Studio G Blog

Floating Live Edge Shelves

4/15/2015

Studio G just crafted another set of floating live edge shelves for a new client in California. This time four pieces of exquisite Claro Walnut hand polished and oiled to make the dazzling wood grain pop. Simple to hang these shelves magically float in space without any visible hardware to detract from their elegance. Shipped out and on there way to their new home, these guys will nest into the corner of a room making a fine place to showcase little figurines though the wood is so beautiful they are art pieces in and of themselves.

Do you need jaw droppingly gorgeous shelves hand made from nature's best material? Give us a holler and see what we can do for you. No one shelf is alike.

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Another commission, another happy client.

3/9/2015

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I just shipped these pieces to a nice lady in Texas. She and Grandpa ordered them as wedding gifts for her daughter. Cool mom. She wanted a vase or a salad bowl and decided to get one of each! These were made from glued up layers of scrap plywood turned on the lathe, with the bowl getting additional carving. They are both finished in Milk Paint and an environmentally friendly whey based urethane, and the vase interior has 3 coats of epoxy. Fully functional, waterproof works of art.

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I love my job!

3/6/2015

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As a custom fabricator, everyday I have the opportunity to meet new and interesting people and make cool stuff for them. Last week I had a Wing Chun enthusiast come to me to make some very specific parts for a Mook Yan Jong - his martial arts practicing dummy or "dead man." You might not have heard of this form before but certainly you've seen it demonstrated at one point or another by Bruce Lee himself as he helped popularize this style of Kung Fu from Hong Kong.

Need help with an unusual project? I problem solve and fabricate with creativity and over 25 years experience making things by hand. Give me a call and see how I can help you bring your vision into being.

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Astoria is changing...

3/1/2015

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We spent the weekend in Astoria enjoying a rare dry spell in what is possibly Oregon's most blustery locale. The Fisher Poets were in town doing their annual thing - demanding our attention, making us laugh and gracing us with their salty stories for a few fleeting days. A walk around town revealed several familiar vacant storefronts, but not nearly as many as past years. Many new businesses are making a go of it from breweries and restaurants to specialty shops and a great farmers market. No, Astoria is changing - for better or for worse. I think for the better. Tourism is up bringing money into the area, and civic development like the new Square Are encouraging. The Square incorporates a beautiful cultural garden with thoughtful installations commemorating Chinese Americans for their contribution to Astoria society in the early days. I just hope it doesn't lose too much of the goonie and seedy seaport character that gives it its charm.

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Walnut wrap and legs for a bank of old upcycled lockers

2/21/2015

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I helped an architect friend with a sideboard of sorts. She had some cool old lockers she wanted to use as cabinets for clothes - brilliant, right? - but she wanted to give them a more finished look without painting them. She chose to leave the cabinets with there slightly weathered paint and have me fabricate a wrap for them in beautifully figured Claro Walnut and nice sturdy box joints. Of course it wouldn't be complete without a set of custom tapered Walnut legs. I can't wait to see it after she sands and finishes it.

Need or want something out of your budget? Would you like to collaborate? Let's face it, custom anything is expensive (and custom furniture is no exception to say the least!) Not all of us can afford to have everything done custom for us, including yours truly. So I respect that and do my best to work with my clients on several options in order to meet their respective budgets - even if it means working together.

For this project, I would typically charge $1000. The client being a friend got a deal for $800 but even that was out of her budget so I offered to do it for $600 if she did all the finish sanding over 120 grit and the oil finishing. Hand shake. Done deal. She's happy. I'm happy.

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Saint Valentine's

2/14/2015

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Every Valentine's Day is an opportunity to share my craft with the woman I love. She had a beautiful picture taken by her Uncle of the lake she grew up on and a piece of cover art from The Saturday Evening Post that deserved framing so I pilfered my stash of reclaimed fir a made her a couple frames that suited the color of the images nicely.

If you need custom frames, give me a holler and get the quality frames your artwork and photography deserve.

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Steam Bending Wood

11/20/2014

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Some days in the studio are just more exciting than others. Today was one of those days as I needed to bend some oak for an end table I was making with curved legs. So I crafted together a quick steaming chamber out of a bit of PVC pipe wrapped with blankets for insulation and fed it with steam from a pressure cooker. Worked like a charm.

Need something fabricated that involves bent wood? How about bent metal? No problem - we can provide you with steam bent parts, bent lamination parts and custom rolled and formed steel parts.

This side table was inspired by old wine barrels and includes reclaimed wood with rolled and aged steel for a nostalgic feel that will wear well with time.

What inspires you?

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Cabinet shop for a day

11/14/2014

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My buddy runs his own cabinet shop and from time to time he gets so burried with work that he'll farm out some of the components to my shop. Sometimes its just the cases, other times it's custom door and drawer fronts with raised panels. Today it was drawer boxes, lots and lots of drawer boxes - about 30 in all stacked up head high all around my shop.

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New Tools! and Serendipty!

11/2/2014

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I had been thinking about replacing my drills for about a year and had been waiting for a price drop on the new Milwaukee M18 FUEL set as my 10 year old milwaukee drill batteries inched toward death. I was working out in Aurora helping a friend run electrical in his new wood barn when I stopped at the Platt Electric in Wilsonville for supplies. Lo and behold, they - of all places - had the most incredible deal. Regularly $399 on sale for $350 with a trade-in offer for an extra $100 of brought this king of drills down to a paltry $250!

Finally! I couldn't believe it and the very next day returned with my worthless Hilti set (dead batteries) and traded it in towards the deal of the year.

This was a most serendipitous moment, as I generally never go to Platt Electric, but it was the closest supplier to the jobsite. So there you go - look where you never look and you shall find.

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Spore Prints: Mother Nature's fingerprint

10/17/2014

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Yup, I love mushrooms - hunting them, eating them, whichever it's no secret. I like to think of myself as a casual myco enthusiast, my friends see me as a mushroom freak! Well maybe it's true, I mean if mushrooms are involved I'm in... aren't you? C'mon they're like land coral. Not only are they one of the coolest things on the surface of the Earth, but probably the closest thing we'll ever experience to alien life form in our lifetime.

I'm surprised I don't own a pair of mushroom pajamas (hey there's an idea.) Soooo, down the street, there's this huge patch that comes up every year below a neighbor's cedar tree. With edible and poisonous look-a-likes they're too hard to identify so I normally don't mess with them. But even if I knew they were edible, I wouldn't eat them because my dog, Cooper pees on them everyday. But, I digress...

Anyway, something inspired me to pick a few (pee free I hope!) and make spore prints. One of the coolest things you can do with mushrooms except eating them, of course. They're like a photographic record of the spore deposition over a given period of time. By overlapping prints I got some cool effects. Someday I hope to bring some element of this to my furniture, whether it be as straightforward as transferring the pattern to a tabletop or something else I haven't thought of yet it I'm sure the outcome will be worthwhile.