"My [Man] Made the Frame"

Recently, I made a couple picture frames for my wife. Her two-sided pieces needed frames that were decent looking on both sides, and she couldn't find what she wanted in a store. See one of her pieces for this show here (her blog) or here (the Fuller Lodge Art Center). For my part, here are the frames, sanded and ready for paint

and here is one finished with the art in place. Basically, the art and glass slide into the frame through a groove in the bottom.

I built the frames (and some "feet" for a third frame she bought), then chuckled as I thought of this Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoon (which I lifted from "newspaperarchives.com")

and all the other picture frames I've made over the years, and the few I need to finish. No, I'm not going to open a frame shop any time soon, but it's nice to be self-sufficient in this regard. It's fun to create something that is elegant in its own right, but which also accentuates the beauty of something else. I guess that's the essence of the relationship between a picture and its frame, isn't it?

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In other "Art & Music Exchange" news--

I added a new piano student and a new guitar student in the last couple weeks. That brings my grand total up to 5 students. There may be a couple more coming on as well. Woo hoo! I'm planning a recital in May. 

I only have a couple February gigs:
- Feb 8, K2 Women's ski weekend party, Craig Martin Experience, tentative due to lack of snow
- Feb 25, Pajarito Pub & Grill, DK & the Affordables, 8-midnight, $5 cover.

As we get into March, I've got:
- March 8, I'm teaching a fly tying class at Warm Hearts Yarn in White Rock. Consult their blog for details.
- March 15, CME is playing at the Empty Bowls fundraiser for Self-Help, Inc.
- March 21-23 I'm leading a Level-2 Mountain Travel and Rescue class for local ski patrollers. It's been in the works for about 5 years, and it will probably be my last ski patrol "hurrah" for a while. After this class is over, I plan to hand MTR instruction (locally and regionally) over to someone else.

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In the "Random Thoughts" category--

My back has been "out" again. While it feels much better today, and I have kicked the pain killers that have been a staple for the past few days, I still can't bend over to the left without a needle stabbing me in the hip. But it's getting better, and I imagine I'll be pain-free (and back to running) in a week or so. Anyway, this post from Zen Habits really hit home last week, as the author explored happiness in the face of his own misery. It was what I needed to hear. And then last night, at 10 pm, as I was not quite done stretching and contemplating queue-ing up the next episode of Caprica, I remembered this post about not "scratching the itch." So, I finished my stretching to the crackling of the fire in the wood stove, and went straight to bed rather than staying up until 11 numbing my mind with video. Maybe getting enough sleep made a difference in my physical well-being and in my attitude. At any rate, I highly recommend Mr. Babauta's blog, both for its content and simplicity. Mindfulness and thoughtfulness are ideas I've been working on for a several years now, with, as you might expect, mixed results. Still, those ideals are worthy of effort.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Recent Small Projects and Deep Thoughts

I made a bunch of these Altoids tin fly boxes, just in time for the ol' holidays:

The idea of the Altoids tin fly box is not new, but this is a slightly classier version. I rendered a bitmap from a photograph (or, in non-tech-speak, I drew the stencil) in Inkscape (a good freeware graphics program), cut it out on a laser cutter, applied it in enamel (black fingernail polish) with a stenciling brush, and coated the lid with a spray-on acrylic clear-coat to protect the image. The ripple foam was a "boat patch" that I purchased a while back and cut down to fit the tins. It came pre-glued with rubber cement and sticks nicely. The boxes came from Specialty Bottle, though I'll probably recycle tins for future boxes and charge a bit less. I have these kits for sale at Warm Hearts Yarn in White Rock with a selection of flies (tied by me) for local waters. At this point I should also plug Bill Orr and Karen Denison's book, Fly Patterns of Northern New Mexico as the source of the fly patterns in this collection. Look for it at your local bookstore, or heck, find Bill at the Los Alamos Farmer's Market next summer (that's where I bought my copy!).

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: I tie flies quite a bit, and I'm reasonably good at it. If there's a fly or a set of flies you're dying to try and don't want to drive to Santa Fe to buy, give me a shout. I'll do custom orders.  I'm also planning a tying class or two for early spring, say March-ish, again in White Rock.

My wife and I just pulled the trigger on a new sewing machine, something we've been saving for for quite a while. The most important feature we were looking for: sewing in a straight line with minimal input (our ol' Pfaff has a broken feed dog). We're looking forward to yards and yards of stitch-making fun. I can't believe how automatic these new machines are; even threading the needle is an automated task, done at the push of a button. Right now I'm in the middle of replacing the zipper on my favorite lightweight jacket, which has been relegated to a drawer for 2 years with a busted zipper, and it's time to resurrect it. I spent an hour with the seam ripper a few nights ago, and I have to say, the folks that sew for Cloudveil do a very good and thorough job! Maybe that expensive outdoor clothing is worth the price.

The old Pfaff managed to turn out my Christmas stocking, which I made from the sleeves of my Carhartt jacket-to-vest conversion. It is hung by the fireplace with care (or carabiner...). The "man stocking" may be a gift for next year's Christmas season, sized big enough for tools, firearms, a 6-pack, etc. We'll see. Maybe I'll make some in camo, too.

 
I'm working on a sword for my son for Christmas. I'm going to use an old axe handle my Dad had lying around in his odds and ends. I had been making swords for all the boys (my son's friends and their brothers) for their birthdays, but sort of slacked off when it came to my own. That and I ran out of the good 5/8" plywood. He said he wanted the "ninja" sword anyway, which makes stock selection easier because there's no elaborate hand guard. Stay tuned for that as well, but I'm hoping to crank it out over the weekend.

Speaking of dads and sons, I've been going through my dad's tools and hunting stuff on my trips back to Idaho, most recently over the week surrounding Thanksgiving. His big old desk still sits in his basement "den," and going through that has been a trip down memory lane. I remember being 5 or 6 and sitting there at the little pull-out writing board, playing with my Matchbox cars or Legos or building with nuts and bolts and magnets while he tied flies or reloaded shells. I learned to tie flies on that pull-out table. I also remember sitting on his lap and pulling the handles and moving the levers on his shotgun shell reloading equipment--first the primer, then the powder, then the wad, then the shot, and finally the crimp. Over and over. I'm honestly amazed at the variety of things he did as an adult, from hunting and fishing to golf and clubmaking to skiing, from landscaping his property to maintaining his vehicles. Maybe that's where I got my varied interests and do-it-myself tendencies! In going through his possessions, I've not only encountered personal nostalgia, but also a history lesson from the 60s through the present--old cardboard cigar boxes, tools, silverware, knives, guns and the ancillary equipment (cleaning, smithing, etc.), vintage books, and some older hunting clothes. I'm also amazed at how much of that stuff I personally remember, and how things have shifted. For example, my memory of the heft of one of his pocket knives doesn't match with my current reality. That desk, however, is still gigantic, and I look forward to someday having a place in my home for it. Our little 1200 square foot abode just doesn't have room for it now, unfortunately. 

My goal for Christmas is to have my upright piano project done, or at least usable. Two or three more good hours and I'll be there. The new casters are on and all that's left is an upper shelf. Hopefully a showcase of the piano project will fill my next post.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

The Carhartt Vest Project

Years ago, my K-9 search & rescue training partner Glenn moved to Alaska. He liquidated a lot of his stuff to me including a bunch of camo clothing, an old armoire (which I repurposed into an entertainment center), and a Carhartt jacket. I used the jacket off and on in the winter to change the oil and stuff like that, but the sleeves were too short (I must be part ape because this is a common problem for me). Also, I wanted a more rugged vest that I could wear to chop wood and do other such jobs in the shoulder seasons. So, I took the sleeves off the jacket and serged the edges of the lining

finished the raw edges of the lining with the widest bias tape I could find

and stitched it all back together. Voila!

I should note that roughly a year passed between taking the sleeves off and finishing the thing, but hey, it's done now. And it works much better for me as a vest than it did as a jacket.

Have a great week!

The Digital Upright Piano Project--Tear Down

I've wanted a place to set up a music studio at home for a while, but our small house doesn't allow us dedicated studio rooms (me for music, my wife for art). A couple years ago we bought my wife a nice, tall drop leaf table to work at, and it sits in a corner of the dining room, waiting for her daily dose of inspiration to hit. Since she lives by the adage "A clean desk is the sign of a lazy artist", I've neglected to include a picture of her workspace here. However, upon seeing how productive my wife's workstation helped her to be inspired me to make this stand/shelf thing out of stuff I had lying around the garage.

It works well for practice and has space for a few odds and ends, like headphones, a few cords, and some music. What became glaringly apparent, though, were the lack-luster aesthetics, and the inefficiency of having my electronics in a closet, sheet music and books in my bedroom, and keyboard in the main room. Plus, my new keyboard (not shown in the pic) doesn't quite fit. I've been wanting to delve into recording for a while, but was constantly setting up and tearing down my "studio." I wanted to co-locate as much of that as possible but keep the small footprint. I'd seen plans and ideas for building a custom case to look like an upright piano, but I thought, why not just gut an old piano that isn't worth tuning/fixing/restoring? It already has a "shelf" for the keyboard, and I can add shelves above and below for books, speakers, laptop, and whatever else I want to store. With the "flaps" and panels on the front, I can hide stuff away when I'm not accessing the interior of the piano (the "studio"). The 2-3" thick sides will bear as much weight as I want to put in it, and, if I was building from scratch, I wouldn't bother with the finer detailing present on older pianos. I'm up-cycling something someone else doesn't want, preventing it from becoming firewood or land-fill. But the best reason I can think of is this: with this re-purposing project, I'll have a more interesting story to tell and will end up with a cooler looking piece of furniture.

The first step to this project was finding a FREE upright piano. That was more difficult than I thought it would be--people were reluctant to part with even their non-playable heirlooms when I told them I was basically in the piano dismantling business and their "antiques" would end up forever altered, not restored. [(it never ceases to amaze me the strings people attach to "free" stuff or "gifts," but I digress.)] After a few months of searching, I found a decent looking 44" upright on Freecycle with some nice woodwork. I paid Expert Piano out of Albuquerque to have it moved, which turned out to be money well spent. Those guys were certainly better (and stronger) lifters than my friends and I, as TWO of these pros were able to dead-lift this beast (500? 600 lbs?) up a couple feet to set it on a dolly and roll it right into their van. It took them a little over an hour to move the piano across White Rock (and move a second piano between neighbors--the woman who gave me this piano also acquired a nice Baldwin from her next door neighbor, and we split some of the travel costs). It probably would have taken me and 3 friends most of the afternoon! Here's the piano, after they rolled it into the garage and I removed the access panels.

I removed the "guts" by unscrewing screws and carefully removing pieces of the case to get at the keybed, action/hammer assembly, pedal mechanisms, and finally the cast iron harp (I googled "dismantling a piano" and got a lot of great information; you should do the same if you're interested in this kind of project). 100 years of dust bunnies were gobbled up with the shop vac, but the only "treasures" I found were a penny, a couple paperclips, and a broken pencil. With the harp exposed, I removed the strings and the tuning pegs (all 228 of them, one at a time...), which enabled me to get at the large number (25? 30?) of 5/16" lag screws that held the harp to the sound board. Only two were stubborn enough to require drilling and a bolt extractor. I started at the bottom and worked my way up to the top, until finally, the harp was free. I took the key shelf out then walked the harp assembly over to my workbench, where it currently stands (it's heavy enough that I can't lift it safely by myself). The soundboard (3/8" solid fir/pine/spruce?) was cut out with a circular saw and the edges were pried away; I'll salvage as much as I can but I beat it up pretty good getting it out of there. Here's the empty case where once stood a piano. It's taken me about 6 good hours to get to this point.

For now, I have to take a break from this piano project for some car work--timing belt, water pump, spark plugs, radiator fluid, air filter, and oil/filter change on our 4Runner in preparation for a road trip in November. We are running out of nice fall days!

In a future post I'll show the finished project and how I got there, but it'll involve installing new casters, re-installing the bottom, sanding and finishing parts of the inside, installing adjustable shelving above and below the keyboard, and finding/installing speakers for the digital piano. As an aside, my wife and I are already starting a list for art projects using the leftover pieces (IVORY and EBONY keys, hammers, steel pins, ancillary woodwork, etc.). 

Have a great week!

Sewing Lesson: Altering ("Fitting") a Dress Shirt

This is sort of an "instructable" on tailoring (taking in) a dress shirt to fit better around the middle. I started this about a month ago and finally got around to it. You don't have to measure anything, but you do have to own at least one shirt that fits you well. For this shirt, I used a serger, but you can use this method with a regular sewing machine if you want. If there's any interest, I'll put up another tutorial later on other seam options as I recently hit the dress shirt mother lode (my uncle gave me a bunch that I need to take in).  If you don't want to wait for me and are curious about a "French" seam (which is used to finish most decent dress shirts), check this out.

Tools & Materials: seam ripper, thread that matches the shirt you plan to alter, stitch glue (or superglue), iron/ironing board, sewing machine and/or serger, small scissors. If you just have access to a serger, you can finish by hand, but you'll also need a needle for hand-stitching.

Safety disclaimer: keep your fingers out of the works. It's going to sound pretty un-manly but a sewing machine is a power tool, too. I watched my mom sew her finger once with a sewing machine. When it happened, she jerked back and broke the needle off in (through!) her finger. Not pretty. Dad got it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers while mom puked in the sink. A serger has a blade that cuts while it stitches. Watch out for that, too.

Here's a little shirt anatomy:

Step 1: with a seam ripper, rip out the hem at the bottom of each seam you want to alter for 1-2" in each direction. If it's a shirt you plan to wear un-tucked, you should be fairly meticulous when ripping the seam so you don't tear the fabric. If you're finishing by hand, only remove as much seam as you need to make the fabric lie flat when the hem is opened up.

Step 2: button the shirt and turn it inside-out.

Step 3: find a shirt you like that fits you well. Button it and turn it inside out.

Step 4: put the shirt that fits you on top of the shirt you want to alter. Line up the shoulders and centers of the shirts. The armpits should line up as well if they are similar size.

Step 5: transfer the shape of the shirt that fits you onto the one that doesn't using some kind of marker, leaving yourself a little extra room (1/8" or so) for mistakes. I use a Sharpie because I can actually see the bold line, and I figure that I'm going to cut off the marker line anyway, so it won't bleed in the wash and stain my shirt. You can faintly make out the dotted line in the picture below. With a dark shirt, fabric pencil or chalk will probably work better. Pin on your line to hold the shirt where you want it. Both layers of fabric (the front and back of the shirt) should lie flat.

Step 6: sew on/just inside your line. If you are using a serger, the machine will cut the fabric as you sew and "overlock" the seam, leaving a finished edge that won't fray. Pretty awesome. Fray check or superglue the ends of the overlocked seam.

Step 7: fold and iron the hem at the bottom of each seam so it lies flat (as it did before you started). Switch to your regular sewing machine, and install the thread that matches your shirt's fabric. Try to match the stitch length to make it pretty (you can test this on a scrap). You can do this by hand as well.

Step 8: turn your altered shirt right side-out and double-check your seam. Sometimes the thread color from the serger will show through (I usually use whatever color is on the serger as 1) I'm cheap so I don't have a full pallette of serger thread colors, and 2) the threads (4 of them!) are a pain to change). In that case, turn the shirt back inside-out and, using your regular sewing machine with the thread that matches your shirt, stitch right on the serger stitch close to the shirt body. Turn right side-out and triple-check the seam.

Step 9: try on your shirt. Congratulations, it fits much better! I might wear this one on Friday for the Los Alamos Concert Series concert featuring D.K. & THE AFFORDABLES!

Fly Art--Shadow Boxes

My recent "Fly Art" posts showed pieces I submitted to an upcoming show. They were accepted to the show and therefore needed frames. Shadow boxes were a great solution, but I could not find any for sale in the right size (3" x 3" inside). So, I made my own. Here's how:

1) Using the table saw, I prepared my own molding from scrap wood I had lying around. Here's a section of molding I had left over, to give you an idea of the cross-section. I originally cut the molding to have a 1/4" lip, but decided that was too deep and planed it down to 1/8" using my block plane.

2) I cut the molding into mitered (the ends had 45 degree angles) sections on the chop saw (aiming for 3" square on the inside). I clamped a block on the fence of the saw so that all pieces would be exactly the same length. The pieces were short, so in order to keep my fingers intact, I used a scrap stick to hold the molding for each cut.

3) I glued the frames up using an ingenious technique outlined in Fine Woodworking (#205, May/June 2009, p.65) a while back--blue painter's tape as a clamp (I've also seen regular ol' masking tape, packing tape, and electrical tape, but I like the blue stuff the best because it comes off easiest). I taped the sections end-to-end, as tightly as possible, spread glue (Titebond) on half of each joint, and taped the final corner as tightly as possible. This is a fantastic method for small boxes and frames (I also used it for the fly tying box outlined in an earlier post). After drying overnight and scraping off any dried glue that squeezed out of the joint, the frames were ready to begin finishing. Here is a picture of them after priming.

4) The great folks at Village Arts in Los Alamos cut the glass for me. It was $1.30 for all 3 pieces.

5) I filled the corners, bigger dings, knots, etc. with Rock Hard Water Putty, sanded with 150 then 180-grit sandpaper, and wiped down with a cloth. I painted the frames gloss black (3 coats) on the outside and left the inside natural.

6) I glued the glass in place using clear silicone. That was time consuming and tedious as I only had a 1/8" lip to work with and the glass was a bit undersized. I added the silicone using a 5 cc syringe and a 16G blunt-tipped needle. As an added structural measure, I glued in a small shim to sandwich the glass between the shim and the lip. Here's a look at the painted frames with the glass installed.

7) I mounted my art pieces on plywood with spray contact adhesive and fit them inside the frames. I glued the plywood in place (more Titebond), signed, labeled, and dated the backs, and stamped them with my logo (using my hand-cut stamp). The back of one:

The finished products, from left to right-Elk Hair Caddis, Parachute, Copper John:

And now I know one way to make a shadowbox!

New Fly Art--Part 2

These are my Fly Tying Meets Modern Art series, which I might submit under a pseudonym my Father-in-Law dreamed up--Andy Warhook. I thought the oversized Copper Johns turned out the best. Hope Fuller Lodge Art Center likes them, too!

I didn't realize it until I was putting together this post, but these (in smaller sizes!) are my favorite go-to flies for fishing in the Jemez. I'll usually rig an elk hair caddis or parachute Adams to float with a copper John or prince bouncing along the bottom.

The Copper John (the original, something like the one in the upper right/yellow background, was designed by Colorado angler John Barr):

These are something like a Parachute Adams, but more colorful. I was thinking of another Father-in-Law-ism as the title for this one: Marilyn Mayfly. I came across some poly yarn that I think I'll use in the future for my real Parachute Adams flies.

Finally, the venerable Elk Hair Caddis, ostensibly designed/invented by Montana fly tier Al Troth.

 

I had a blast putting these together, and I hope you enjoy them, too! 

New Fly Art--Part 1

Last week I submitted Fishhooks in Disguise, a piece for the upcoming show at the Fuller Lodge Art Center in Los Alamos called "Trickster". Ken Nebel, the manager of the Art Center, suggested something around fly tying as that art is, in essence, all about tricking fish into biting a hook. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's just amusing.

I made the mistake of framing the thing BEFORE taking the picture (I superglued the foam into the frame...), so it was REALLY hard to not have a bunch of glare on the glass. Lesson learned for next time.
Wish me luck getting in to the show!

Edit to add: I tied every fly in there except for the lures (obviously) and the Muddler Minnow (top row, right side), which was tied by my dad. Let me know if you're curious about the names of these. 

The Faux-Rhodes: Construction

Like many of my woodworking projects, the Faux-Rhodes was constrained by the materials I had on hand, if for no other reason than this: I'm cheap. I had a bunch of 1/4" plywood wall paneling that I'd gotten for free to build boxes for my shop, and some 3/4" hardwood plywood l had left over from a bookcase. After cutting everything to size and adding some curves and a pass-through to access the headphone jack and power switch, I clamped everything together to check fit.

The wood was free, but I purchased the red vinyl from JoAnn Fabrics in Santa Fe (1/2 off), which, even at full price, would have been cheaper than Tolex. The Jury's still out on durability, but after a year of pretty steady gigging I have no major tears in it, just some scuffs from sliding on/off my stand. Tolex is sold in a wide variety, and I lingered on the striped tweed and faux-snakeskin for a long time. However, I love the look of the plain red. The black top is a long piece of carbon fiber-look-alike sticker stuff I found at Autozone stuck to plywood; the pass-through on the end is the sticker stuff on flashing, riveted to the end of the case.

 The hardware was the biggest expense (other than the PX-3) and I got it from Reliable Hardware (http://www.reliablehardware.com/). I like the black hardware, and Reliable was one of the few places that sold it. I read some articles about building road cases that advised against painted hardware, but the box goes into a gig bag for portability so scratching the metal is not a huge concern for me. The black on red adds a nice contrast. The music rest was an afterthought, but the black material is the carbon fiber sticker stuff stuck to two pieces of aluminum flashing and riveted it to the wooden rest. The rest sits on the 2nd tier of my keyboard stand.

As you can see, there's room for everything, including a spot on the left end for the power adapter and all the cords that I could possibly plug into the keyboard. Since the Casio weighs in at 24 lbs, I estimate the total weight of the PX3 and the box at 30 lbs, which is lighter than the Roland FP-3 I used to have and a fraction of the weight of a Rhodes. All the cords route through the bottom, which doesn't seem like it would matter but it de-clutters the connection side of the piano, and gives the audience something to look at besides the manufacturer's logo, a bunch of cords, and whatever is playing the keys.

So, it turned out looking cool and working well. I firmly believe that stage presence has a huge effect on a live show. If the crowd digs your vibe (and your tunes don't suck), they'll stick around. The Faux-Rhodes adds to the vibe in The Affordables and the Craig Martin Experience, and it even fit in during a recent gig with the Los Alamos Big Band. It's turned some heads; Brant Leeper, killer keyboardist in Santa Fe who plays with Tiho Dimitrov, asked me, "what kind of keyboard is that?" (Last I checked, Leeper plays a Nord Electro-3, which fits his Hammond Organ focus well.) The stage manager at a benefit I played with The Affordables was visibly impressed with the functionality I had built into it; I can load in and set up in under 15 minutes and all the cords are there, ready to go. And of course my Mom told me I did a "great job on it."

There are a few things I'd do differently, but overall I'm happy with the functionality and the effect. What project should I tackle next?