Back in Action!

Well it's been quite some time since my last post as I had to temporarily shut down my shop. But I'm finally back in action! Let me tell you, it's a relief too. When creating is in your blood it's hard to be away from it. My wife and I moved across the country for her new job, which all happened quite suddenly about 1 year ago. But I had to deal with getting our old home fixed up and on the market, not an easy time to sell a home that's for sure.

Then we found a new home (a foreclosure naturally, I'm not sure there was anything BUT foreclosures for sale in our price range). And naturally the new home needed extensive work. So after fixing up and selling our old home I had to jump right in to fixing up our new home. Starting first and foremost with a complete kitchen remodel, since the old particleboard cabinets had extensive water damage and were basically mush. I'm proud to say that I did all of the work on the kitchen myself, with the exception of the granite counter tops.

Here are a couple of before and after shots of the kitchen, just for fun -

This is the before shot. The cabinets were all nasty particleboard covered in laminate. The counter tops were just white laminate. Everything typical builder's grade stock back when the home was built in 1989. The water damage came both from the kitchen sink, which basically just sprayed water out the bottom when it was turned on, and the dishwasher, which when the home inspector turned it on, just started flooding the kitchen floor. On a little side note, if you are buying a home you should ALWAYS get a home inspection done. It doesn't matter if the seller is offering a home warranty or not, get the home inspection! And make sure that the inspector you hire is ASHI certified. I used to be a Realtor, and I hate seeing people make that mistake.

Anyways, moving on :)

On the right is the after shot of the kitchen. Big change, right? I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I used RTA cabinets, that's Ready-To-Assemble, so we literally saved 67% off the cost of comparable cabinets if we bought them locally. I know some people knock RTA cabinets because they join together with just cam sets. But since all of the construction included dadoes and rabbets for fitting together I just glued up and clamped the cabinets instead of only relying on the cams. This made them just as strong and durable as factory assembled cabinets.



Here is a detail shot of the tile back splash. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. The main tile I used is an Italian porcelain that has the look of tumbled blue stone. Then I added the accent strip of tumbled green stone, I think it's strips of onyx. For the back splash behind the range I wanted to do a focal area, so I used tumbled marble.

Well, I know this post has been quite a bit different than normal posts which focus on my artwork, and I promise that I'll be getting back to posting about my work in future posts. So here is a teaser shot of the next piece I'll be posting about. These are tooled leather bracers with Celtic dragons dyed black.

Walnut, Cherry & Purpleheart Freeform Band Saw Box

This is a new style of band saw box for me. I blended 3 kinds of wood, walnut, cherry and purpleheart together instead of using all 1 type of wood. The result I think is very attractive. What is also unique about this band saw box is that I didn't create a pattern in advance. I used the face grain of the wood itself to design the box.

As you can see I came up with a very unique and fun shape. This box stands about 12 1/2" inches tall plus it is mounted to a 1" inch tall, solid walnut base. The base is 9" inches long and 4 1/2" inches wide. The box is 2 1/2" inches wide.

This box has 2 drawers, and as you can see from the bottom picture the walnut, cherry and purpleheart wood blend carries through to the drawers as well. The top drawer is divided into 2 compartments. While the bottom drawer is a single compartment with 2 different levels. The drawer pulls are made from cherry and are also designed from the grain pattern of the cherry wood. The inside of the drawers is lined with a rich green flocking.

The box is finished with 2 coats of tung oil all the way around to bring out the rich grain on all 3 types of wood. It takes extra time to do this kind of finishing but the end result is well worth it. Plus it helps ensure the craft will last a lifetime. Click on the link to see more about this freeform band saw box. This one of a kind box is available for sale on RobertsWorkshop.com.

5 New Stained Glass Night Lights - All Lead Free

Work has been fairly slow lately because of some back problems. Just whittling away a little at a time at projects to get some things done.

Many of my stained glass pieces tend to be large and quite intricate but I wanted to design some pieces that were both beautiful but also more affordable.

I'm quite pleased with the results. Also night lights are often handled and touched so it was important to me that they be safe around children (and adults for that matter too). I used lead free solder on these night lights. Since there is no lead it makes these nights light an excellent fit for any home.

These night lights range in price from $24.95 to $34.95.

Take a look. You can click on any of the photos to see a more detailed description and more pictures on my website.

New stained glass lamps

I've added some great new pieces lately. There are two new wall hanging stained glass lamp designs that are now available.

The first one is "Harvest Time." This is a grape vine pattern with grape clusters that has a great vineyard feel to it. The grape vine cascades down the stained glass with a diagonal background pattern. This is easily one of my favorite works to date. And also one of the most intricate.

What makes "Harvest Time" so special is that the grapes are raised from the rest of the stained glass lamp. So in addition to the lamp being a curved half cylinder the grape clusters are raised above that. Let me tell you, that was a lot of extra work, but the end result is really something special.

The next new wall hanging stained glass lamp is "Art Deco." This design follows traditional Art Deco design elements, with the tiered background as well as the tulips and peacock feathers. I used a lot of iridescent glass in "Art Deco" to further the theme.

With this stained glass wall lamp I also incorporated hand tooled leather into the design. As you can see the design on the leather ties into the design elements in the stained glass, allowing one to flow nicely into the other.

These wall hanging lamps are my own design and as far as I know I'm the only person that creates anything like them. Probably because they are so much extra work to make, no one else wants to bother copying them ;)

Walnut and Cherry Desk Clock

I, affectionately, refer to this walnut and cherry desk clock as "the little, one-eyed alien clock." :-) My wife thinks it looks like Kenny from South Park. Maybe I should call it "Kenny surfing."

The design was an experimental one and actually took a lot more work than I planned so I don't anticipate making another one. The problem was all of the sanding angles. To really bring out the quality of the grain a piece of fine woodworking needs to be sanded all the way to superfine. Because of the way the walnut and cherry fit together, as well as the shapes of both woods it made sanding a challenge.

But the end result I think looks sharp. I tried to bring a lot of curve into the shapes.

This is a great little desk clock, shelf clock or table clock. It's just under 6 inches wide by 4 1/2 inches tall and 1 3/4 inches deep. The clock itself is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

The clock is made from Michigan air-dried walnut and cherry woods and was finished with 2 coats of tung oil, which really brings out the rich grain patterns on both the walnut and cherry.

The walnut and cherry desk clock is for sale on my site.

Walnut Bandsaw Box Desk Organizer

I love the rich grain detail in this Walnut Desk Organizer!

I'm proud to say that this walnut stock is air-dried Michigan walnut. It came from a farm in the Jackson Michigan area. By the way, the cherry drawer pulls came from the same farm.

I wanted this piece to be practical; something that both looked beautiful but was also highly functional. I designed it with the front extension to hold a pen, business cards and paper clips. Plus it has the 3 drawers for storage, the largest one can hold a post-it note pad. I also added the brass clock into it because, like I said, I want it to be functional.

It stands 6 1/2 inches tall, is 11 1/2 inches across and about 8 inches at it's deepest point. The clock is 2 inches in diameter.

This box was hand finished with 2 coats of tung oil to bring out the rich grain of the walnut and then given a final finish coat of paste wax to protect the finish and give the desk organizer a deep luster. There is no stain used. This is the natural grain of the wood brought out by the tung oil.

In fact, while I'm mentioning finishes this is a good time to talk a little about finishing. Does it take extra time to give a piece a good finish? Yes. A good, quality finish can often take nearly as much time as creating the piece in the first place. Does it make a difference? Hell yes!

If you are thinking about buying a piece of wood art, make sure that the craftsman actually finished the piece on all sides, not just the front face. Sure it's a big time saver and it allows them to sell their work cheaper, BUT (and this is a big but) if wood isn't finished evenly all the way around it will crack, split, warp and all in all just not last.

Here is another shot of the desk organizer. Want to see more pictures of this, or interested in buying it? Take a look at this walnut desk organizer on my website.

Robert's Workshop.com website now up and running

My website is now running. robertsworkshop.com

I have a gallery featuring past work as well as a gallery of current projects for sale. The site features ecommerce through Paypal as well so if you see something you like you can purchase it directly.

I have a bunch of new pieces available so let's take a look at one of them - Hand Carved Leather Bracers

After making the leather shield I decided I wanted to make some other pieces of armor in a similar fashion to accompany it. The first is the Bracers of the Lion Heart, hand carved leather bracers.

These bracers have extensive Celtic knot work as well as a pair of Celtic lions on each bracer. They are 8" inches in length, which on me runs from the wrist to an inch or so short of the elbow. As you can see in the bottom picture the bracers lace up from the underside easily adjusting for different arm thicknesses. The inside of the bracers is lined with buck-skin suede for greatly added comfort.

All good pieces of armor have a legend attached to them and the Bracers of the Lion Heart are no different.

Legend has it these bracers belonged to Brunwold, the moderately apt, an infamous warrior/wizard who was best known for his great battle with Groshgnast, the hideous (even by troll standards Groshgnast was seriously ugly).

Brunwold was amongst the rare breed of warrior/wizards. Unfortunately the reason there are so few warrior/wizards out there is that at times of great stress, such as the heat of battle, one must have their instincts trained to react specifically. Warriors, for example, instinctively draw their sword, while wizards prepare to cast a spell. Warrior/wizards being trained equally, unless they are truly great (such as Gandalf the Grey), hesitate while trying to decide how to react. Such is the case with the former owner of the Bracers of the Lion Heart, Brunwold. Upon entering his final battle with a Spiny Humped Megaroach, which strikes terror into the hearts of all men, our hero, Brunwold, accidentally turned himself into an exceptional stained glass end table (see photo).

No longer having any need of his bracers, they have returned to me, the maker. Purchased just before Brunwold's last adventure and due to the unfortunate end table incident, these bracers have never been used in combat.

Despite the legend, the Bracers of the Lion Heart are said to give +2 to Charisma in most realms due to their extremely attractive and detailed leather carving work. :-)

These hand carved leather bracers are for sale on my site. Take a look :-)