The Start of the Winter Furniture Season

It was cold and snowing most of the weekend, finally starting to clear after sunset (4PM) on Sunday.

Some of you may notice something is missing in this photo. I re-touched it to remove the platform bird feeder.

For those keeping score, the Stellar's went through 50#'s of feed between Saturday and Sunday. I believe that Bart (Family Feeds @ the Royal Gorge) has trained the flock to fly around and decimate bird feeders, so that they need to be reprovisioned... often...from Family Feeds.

Although I did have the John Koskinen Memorial (6 years) Sauna Bake Off on Sunday, which included a number of walks outside to cool down, most of the time was spent in the shop. I tried to snap a shot standing in the cold and steaming, but it was deemed unsuitable for viewing...by anyone.

Last weekend the legs and top pieces were cut for the bed side tables. This weekend the tables were actually built.

They are built entirely from beetle kill Ponderosa, harvested here at Pinon Rock, and milled on the band saw mill.

Since, Bill (the consultant) picked the "best" pieces to take back to Minnesota last summer, I have been forced to use the seconds.

Actually, I hide the best pieces so he wouldn't find and abscond with them.

The tops of the table have tapered edges to complement the tapered legs.

The drawers have the sides dovetailed in to the fronts and backs, and the pulls (not shown) are deer antler.

Although the "Molesworth" sideboard had drawers, these were a step up on the complexity scale, but they turned out good.

I used 3/4" cabinet grade ply for the sides and back of the drawers and it was not the best stuff when using a template and router, but my thinking was that it would be stable and reduce sticking when the humidity is high... say 20%.

Because of my past failures at staining, these tables will be left with a natural finish. General Finishes tung/poly/linseed combo will be applied by Marlys next weekend.