This past weekend I was lucky enough to make my choice up to Boston and enjoy Wood Expo 2012. Wood Expo is an event held within the New England Home Show. It aims to connect custom furniture makers with buyers. It also aims to help furniture makers with design critiques, networking and panel discussions.
Im no furniture maker myself (at least not a selling furniture maker), but the custom furniture makers who did attend and display made this a great event for anyone passionate about woodworking. The hall was lined with people as rabid for woodworking as I am.The makers who displayed or demonstrated in one choice or another included (thanks to Nick Roulleau & Steve Branam for their fantastic posts from which I pulled much of this list together):
After Wood Expo was (mostly) done we all headed down the block and had the inaugural meeting of the Boston chapter of the Modern Woodworkers Association. Nick’s done a great job of writing it up here on the Modern Woodworkers Association site.A great time was had by everyone I saw in attendance & Id highly recommend you attend next year. I hear its going to be better than ever.WoodExpo 2012 AlbumBoston MWA Meeting Album
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| The Seaport World Trade Center, Home of WoodExpo. |
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| Rob Bois |
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| Michael Scott Morton |
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| Rusty Burwell |
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| Steve Branam |
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| Chuck Bender (on right with Mike McCoy & Jim Ashley) |
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| Michael McCoy |
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| Kevin Mack |
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| Megan Caine |
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| Tom McLaughlin |
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| Glen Guarino (w/ Tom McLoughlin) |
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| Terry Moore |
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| Quentin Kelley |
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| WoodExpo 2012 |
Steve Skillins
Ryan Messier
Freddy Roman
Allan Breed
Ed McCormack
Eli Cleveland
Niels Cosman
Mickey Callahan
Since I wasnt displaying and didnt have to pay attention to potential customers, I had the chance to talk with these guys for most of the afternoon.The conversations were alchoices insightful and ranged from the trivial (touristy lunch locations) to the serious & relevant (Whats the point of he show?, How do you attract custom furniture buyers? How do we reach our designs? Where do you buy wood?) While there was rarely any consensus reached, the depth of conversation clearly demonstrated to me how passionate we all are that woodworking as a career and hobby continue. We all need to thank Tommy MacDonald, Eli Cleveland, Rick Waters, Justin DiPalma, Scott Oja & Neil Lamens putting the show on. |
| The inaugural MWA Greater Boston area meetup. |
Senin, 08 Februari 2016
A House In The Trees Part I
My wife and I have three (3) sons, ages 7, 7 and 3. They destroy a room in a matter of minutes when they “play.” Luckily, the basement is finished and serves as a playroom. We can shut the door and the mess goes achoice. Unfortunately, the noise doesn’t go achoice. Since the weather turned last fall, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when we can send them outside to play. As an incentive to get out of the house, we decided that it was time to build the tree house.When she thought it was time to start building, my wife brought the Black & Decker The Complete Guide: Build Your Kids a Treehouse home from the library. I went through it with a slight skepticism. I can’t say I’d trust a Black & Decker branded book to be all that good at any topic. While I feel my initial skepticism stands regarding the book’s production values, I was pleasantly surprised by the book’s technical information, especially its section on attaching to the trees.I knew that when attaching to the trees it would be important to properly support the tree house, not kill the tree and allow tree house and tree to move independent of each other. The Platform Ancoring Techniques section was fantastic. It reviewed the entire anchoring process. After reviewing the section multiple times, I thought the solution would be the commercially available Garnier Limb anchors they mention. Unfortunately, when the anchor and associated bracket are priced out, it comes to $125.00 per attachment point (plus the special drill bit you need to rent or buy). This was more than we were willing to spend, so I set about building my own.
Since I couldn’t source such big bolts at the local hardware store, I began by ordering some ¾” x 10” galvanized lag bolts from McMaster-Carr. In order to transform these into homemade Garnier Limbs, I added two (2) galvanized washers and a length of ¾” galvanized pipe between them. After they were assembled, I think the homemade bolts came out pretty well.
Before installing the bolts, I glues together double 2x8 joists to form the perimeter of the platform. One laminated joist each at 10’, 12’ and 16’ long.
In order to install them, I first picked and marked a height on the first tree (I was not particular about the exact height, as long as I could walk under the tree house). Using my right angle drill and a 9/16” auger bit, the 6” deep hole was easy.
Then I set up my laser level and transferred the height to the remaining two (2) trees. Since it was getting late I decided to drill the second hole in the first tree and see if I could get the anchors installed. After drilling the second hole just like the first, I started ratcheting in the bolt.
It was about 2” in to ratcheting in that first bold that I realized a 9/16” clearance hole was too damn small for a ¾” bolt. I drilled out both holes to ?” and both bolts when in like champs.
With the joists glued up, the first two (2) bolts in and the other trees marked I called it a night. More tree house building to come. In the mean time, heres a quick video showing the bi-directional movement of the mounting bracket system Im using.
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| The Garnier Limb from treehouses.com |
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| The 3/4" x 10" galvanized bolt. |
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| The washers and 3/4" galvanized pipe ferrule installed to form my homemade mounting bolt. |
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| Im using commercially available post straps from Home Depot as the bracket that will attach the joist to the mounting bolt while allowing bi-directional movement. |
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| Gluing the joists. |
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| This drill is one of my absolute favorite tools. |
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| Thats as far in as I could get, using a 9/16" pilot hole. |
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| Finally, a rock solid anchor bolt. |
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