Here are a few pictures of my most recent (and, arguably, exciting) project – a giant jenga set completed just in time for our annual Festivus celebration (you know…for the rest of us.) A good time had by all, 40-degree weather notwithstanding.

I used Alder for the blocks, for several reasons: I’m told (by the internet) that regular Jenga blocks are made from it (maybe because it isn’t sticky like pine or fir), has an excellent strength-to-weigth ratio (much like the traditional aluminum pole used in Festivus celebrations all over the world), and was the cheapest stuff I could find on New Year’s Eve Afternoon (much like the traditional beer consumed during Festivus celebrations all over the world.) Also I wanted something that wasn’t so soft it would dent when it crashed, but not so hard or heavy it would cause any lasting injury when the tower fell on you.

All in, I used about 50 board feet, and ended up with 72 blocks. Each block is about 1 7/8″ thick x 3 1/4″ wide by 11 1/8″ long. The dimensions themselves are fairly arbitrary – that was just the best way to get the most out of what I had.

The Correspondence Box made a cameo appearance yesterday on KHOU’s Great Day Houston. The segment, “Unique Boutiques”, was a showcase for a few of the museum shops here in town to show of some of their more interesting wares. The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s bit shows up around -5:15:

Great Day Houston – “Unique Boutiques”

Also, just in time for the holidays, here is a picture Allison took today of an old submarine:

Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Craig Kellogg

This post is a few weeks late, but the Vidar Chairs won Third Place Overall in this year’s Texas Furniture Makers’ Show in Kerrville. Also exciting: The Maple Shelf got an Honorable Mention. Congratulations to all the winners at the show – I hope to see everyone there next year.

By the way, should you find yourself in the Greater Downtown Kerrville Area sometime in the near future, I would highly recommend dinner and drinks at Grape Juice. Great food, and an unbelievable beer selection. My trip back to Kerrville to pick everything up might turn into an overnight stay…

The Vidar Chairs I built a year or two ago at College of the Redwoods (it’s hard to believe its already been that long) are featured in the Reader’s Gallery of the latest Fine Woodworking, alongside my friend George’s sweet End Table. George was working on his table while I was working on the Hemlock Wall Cabinet, and we were both doing our best not to just up and stab each other with very sharp chisels. Ah, woodworking. It’s always something.

Anyway, the new Fine Woodworking also has an excellent article by longtime CR instructor Jim Budlong on building showcase cabinets, and an article by CR grad (and FW editor) Anissa Kapsales on building Krenov-style sawhorses. Well worth a look, if you haven’t seen it already.

You can also see the chairs on FW’s site here.

Hey everybody – Kellogg Furniture is now on Twitter for some reason. You can follow me @HtownFurniture. A word of warning: I only seem to find time to twitter about things that have already gone all wrong. Enjoy!

Here are a few pictures of the mockup I built (and by built “built” I mean “hot-glued and drawn-on with a Sharpie”) before building the actual box. I like the little labels.

Box sides. A strip of solid narra is glued up in between two strips of plywood, then everything is planed flush. After the box is glued together, cutting apart the top and bottom sections will reveal the narra, rather than the plywood.

Getting set up to glue the narra veneer to the inside faces of the panels.

Gluing the panels up in the vacuum bag.

Box sides, ready for glue-up. The box-joints are cut, and the surfaces have been planed, scraped, sanded, and polished.

Gluing up the box sides.

Sawing the top and bottom sections apart on the tablesaw. The blue tape supposedly keeps the veneer on the inside of the box from blowing out. The jury is still out.

Gluing up the two side veneers. As per the norm, what seemed like a good idea on paper turned into an unbelievably complicated glue-up. The plan was to clamp the top and bottom sections back together, glue the outside veneers on (with the top and bottom sections still in one piece), then split the veneers with a knife to re-separate the box sections. I didn’t want to saw the outside faces apart, because the kerf of the sawblade would disrupt the diamond pattern in the veneer.

Gluing on the front and back faces.

Rosewood veneers glued on. Once they are trimmed, the top and bottom panels will fit into the rabbets running round the sides.

Trimming one edge of the veneer.

Scraping the inside face of the top panel. After that I will sand up to to 400-grit in preparation for shellacking (is that how you spell that word?)

Applying the first (very thin) coat of shellac. After a dozen or so coats have cured, the shellac itself will get wet-sanded up to 2000-grit, then rubbed out and waxed. The narra finishes beautifully.

The plan was to build a white picket fence that would more or less match the house’s existing trim, but wouldn’t interfere with either the landscaping, or more importantly, the giant oak tree in the front yard.

The fence itself is about 3′ tall (more or less, depending on where you stand – sidewalk repair doesn’t seem to be a priority here in our fair city) and 60′ long. There is a double gate in the front, and a smaller single gate on the side. The large posts on the corners and at the gates are pressure-treated 6x6s, and the smaller posts are stock 4x4s. All of the pickets and rails were milled from rough, 8/4 western red cedar. The gates swing on 4″ x 4″ ball-bearing brass hinges, and the fence sections are bolted to the post-tabs with bronze carriage bolts.

The posts are set 2 feet into the ground. Once the posts were set, we took careful measurements, and built and painted each section of the fence off-site, back at the shop. We left the individual pickets over-long so that we could adjust the distance between the the ground and the bottom of each picket once we were back on-site.

Check it out:

http://craneinsider.blogspot.com/2009/07/beautiful-place-to-store-your.html

Thanks!