Quilt Projects - Summer and Fall of 2011

Summer 2011 Projects

Some of the projects we worked on in the warmest month ever of September 2011 included a "5-yard quilt" portable rack for the Nuts and Bolts Fabric Shop in Edgemont, SD.

 

 Kathie restored the bottom half of an old Victorola cabinet, and then Bob added a white Corian top.

 

 A small table with turned legs and a walnut top were a pleasant surprise.

 

Here's the table sitting on the white Corian top of the restored half-record cabinet.

 

 An unusual auction find was this baby crib - painted with 3 layers of paint.  Kathie stripped and restored the crib to its natural state.  Many many hours of labor.

 

 Bob made a mattress frame to replace a very old screen-type mattress.

 The half-secretariat from an auction in East River finally got a  proper top - 1" walnut.

 

 And a small drop leaf table got a new middle top made from walnut, plus piano hinges to bring it back to proper usability.



More to follow - including a birds eye maple vanity and mirror, six oak dining room chairs and the oak table that were passed on to us from Grandma Clara Buchanan, and a small walnut telephone table...

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Preparing for the 3rd Annual Woodworking Show - May 2011

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Home again!

In preparation for Knee Replacement, rails were added to each of the three stairways into our home.

We checked into the hospital at 5:30 am on Feb 7, 2011. Surgery took 2.5 hours, recovery about 1.5 hours, then we checked into a luxury suite for a few days.

The medicines slowed her down, but she still managed to get a few stitches done between naps.

Speaking of stitches, here is the latest tatoo!

Three days after surgery, Kathie had passed all the exit tests and was allowed to go home. The PT staff was impressed with her quick adaptation to the non-wheeled walker, so she was graduated to a walker with big wheels and bright green tennis ball sliders.

The doctor claims that we have come thru the easy part and the hardest part is the next few months. Physical therapy and exercising at home will make for improvements in mobility and agility every day.

It is good to be home again!

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Auction Treasures

We went to an auction this weekend - here's some pictures of the treasures we found:

Router Plane - in the original box - never been used - Stanley No. 71

Wooden Tricycle (missing back wheels)

Rocking Baby Doll Cradle

Baby Doll Crib

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Project - WASH BASIN

8-15-09: We found this old Wash Basin at an auction in Hot Springs, SD, on Aug 14, 2009. It was painted with about three coats of brown and tan paint. We didn't know much about it until we started taking the top apart to repair and re-glue the three boards that made up the top. The legs and sides were doweled together and came apart easily, but then we found the nails. At first I thought it had been repaired at one time with nails instead of disassembling and re-gluing. However, the further we went, the more it looks like it was put together with nails and dowels from the get-go. The nails were iron, square-cut, and about 1 3/8" to 2" long with a square tip. At this point, we suspected this was probably a pretty old piece.

So we did a little research on square nails and discovered that this same type of nail used to be hand-forged; later, in the early 1800's, they were manufactured in nail mills in the northeastern US. Round, or wire nails, didn't appear on the scene until the 1900's. Finding square-cut nails in the furniture piece proved that the item was at least older than us or either of our parents.

Other information we dug up: "Square-cut nails" are also called "steel-cut nails", or sometimes just "square nails". Hand-forged nails were the first manufactured nails, and they date back to Biblical times. As people first used hewn beams, timbers, planks, and whole logs to build with, the early hand-made nails were spikes. With the development of the split wood shingle, nails of about 1" long came into use. When sawyers, and then sawmills, began cutting dimension lumber, the sizes and varieties of nails greatly expanded. Over time, nails developed in different sizes, shapes, and used different heads to fasten lumber and wood.

Nails have always been in demand. Some blacksmiths made only nails and they were called "Nailers." We learned that nails were so scarce (and expensive) in pre-1850 America, that people would burn dilapidated buildings just to sift the ashes for nails. They did so because pulling the nails would have damaged most of them. After the nails were recovered, a blacksmith could easily straighten any nails that had been bent during construction. The cut nail made its appearance in the mid-1700's. It would not be until the middle-1800's that cut nails began common and dominated the marketplace. Cut nails are not actually "cut"--they are sheared from steel plate that is the thickness of the nail shank. Although most often referred to as "square nails", the cutting machine tapers the nail shank as it is sheared from the steel plate. A second machine forms the head of a cut nail. The square nails we found in the wash basin were probably made in this manner.

With the hand-forged nail, all four sides are tapered. With the cut nail, two sides are parallel because they represent the thickness of the plate they were sheared from. Cut nails had their heyday from about 1820 (development of the Type B nail) to 1910, the advent of the wire nail that we use today. Wire nails are round. Steel wire is fed into a machine that grips the wire, cuts it, makes the head, and chisels the point, all in one operation.

As we began to strip the paint, we found some writing on the back of the drawer:

"1882 to O.P.P. Sie"

We interpreted this to mean the furniture was either built in 1882 or at least given in 1882 to someone with the initials of O.P.P., which is definitely in the right time frame (between mid 1800s and 1910)that was called out in our research on nails. (Not sure what Sie means.) With this info, we are assuming that the wash basin is at least 117 years old.

9-3-09: We now have the item pretty much stripped of paint, and most of the repairs made. The wood is similar in grain and color to ALDER. The square head of the nails did a number on the wood surface when we pulled out the nails. Some repair to the top will be required to fill in the surface where each nail was pulled out when we disassembled the wide top piece. The item definitely has potential for being a super conversation piece.

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