couple nice prints for my girlfriend, i haven’t used etsy much at all.

this is basically an attempt to get some of my products and designs out on the internet so that people who are smart enough to not follow me on twitter can see them.

here is my first offering: the drona wine rack.

you’ll also notice from here on out, some of my photos will look like a real photographer took them… because that’s exactly what’s happening.

i met chad mcclarnon through the amazing internet community known as moustache may.
he also lives in nashville and is, plain and simple, a great guy.
he’s going to take the occasional photo of my work, especially pieces i want to spread around the internet.
a bad, or even just average, photo can easily turn a great looking piece of furniture into something much less desirable.
and i don’t want that.

did i mention that chad’s a great guy?

well, the motivation and pressure of posting daily progress has paid off already.

this week i woke up early and put in a couple hours of shop time before work each morning.

here is a brief timeline/progression, leaving out a few steps but there are still probably too many photos:

day 1 – started off with a wooden pallet i found at a loading dock.

day 2 – after rough milling the pieces to size on day 1, i continued dimensioning on day 2

day 3 -

day 4 -

all in all, i’m happy with the project. it’s not as nice as my typical wine rack, but i have to be realistic, this one was made out of a pallet.

here’s a comparison of the pallet wine rack to one made from walnut with cherry dovetails (pardon the dusty wine rack):

hope y’all have enjoyed this. i’ll do my best to update with the next couple projects as well.

well, i’ve been slacking on this again.

i’m excited about the month of may for two reasons:

1 – tons of ideas bouncing around in my head and i am feeling super motivated to get my tail in gear for a month (and more) of hard work and results

2 – mustache may

i did mustache may last year and had a blast.   basically you grow a mustache and periodically post pictures of you w/ said mustache to the site.

great online community of creative and funny people.

this year i have decided to try and couple my mustache may postings with working on several projects in the shop.

my goal is to post a picture a day on the site showing at least one of the  processes used during the days work on a particular project.

i’ll be back soon with some more updates.

i’m still working on getting into a good blog habit.  two weeks between posts is better than 3 months, right?

one of the things that has interested me most since i started making furniture is using reclaimed materials.  there is just something about the story that a piece of lumber from the turn of last century could tell that gets me.

one of my most significant acquisitions in reclaimed materials has got to be the several hundred board feet of maple that i came across and purchased a while back.  i know that i’ve mentioned it in previous postings and gave a few facts about it, but i figured it would be neat to try and give a better history of this unique wood.

the maple served as flooring for the lafayette cotton mills, in lafayette, georgia, founded and built in 1903.

i found this photo of the main plant in an archived issue of “The Great Southern Weekly for Textile Workers”.  i’m sure that magazine flew off the shelves back in 1920 when the article containing this photograph was printed.

the mills were bought out in 1946 by lawrence fabrics corporation and used to make abrasive jeans til about 1954.  i don’t know what abrasive jeans are, but i kind of want a pair.

after lawrence fabrics sold out, the mills were owned by a succession of groups until finally shutting its doors for good as sunrise hosiery, a sock company, closed down operations in 2004.

four or five years later the property was acquired and the materials reclamation process began, with the new owner selling off anything and everything.

here’s a stack of the maple drying out in the garage before i had a chance to do any work on it.

a good example of the effects of heavy machinery and looms being used on a wooden floor for ~101 years.

the same piece after some jointing and planing.

here is a panel of the maple that will be used in an upcoming set of nightstands after a few coats of hand-rubbed teak oil.

while working on a set of night stands for a client, i was generating a lot of cutoffs (not jean shorts) from ripping long pieces of reclaimed maple down to a narrower width.  cleaning up the shop floor after i was done, i realized that the scraps from doing this were all the same size, were still usable, and actually looked good.

i knew that i could come up with something to do with all of them eventually, so i planed them down a bit, glued and clamped them up, and after removing the dried glue, finished them on the drum sander.

i’m really pleased with the way these turned out.  there’s nothing special or difficult going on here, but it is neat to me to be able to doubly reclaim material.

the original maple boards were salvaged from a cotton mill built in georgia in 1903, so when the above pieces get turned into a piece of furniture, whatever it may be,  it will be the third purpose they have served over the past 100+ years.

i have been slacking on the blog lately (the last ~100 days).  it is time to get back on this horse.

lots of action in the shop and around the business side of steric in the past couple weeks, which is very exciting for me.

with the help of a buddy that is mo’ better at web design than me, the steric website (www.stericdesign.com) is nearing completion.  depending on when you go there, i may have a test page loaded or if you’re lucky you may get a look at the full site.  as of now it is just kind of sitting there, waiting.

i’m looking forward to having a place where i can display my furniture and work in a more professional setting.  that will hopefully allow this blog to be less formal and more fun, with posts on new ideas coming more frequently and in a less finished fashion.  i’ve enjoyed the feedback i’ve gotten from several readers in the past and hope that this can continue.

i’m also about to get some business cards.

i don’t know what it is about a business card, but it just makes me feel like i might actually, one day, have a legitimate business with this, ha ha.  take a peek at the design:

i went vertical with these cards, going for a mash up of paint sample card and note pad.  left some empty space on the back to be able to jot a note down if needed.

i’ll be back soon with some more pretty pictures and things like that.

the table went on a much needed diet