Garage projects out of control

The only good part of my wife’s car dying on the side of a busy highway is that as we wait for the title to arrive from the DMV (and we all know how fast things move there) so that we can sell that fine piece of German engineering for scrap parts, it is currently blocking all access to our driveway.  This has allowed my shop to slowly grow from my side of the garage and creep it’s way little by little into my wife’s side.  I know that these days are numbered so I’ve tried to make use of the extra production room to take on some smaller projects and get some product inventory made.

One of the more popular of my recent products are the California chalkboards

I had a few shops order a few and I have a big fair coming up on May 6th (more info coming soon) so I figured it was time to fire up the router go assembly line and crank out a whole lot of these:

Plus once you have yourself a good California shaped template, you can turn all that scrap hardwood laying around into some cutting boards that show off your state pride and maybe just a few small sushi trays.

Of course we can’t all live in the Golden State so contact me if you’d like to show your state some pride in the form of a chalkboard or cutting board.  Or any shape really.  Perhaps you need a mudflap girl shaped cutting board, you never know when hungry truckers are going to stop by looking for a nice cheese plate.

Potrero Planters Part 2

Things moved along pretty quickly and I am happy to report that the steel planters have been finished before the start of the 3 months of solid rain we all love here in the Bay Area.

Picking up where we left off in Part 1 the steel pieces were fabricated and ready for installation.  For those of you familiar with SF I don’t need to tel you how steep parts of Potrero Hill are.  This site was no different and in typical SF fashion there was no direct access to the backyard.  This meant that everything had to go from the truck out front, up the entry flight of stairs, around a sharp 90 degree turn into the house, up a few more interior stairs, carefully turned another 90 degrees inside the house, through the downstairs office area, out the back door, and striaght up another flight through a section of removed railing.

Given these conditions everything was fabricated in panel sections to be bolted together on site and field welded.  A full 4′x10′ sheet of the 1/4″ thick steel weighs over 500 lbs, the largest of our panels was about 2′x10′ so needless to say the two of us who had the joy of navigating these panels to the backyard had a fun day.  Here’s a pic of the panels so you can see the angles that were used to bolt the panels together while we got them into position.

Once we got the pieces offloaded putting them together actually went pretty quick.  The concrete footings actually made getting the assembled boxes at the right height and leveled off fairly easy by clamping some support bars to the panels and tack welding some feet to them.

I personally like the steel mill markings but I did have to spend quite a bit time scrubbing them off with some lacquer thinner.  You can see by that deck board that’s pulled up that I had to perform some minor carpentry work as the final boxes were a little too tight a fit.   So long story short here’s planter box #1 all together:

and planter box #2:

So to finish things off there were some interior support bars welded inside to keep the boxes from buckling, some drainage fabric added to the inside, and soil and plants were added by the landscape designer.  So here are the final products:

I think they came out great and more importantly, so does the client.  In a few months once the steel panels get a nice coat of rust on them they’re going to look even better.  The client is now talking about an outdoor bbq counter and hanging light fixture so I need to stop blogging and go get some drawings done.  I’d also like to once again thank my friend Llyr from Welsh Ironworks for his expertise and assistance on this project.  Hopefully there will be more to come.

Potrero Planters Part 1

With so much time spent working to pay the bills it’s been hard to put time towards new projects, but things are starting to pick up steam.  In fact, 265 design is now a registered business in the thriving metropolis of Daly City, CA.  I filled my first (although small) wholesale order to a local SF store called Park and Pond.  I participated in another small craft fair called Vagabond Indie Craft Fair, put on by a great small little store called Urban Bazaar in the Inner Sunset.

Of more significance is a set of steel planters I’ve been commissioned to fabricate up on Potrero Hill.  Given that I am not a steel worker I will be collaborating again with my friend Llyr of Welsh Ironworks.

The clients recently had a deck built in their backyard but had a few open spaces left over for plantings, check out the multi-color wall stain.

He knew pretty much what he wanted so I presented him with some quick renderings with some sketchup help from D.Web.

I estimated labor and materials, we agreed on a price and we were on our way.

I’m finding that this is just the scale of project that I really enjoy working on.  It’s nothing huge but I’m looking forward to plugging ahead.  One step that I found really helpful was throwing together a quick plywood mock up.  For a minimal amount of labor, this actually really helped envision the scale of the final product.  We ended up knocking 12″-18″ off our original anticipate heights.

So I’ve put in a few small concrete footings that should make installation go much smother and the steel is on it’s way.  Part 2 coming soon!

Knick Knacks Paddy Whack

So I’ve signed up for my first craft fair to increase exposure and hopefully drum up some sales as things aren’t exactly flying out of my Etsy shop.  It’s called A Fair To Remember and it will be happening on 9/18/11 in North Beach in San Francisco.  For those who live in the Bay Areal, it’s in the little alley between City Lights and Vussuvio:

Having worked in the area for a number of years it’s going to be hard not slipping away from my vending table and seating myself inside one of SF’s best historic saloons and spending the afternoon there.

In an effort to crank out a decent amount of inventory in the rapidly depleting amount of time I have to prepare I’ve done some more hardwood laminating:

which resulted in some pretty nice bangles:

I know I really need to get some different products together or I’m going to have a pretty boring table.  Eventually my goal is to start producing some larger scale furniture pieces but these can’t be shown in the craft fair setting so with resources and time tight I have spent the past week or so brainstorming on pieces that can be quickly turned out.

I’ve focused on making items out of the scrap material I have sitting out in the garage.  Using some leftover redwood I came up with this fun little tealight candle holder

Some scrap tulipwood turned into this little wedge shaped candle holder

It could always function as a pretty fancy doorstop if need be.

Also in the works is turning the small amount of scrap that gets produced when I make bracelets (the middle donut hole) into some necklace pendants

I’ll keep you posted on how those turn out.  I have a number of other small project ideas (sawdust coasters, food trays, concrete light fixtures) and I’ll try to get them posted before the fair occurs.

So if you’re in the San Francisco area on 9/18 please stop on by A Fair to Remember and as always, please take a look at my Etsy store.  Thanks!

Tea Time

I was recently asked to complete a piece for a public art installation entitled ‘SEAT’ curated by friend and colleague Topher Dleaney taking place here in San Francisco on the grounds of Fort Mason.  I built a combination bench/table/bike rack that was installed on top of a loading dock.  Here is a link to a photo and article in the local paper.  I would also like to give mention to Llyr Griffith for his generous help with the steel fabrication.  There was a lot of last minute rushing but the piece came out great and I am thrilled to have been involved with such a successful endeavor.

So after the dust settled, literally, and I gave half of the garage back to my wife’s car, just in time, I found myself with loads of waste material.  In particular I had loads of 1/8″ thick strips of redwood as a result of surfacing the redwood 2×6′s:

In an effort to re purpose this material I glued the strips back together to create a homemade laminated raw material.  Lots of glue and clamps:

Following a few runs through the snipe-master 2000 (aka my bench planer) the resultant material has some great contrasts is tone:

I wasn’t sure what to make with the material so my first quick trial on it’s workability resulted in a small tray which was quickly put into use housing my wife’s ever expanding arsenal of makeup:

Tray listing on Etsy

I was then contacted by a friend of mine who was looking to commission a small set of shelves to house boxes of tea for his upcoming 5th anniversary as the traditional material for this milestone is wood.  He originally wanted to make the shelves out of some solid hardwood but in an effort to keep material costs down we agreed to use the laminated redwood as the frame material.  Add some black lacquer shelves and some aluminum clips for wall hanging and the resulting boxes looked great.

Happy to say that the shelves were received well and if my friend ever gets around to it I might actually have some wall mounted pics to show but for now here they are staged conveniently next to the friendly neighborhood Mr. Coffee

Shelves listed on Etsy

I also made some bangles out of the material utilizing the same process outlined in in my previous plywood bangle post

Bangles listed on Etsy

I’m sure I’ll find numerous other uses for this material as I’m only about halfway through the large pile of scap strips, any suggestions?

Now if only I could find something to do with two large trash cans full of redwood shavings

The Frugal Mother’s Day: Plywood Bangles

These were the first bracelets I made which lead to the current frenzy of bangles going on in my garage these days.  Mother’s Day was coming up and I knew I wanted to make something for my wife, being the stellar mother that she is.  I didn’t have the time, or money for materials, to make the make-up storage unit she’s been requesting (look for this one at a later date) so I went the route that almost always works, jewelry.

I first approached using plywood as a cheap material with which to test out the overall process and examine different styles.  The more I made, the more I came to like the final look of the exposed lamination inherent in the ply.

The process is pretty simple.  The first batch I made with my jigsaw turned out pretty substandard so I purchased a circle cutting template for my plunge router.  This falls into the reoccurring “any excuse to buy a new tool” category.  Got to say this template is turning out to be pretty useful on various projects.  Here’s a look at the circles being cut out of the ply:

Following that, we move on to sanding.  My initial round of sanding involved significant knuckle scraping while engaging in this most unrecommended use of a handheld belt sander:

Luckily a quick search on craigslist led me to this bangle making machine at an affordable price.  Again this falls into the “any excuse to buy a new tool” category.

Tested out a number of stains and shapes.  Here’s my daughter modeling the numerous prototypes:

And here is the final 3 shades and styles I arrived at for the final set:

Thanks for looking, this set of bangles is available here in the Etsy shop:

Plywood Bangles