The Barn on White Run

Opening up the panels glued up the night before is always a thrill for the students to see their work coming to fruition.

The next step is to trim the fields to make them good rectangles for the banding followed later by the borders.  A variety of veneer saws were at work, ranging from pricey French saws to inexpensive Japanese ones.  They all work.

The perimeter banding was applied and adhered with 192 gws glue, and the banding held in place with aluminum push pins that are surprisingly similar to those used by craftsmen 250 years ago.

Throughout the day and overnight, if a panel was not being worked it was placed in front of a box fan to drive off as much moisture as possible, to harden the glue under the parquetry.  That strategy was somewhat successful.

Thus endeth Day 2.

Last month, for the first time in many years, I was able to offer an Introduction to Parquetry class at Joshua Farnsworth’s Wood and Shop near Charlottesville VA.  We plan for me to offer the workshop again next year.

I had two exercises in mind for the students, all based on sawn veneer edge strips from boards.

The strips were then cut into identical 60-120-60-120 parallelogram “diamonds” or lozenges with a simple jig and a dovetail saw.

NB/ mea culpa – over the years I have attended and spoke at countless woodworking clubs and guilds, and invariably there is a show-n-tell session, and invariably they feature prominently some elaborate jig a member made to do this or that function.  (Yes I know I used “invariably” twice in one sentence.  That is a purposeful literary flourish.)  In the old days I would just roll my eyes and tell myself, “That’s not woodworking.”  Then we started the Roubo Transalation Project.  Turns out the world of the ebeniste’ was all about jigs and patterns.  To quote LBJ, “I reserve the right to be smarter than I used to be.”

Once the pile of lozenges got big enough, they laid out X and Y axes on a piece of paper to guide them then started assembling the composition by gluing down the lozenges to the paper with 135 gws hide glue.

Once the composition was large enough to cover the “field” of the substrate panel, in this case 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood, the working face of the parquetry (ultimately the verso) was slathered with 192 gws hide glue, followed immediately by the face of the substrate panel.

Then the wo glued surfaces were brought together and clamped using another 1/2″ panel as the caul and a double layer of corrugated cardboard as a gasket.

Thus ended the first day.

Something you do not see every day, a gilded throne heading down the road.  Image courtesy of my son-in-law.  Just gotta wonder what the back story is.

A few months ago I posted about a large chunk of a maple tree that came down (about 18″ at the bottom), and my cutting it up.

After I was back home my son-in-law and Li’l T moved the bolts into an abandoned goatpen house I built 25 years ago.  It is a better structure than some of the church-camp cabins I stayed in as a yoot.  The wood will remain there until I decide what to do with it.

I expect it will mostly become turned bowls but my lathe needs a substantial upgrade for that to happen.

Over Labor Day Weekend I was once again a presenter/demonstrator at my friend TimD’s Historic Trades Fair in the central part of our county.  There were several dozen artisans there, including the leather/fur seamstress I shared a tent with, blacksmiths and sheet metal workers, premium woodworkers, gunsmiths, tailors and much more.  Tim thinks he will max out with about fifty demonstrators in the next couple years.

And there I was doing my thing, presenting myself as a congenial woodworker with a complete shop while working on a Gragg Elastic Chair and engaging with the many visitors who stopped to ask about it.

The setting is nothing short of spectacular and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Here’s a glimpse of a recent fortnight in Shangri-la.

As is often the case my brother and his wife come for a visit, now extended from one week to two weeks since they are now both retired.  I guess that is a commentary of sorts, with my siblings and I all retired including the baby.  We are fortunate in that all five of us get along famously and maintain a steady text thread keeping us up to date with each other.  The thread activity really ramped up when our Mom was in her final decline a few years ago and it never stopped.

Anyhow, you might remember the post a few months ago about trolling for firewood on the homestead, with a special emphasis on existing windfall waiting to be harvested.  Of particular interest this week was the cluster of storm damaged locust trees up at the top of the hill, with several large trees down and tossed about.  FYI locust is a highly prized firewood, very BTU dense with a hot burning temp and less ash than other woods.  When we got down to it, we realized that in addition to the already-dead trees there were at least a half dozen still-standing (but probably not for long) locusts that could/should come down.

So down they came.  It took some forethought as the trunks were intertwined and needed to come apart in a particular order.  My brother is really good at that work.  By the time we finished the week there were four heaping trucksful of sawn and split firewood to stack up at the barn.

At this point I am well into the firewood inventory for Winter 2026/2027, but I still have a lot of windfall to harvest.  By my guess it will be about ten truck loads, so all is good.  I will work on those truckloads in between other stuff over the winter.  It’s gonna be crazy with grandson #4 due probably next week.

I do not know the setup of the Blacksmith Bolt and Rivet fellow (he’s been getting virtually all of my wood screw business for quite some time) but this video of a “small” Japanese screw making operation tickled my fancy.

Recently my brother and his wife were visiting, and their routine included a long evening walk.  One of the walks was in the aftermath of an early evening rain, with this being the result.

Polishing, polishing, polishing.  Unfortunately we were so busy and occupied with our tasks I did not get many pictures.  Maybe next year I can be more attentive to that task.

I’ve not been to the world headquarters of Lost Art Press since forever (at this point our interactions are via email) but found interesting the video tour James Wright and daughter created on their recent visit.

The exercises proceed apace, building finishes and the skll set to accomplish them.

I fully expect to reprise this workshop at Joshua’s next summer, along with perhaps a couple other offerings.  Introduction to Parquetry is taking place the end of next week, so come on and join us.

The description of this year’s class is identical to previous year’s so I thought I’d just have a gallery of student activities day by day.

I expect I’ll teach this again next summer at Wood and Shop.

Recently for the umpteenth time (25th? 30th?) over the past four decades I taught my Introduction to Historic Woodfinishing workshop, this time at Joshua Farnsworth’s Wood and Shop School near Charlottesville.  I have already related the transition from teaching at The Barn once my insurance underwriter yanked the plug on liability insurance for students, bringing the “school” component of The Barn on White Run to an end.  Joshua graciously invited me to teach at his place, for which I am very much appreciative.  I’m teaching a Parquetry workshop in a couple weeks, there are openings.

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The odd thing about teaching workshops at The Barn is that I still have personal liability insurance, the building and its contents are insured as before, but no insurance for students attending classes.  The underwriters would never say why that insurance was being canceled, but my agent thought it was because the nearest full-service hospital is almost 90 minutes away.  Oddly enough I can still host visitors for one-one-one learning experiences, and in fact I have one of those upcoming as soon as we can work out our scheduling hiccups.

One of the great benefits to hosting all the workshops in my own Barn classroom was that everything I needed was right there.   When I teach elsewhere I have to pack up everything for the course.  Everything.  All the supplies, tools, workpieces, everything.  I learned my lesson the first couple times I taught almost forty years ago and sent the students a detailed list of everything they would need.  Every class there was a student or two who arrived unprepared, saying “I didn’t think you meant that,” or “I decided to substitute this or that.”  In every instance the whole class was delayed repeatedly while I tried to come up with a reasonable substitute, but it never worked out to my satisfaction.

Now I just bring everything necessary for the full experience of my syllabus.  Yes, it takes me a week or longer to compile the pile, yes it takes a day to load my truck to overflowing, yes it takes me about four hours to get set up wherever I am teaching.  But it yields the learning experience I want to impart.

And the title of this post?  It took me 26 trips to move everything from my barn into the truck, then 26 trips from my truck up the stairs into Joshua’s shop.  Three days later I had only 23 trips from his shop to my truck as the students consumed the “missing” three tubs worth.

Stay tuned.

Recently my friend B invited me to accompany him to a day in Waynesboro at the Virginia Institue of Blacksmithing for their “open shop” session during which he was going to fabricate a replacement part for his wood stove.  It was a most impressive facility and I am browsing the class schedule to attend some myself.

There were more than a half dozen former and current students ranging from young teen, working with his mom on a project, to geezers like me.  They were all working on projects doing broaching, hand forging, power hammering, riveting, plasma cutting, welding and a lot more.

On a recent trip to Maryland I needed to address the almost-giant crape myrtle that seems to grow a half-dozen feet a year.  It is at that awkward stage, too big to snip from the ground or even a small step ladder, not quite big enough to get from an extension ladder leaning against the house. Using my small extension ladder against the tree trunks is a bit hairy as the ladder rocks back and forth depending on which of my feet is bearing my weight.

Then came a blinding flash of the obvious; what if I create a crook at the top of the ladder so it nestles nicely against the 6-inch trunk, and stays put while I am climbing up or down, or working?

So I pulled out a piece of 1/8″ x 1″ aluminum bar stock from my stash and bent it with just a bench vise and arm power to fit the space above the top rung.  1/8″ x 1″ aluminum is pretty wimpy stuff until you bend it and screw it to a fixed frame, then it gets pretty stout.

Viola!  It sits nicely against the trunk, not wobbling back and forth, allowing me to climb, descend and work with my Japanese pruning saw with much greater comfort.

Another win for the blinding flash of the obvious.

Some of what I’ve been up to over the past month.

More later.

Recently the Venn Diagram of Life had enough overlap that I was able to address the problem of the blanched finish on the sill/shelf of the new bay window in the dining room.  As you may recall, I trimmed out the window with antique cherry I had in my stash, and sealed the shelf with epoxy because there was a 100% chance that Mrs. Barn would be using it to hold plants.  In order to unify the overall appearance of the window and shelf, I glazed the veneered pine shelf with an oil stain to match the cherry.

It looked grand until I varnished over the glazing with P&L 38 that then blushed overnight as it dried.  I mean, the kind of blushing when we were spraying cellulose nitrate on a muggy July day in South Florida.

A reader wrote to tell me that an amine component of the epoxy hardener was the culprit.  Despite several efforts to mitigate the whitened surface it remained in place, leading me to the inescapable conclusion that the oil varnish and the oil glaze underneath it had to come off.

The time for that to occur had finally arrived and the combination of a low-odor stripper with the open windows inflicted minimal affect inside the house.  A very small test area worked well, a larger test area confirmed my path of execution.

My method was to brush on some low odor paint remover, cover that with aluminum foil, and let it work its magic for about three hours.

At the end of that time the foil was peeled back and the now-dissolve varnish and stain scraped/wiped off slicker’n cat snot.

My original plan was to introduce a colorant into a new application of the varnish to achieve the same cherry tone, but the fact is we like the contrast so much I am going to leave it looking just the way it is.  I’ll rub out the epoxy finish and call it “done.”

My friend of 35 years, broadcaster Brian Wilson, just posted our latest conversation over at his Brian Wilson Writes Substack.  Feel free to find and give it a listen unless you dislike pungent (but not vulgar) commentary on the current state of affairs, with topics ranging from Self Irrigating Planters in the garden to “Just War Theory” in the world at large and many points in between.

Things have been popping in the orbit of Shangri-la, what with summer gardening (soon to be complimented with winter gardening), visiting the grandsons (and their parents), preparing for the upcoming woodfinishing workshop and historic trades fair, and a multitude of other stuff disrupting my writing and blogging routines.

The greenhouse is currently the home for a series of Self Irrigating Planters Mrs. Barn asked me to create for her.  We built five different versions and in keeping with her background as a plant scientist she was conducting a standardized experiment to determine which version is the one to go with in the future.  We plan to use SIPs almost exclusively inside the greenhouse so her efforts are well worth it.

These images are from a month ago, so the plants are all bigger now and burgeoning with tomatoes or eggplants.

In addition to the greenhouse experiments she’s been harvesting the seeming bushels of green beans we love so much.  Nothing quite like fresh green beans, and her dilled beans are the best.

The asparagus season is long in the rearview mirror but was savored intensely in its time.  The asparagus plants are now full-blown bushes about ten feet tall.  Mrs. Barn sez this is one of the keys to keeping an asparagus bed thriving.  She must be right, ours is many years old.

As for all the other activities, stay tuned.

As much as I enjoy browsing yootoob, I am often perplexed about some of the things that do (or do not) show up in my recommendations.  To be sure, I get videos reflecting my interests (I get a LOT of woodworking, homesteading, theology, economics content as you would expect from my subscription list and browsing history) but sometimes something shows up that has me scratching my head, either from relevance or timeliness.  This video is one of the latter.

Nine months ago while building the greenhouse I was frustrated by the uneven ground and its affect on my sawhorses, so I screwed two of them together at a right angle as I blogged here.  This video would have been helpful to view at that time but never showed up in my feed.  Until now.

Sigh.