Defining my self/business

Posted May 16, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

The first time I started a business I just wanted to escape being an employee; to unfurl my sails and see where the winds of work and chance would take me. That worked well at the time.e I look back and see that the route I took was to simply try things.

I wanted to do woodworking, so I bought the equipment (slowly) and built my skills with each job, supplementing the physical work with words and conversation with others on how to do what I wanted to do. General construction was a lesser interest at first. I saw it mostly as a way to stay busy: siding, decks, and small remodels are abundant and seemed an easy job. I applied the same method of reading and searching out more experienced people to talk to while doing these jobs, and realized that the knowledge necessary to do that work well was vast and under-appreciated. I dug into the details and overcame my own biases about rough carpentry and the other apparently “simpler” work. I came to realize that most of it really is the foundation that the rest of the house hangs on, and the coat that protects it. The technical aspect of much of “rough” carpentry and construction is every bit as complex and skill intensive as the most intricate woodwork.

Skill is a synertgystic intelligence; the better one gets at one thing, the easier related tasks get and more knowledge becomes relevant. At some point everything becomes part of a whole. Today I see that learning how to be a prep cook illuminates how I organize a job- both are about expectations, projecting the work ahead and setting up to do that work efficiently. You don’t want to have to chop onions in the middle of a rush any more than you want to run to the lumber yard for 2×4 in the middle of framing.

I know the value of getting a rhythm while sanding cabinets as much from woodworking as from Longlining. Setting 10,000 hooks with snap gear has most of the same trouble as sanding a kitchen’s worth of 5 panel doors. Learning to loft eyebrow dormers and handrail fittings was simplified by drafting classes, years of sketching cabinets, and framing a camera shot. Perspective and practicing looking at the dimensionality of objects is useful in all of the disciplines.

Skills acquisition, then, is an easy path now. Not that I have nothing left to learn: instead, I have a much better idea of how much I don’t know and how much time it takes to gain those skills. This is a double edged sword. I want to learn so much, but I only have one lifetime. I can see more clearly what I might like, but also know that I have to choose between what I know I want and what I know I have time for.

This creates guidelines for the new business. I know that I can do the management part well enough to do any residential job. I know that I can do commercial, but I don’t have much passion for most commercial projects. I am good at working with third parties- subcontractors, architects, designers. I also have an idea of how I am willing to work with them. By this point I have the experience and skill to know that I will always be working among equals in residential construction- it will not be common to be in a room with anyone who has greater knowledge or skill in the whole.

Therein lies the dilemma- What do I want to do? It has the same quirks as choosing what I want to learn. As a generalist I will do more projects, but have less chance of using the skills I have acquired over the years. I will be mostly a manager. If I specialize into one thing I may be able to use some of the skills to their nth degree, but will be relegating myself to doing similar work all the time, and will be limited to the product of my own labor.

And then there is the question “how do I want to live”. I have always wanted to think of myself as an artist, a creator if interesting and possibly beautiful things. How can I integrate that as a goal of my new venture? I will be spending most of my days on this project- shouldn’t I make sure that I will be doing something I have passion for?

This is what most of my thinking recently has centered around. What is creativity? What is art? What is craft? Can I define my strengths and prejudices about these subjects so that I can define the place I would like to create within them? Can I define them well enough to explain to others who I am and, thus, what my company is?

It is tempting to just say that I want to be a prima donna. That I want to be an artist and demand that I get respect for just that. I have a history, a portfolio, even people who would agree that I create art. But that’s a shallow thing of itself. I am not an artist for art’s sake- I am too much of a Usarian: what I make needs to have purpose beyond beauty for me to feel satisfaction. But merely creating useful things is not satisfying, either. I am stuck between those demands. Struggling to find a balance between useful and aesthetic, respect and utility. Finding that balance is important to me. As well, the work has to be satisfying but with enough time to do the work while having the time to live. I would be lucky to find all that. Most of the world doesn’t get to have all those qualities, and I don’t expect to get them. It does seem like a goal to reach for, though.

What is Creativity, or My Problem with Heroes.

Posted May 15, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

Spend enough time working making things and the idea of creativity may rear it’s confused little head.

What does it mean to create something? Is it the same thing to make something as it is to design it? Is it the same thing to have an idea and to make that idea take form in some way? Is creativity a solo venture, or is it something done by groups?

There has been a lot of literature on this subject. After all, the element of creativity is critical to industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re a software developer looking for the next big app, an auto-maker looking for the next great design, or if you’re looking for the next great shoe, you need creativity. Consistent creativity is the Holy Grail of any of those groups.

This is one of those areas where the concept starts to get fuzzy. Is creativity a way of being, a process, can it consolidated into a process? I think if we look at many parts of the public media one may become suspicious about whether there is really any creativity out there, or just clever people who are really good at figuring out popular culture? Perhaps the people who understand popular culture create it. K-Pop looks like an industry that manufactures the appearance of creativity, but it is a relentless and high quality product that is required for that industry. I have a hard time thinking that creativity doesn’t play a significant part in it.

Art is a place where creativity is an expectation. Picasso is a fine example of a relentlessly creative modern artist. He certainly created a lot of art that is held in high esteem. His fast sketches seem to me to cross the line between art and craft. Hey- a prejudice slipped in there. Is art more creative than craft, and why? Sketching is a craft, but doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of art. Although sometimes craft appears to be art- who can argue that the Taj Mahal is not a work of art?

So, what is creativity? Is it the act of creating anything? That seems to imply that a photocopier is a creative machine; creative, then, is a term of art…

Oxford online dictionary defines creativity as “The use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of artistic work”. That places it directly into the realm of art, but seems to be sorta vague again. What’s an “original idea”, and how do you prove it? It seems that limits creativity only to new, original ideas, which would eliminate almost all sculpture, for example. If you’re simply carving marble into shapes, and it’s been done before, then calling it original is a matter of perspective?

My working definition of creative a bit less restrictive. I think that a more realistic use of “creative” is having the ability to apply disparate ideas to new tasks. It is having the ability to apply lessons from different areas, resulting in solutions or results that may not be immediately apparent. For example, Escher using his drafting skills to create optical illusions. Or Frank Lloyd Wright applying Japanese building elements; Wright claimed that Japanese architecture was not an inspiration for his work, but when I look at it it’s a clear element. I believe that creative license is an applicable term, and probably more in line with his take on the question; he was not using the specifics, but using his own creative ability to use the lessons he learned or recognized in Japanese architecture to create his own designs.

This leads to a foundation of how I view creativity; creativity is a continuum. It may not be a conscious continuum, but it is the application of what has been experienced and learned to a task or problem. All of the famous artists I know of had very cohesive groups of supporters, mostly other artistic people. I think that these groups are a critical element of creativity.

The tech field has a number of company leaders who make the point that their job is to bring creative people together and give them a supportive place in which to create. That’s probably my favorite way to think about creativity; it is what happens when people with similar interests attempt to do something together.

We often do creative things alone. I made an inlaid sill recently that I think is a good example of creativity. It was unexpected, and contained elements that the recipient didn’t know I could do. I could explain it as a personal creation; I wanted to do something out of the ordinary, bring a surprise in that would be appreciated. But if I look at the process I can’t honestly say that it was an entirely original thought; I knew the person’s history and I used techniques and skills that I learned from other people, other jobs, and other disciplines. I had done straight string inlay, but never free-form curves. I had done a carved inlay before, but saw the idea first in a furniture book. I used hide glue and hammer veneered the inlay, a very old method of veneering.

When I made the S-shaped inside corners for a boat companionway I had never done anything like that before. I don’t see it as new or original, but I have been told that it is creative. I used an old tool, a scorp, to hog out most of the wood, and then scrapers and sanding paper, and also electric tools and finished it off using a pneumatic spray gun. I could have bought tooling for the shaper and saved myself days of work and it would have been more perfect, rounder… I used methods I learned from other people, methods I read about in books, and had to come up with some of my own solutions for how to join parts together, but they are the same solutions any experienced woodworker would have used.

I don’t think it is possible to be creative without others. Even if I am alone, what gets my creative juices flowing are the ideas I get from talking with other craftsmen, other artists. Some of what motivates me is the wish to use techniques others have mentioned, to create projects that reach to meet what I’ve seen. It is the culmination of the teachers that I have had, both intentional and unintentional.

Getting a bit more egotistical, I do think that this applies to all creative people. What we see when we are presented with someone as a creative genius is most likely a whole crowd of unnamed people who make up most of that person’s genius. When we talk about Bill Gates as a “genius”, we are using his name as that of a vast group of people. When we look at Frank Lloyd Wright, we are looking at the culmination of him, his teachers, and a few different design systems for home design. Sam Maloof brought techniques from outside of traditional furniture and used them to create traditional furniture designs, and then evolved them into his own designs.

Heroes are the face of movements. They are the spokesmen of some advance or change, but they are not the sole element. When I look at Ghandi I can’t forget that he learned so much by visiting Africa and observing what the people there did to fight against Apartheid. Phillip Johnson looks to me like the next step in an evolution of architects, engineers, and window builders of his era.

I suppose this is why I don’t have heroes; this is the problem I have with heroes.

I suppose I should be kinder and allow them their status. After all, they are the culmination of what came before. While they have had help getting to where they are, those names, those faces are what allows their group to gain fame and notoriety in the greater public. A Steve Jobs is not a real person any more than Sam Maloof or Frank Lloyd Wright- what they become are goals for people to reach for. The person inside that figure is someone more like your neighbor (and your neighbor might have a larger ego, or smaller) than like the public persona. It is highly unlikely that they really were creative in that definition above- it’s more likely that they were smart people who surrounded themselves with other people, and the famous person is the sum total of what happens when you gather a group of smart, talented individuals and give them the freedom and support to do what they want.

So, maybe that’s the hero that I could look toward. Make that the goal; to be one of the people who is part of or gathers together a group of people to do interesting things.

A quality of time

Posted May 9, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

There’s a neat old saw that “they used to build houses better”.

I believe there is another way to look at it: all the bad houses have already fallen down.

One quality of time is that we forget that skills existed in the past. We have a tendency to wish that things were better in the past.

We remember best what we have known, and the most recent experiences are the most memorable. This is not to say that we know the present all that well, it just means that we carry our biases with us. This can lead to odd beliefs- the idea that the world was better “back then”, that the world today is “more dangerous” than the past, while at the same time experiencing the greatest overall safety and peace of any time in history.

When we think about the past we are often disregarding anything bad that happened then while thinking only of today’s problems. Alternatively, one may forget that all that we have today is a continuum from the past.

When we look at the built environment we often look with a pair of biases- one that we have the best technology that has ever existed and can create things with a precision previously not possible. The other is that we see these old buildings filled with incredible craftsmanship and take the belief that the comparatively plain buildings of today are because we don’t have the skills that existed then.

The problem with the former view is that we don’t give the skills necessary to build the past enough credit. We think that the lack of refined tools means there couldn’t be refined products. The good thing about this is that people are fairly easy to amaze by showing them craftsmanship from the past.

A problem with the latter view is that one may not realize that the buildings still standing today are the best built structures of yesterday. There are many buildings being built today that will easily last as long as the best built in history, especially when considering comparable materials.

The reason for this is really a combination of two things- we have better technology and can create buildings that will last longer with a lower level of skill required of the people building them.

Another is that we have vastly different skill sets today; looking at the amazing structures that were built, it is hard to compare the skill sets. We don’t have many carpenters who can use a hand saw or carve a capital quickly. On the other hand, most carpenters have several motorized saws and pneumatic nailers. They don’t need to know the geometry to lay out compound cuts because they have compound saws- all they need to know is the cut angles, and most have a computer that can calculate them.

We also forget that regular people living in houses in relative comfort is a fairly recent affair. Go back a mere two hundred years and you find that the majority of people shared their houses with their precious livestock (if they were lucky enough to own livestock). The resources they could spend on shelter were very limited and the consideration of comfort was not easily afforded. Those houses are mostly gone because they couldn’t afford to hire an experienced carpenter or mason to build them.

The churches and castles, the trader’s mansions that still stand today, those buildings were constructed using slaves and conscripted labor. The cathedrals and churches benefited from the quasi-voluntary labor of the trades building for the glory of God or Allah, of Zeus or Anubis. These were labors of love and conscripted labor, and we wouldn’t want some of those skills brought back. Who wants to see someone smoothing a Granite slab floor with blocks of stone and sand?

How about those skills?

We still use most of the skills from the past today, and we have technology that allows us to use mathematics at a higher level and more commonly than at any time in the past.

What we don’t do is longhand mathematics. We don’t need to because we have computers. We have architects who design most structures, and those that are built without an architect are inspected by engineers. Cabinet makers model their projects before building them. We do more before building than ever before, and that allows us to build at a level that a mere hundred years ago was only available to the wealthy.

But, what about the skills? We still have them. They aren’t as common throughout the trades because it isn’t required to have journeymen on every job any more. How the skilled trades were diminished in the US is another long story, but suffice to say that they haven’t been eliminated; there are still carpenters who know the sacred geometry of the French Compagnons and the German Zimmermanns, who know how to build traditional Japanese buildings, and Chinese temples. There are still shipwrights who can loft a boat.

These skills are not needed for most homes. They are expensive skills acquired over many years, and most of the people who have a strong understanding of them are working on the complicated, expensive homes or in the area of restoration or conservation. They are teaching in union and specialty trade schools, or training their employees who then go spread this information.

One trick of time is that it always seems that the past or the future is better than now. It is easy to suspect that there is something missing today, but most of the time what is missing is just outside of one’s experience.

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Posted May 9, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

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Unintended Consequences

Posted May 8, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

The world is a complicated place.

This morning I was reading a section of the Seattle Times, the PacificNW magazine insert, which featured several homes that were built. This magazine follows a standard format of choosing a home and celebrating the architect and the largess of the people who hired the architect, often with plenty of tidbits about the homeowner’s trips to exotic places.

This sort of writing bothers me, it gets under my skin and itches. It makes me difficult to be around. So I tried some meditation methods, a little DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), but these didn’t work. I kept circling around to think about how meditation and these behavioral modification methods seem to me to be a system of pacification; how do you get a large population to accept the status quo? You give them a practical method of acceptance. It is much better to have a docile population that accepts things as they are. Even if it disturbs them to step over the homeless on their way to work, you want them to think about how to give the homeless food, but you don’t want them thinking about the larger structural elements that create a situation where you can have people making $200,000 a year stepping over homeless people while worrying about how expensive it is to live.

I know- you’re wondering what that has to do with an article about people who hire architects to design their homes.

It’s all about connections. The world, as I noted at the beginning, is complicated. Everything has its connections.

I have been in construction continuously for a couple of decades now. I have worked with designer/builders, designers, architects, and homeowners where I worked off of napkins. I have never worked on a project where one person had everything figured out to the nth degree.

Those buildings that the PacificNW magazine writers gushed over were written in good faith, written to fit a certain space. The writer needed to fit words and pictures into a limited structure that was defined by the editor. It’s a lot like construction (I’ve written for the trades, and writing is a lot like construction; you have to fit a limited space and budget). It’s a lot like construction in too many ways- the writers knew the expectations of the editors, they have a model in mind of what this writing looks like (see Architectural Digest, Lux Magazine, et al), and they met that expectation.

Here’s the thing- none of that writing tells the homeowners how a house is designed and built. Any house that gets built, especially in the custom market, is a collaboration between all the parties at the table.

Architects provide a concept. They bring the idea of what it will look like. In a perfect world they have a cohesive design with a consistent aesthetic. The architect generally (but not always) works with an engineer to ensure that what they have drawn is physically possible and is strong enough to withstand what nature will throw at it.

Their clients, the homeowners, have a part in this as they provide the requirements and their preferred aesthetics- they know something of what they want, although it may be fairly vague.

One of my favorite lines from architectural writings comes from Witold Rybczynski when he is explaining his first custom home commission. The clients explained that they were pretty flexible on the design, but that what they really wanted was a “comfortable home”. While he could have glossed over that rather open ended little request, Rybczynski was cursed with a reflective, thoughtful mind, and the phrase sent him off to educate himself on what it means to be “comfortable”.

The builder is the group responsible to take those ideas from concepts and line drawings and turn them into a physical reality.

I can’t think of any builder who does everything. There may be companies that do everything “in-house”, meaning that they have employees who can do everything, but they are rare enough to be non-existent. Even the design/build companies hire out significant parts of any structure.

In a very real way the General Contractor is a coordinator. A person (or in the case of these complex, large, custom homes, a group of people) who keeps track of all the various parts of the project and coordinates to ensure that what is on paper (the architect’s designs) is buildable, that the aesthetic requirements of the clients is being met, that all the codes are being followed, and that all the details are completed.

What happens during a build is not even that clear-cut. There are always omissions in the design and engineering. The GC will find most of these and will be sending the architect a steady stream of RFI’s (request for information) through the project. The various trades find additional places where the design needs to be re-worked, and the architect and engineer get to stay busy through the foundation and basic structural construction re-working the design and engineering to fit the changes that need to be made.

Many of the design changes are not solely from the architect. The trades working on the house tend to have vastly more experience in their particular area than any architect or engineer, and they have suggestions, ideas, and often completely different ways of creating the look that the architect and/or homeowners really want.

This is also when the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC contractors start to weigh in. They have requirements for what they need to do, but also suggestions for other ways to get the same effect, or suggestions for new designs that may not have been considered.

This design manipulation continues through the project. Once the foundation is completed, the finishes begin, and there again the design is often light, or it doesn’t turn out to look quite as good in real life as in the renderings. The various finish trades bring ideas to the project, different cabinet designs, other handrail types, different flooring or wall coverings.

All of these various people have an impact on the life of the building. The landscaper who makes sure that water doesn’t drain into the house and makes sure that trees are planted far enough away so that their roots won’t grow into the foundation. The siding installer who makes sure that all the flashings are integrated into the weather resistant barrier. The roofer who creates kick-out flashings and advises on better roof designs. The tile installer who knows how to waterproof the walls and floors.

Building a house is a collaboration. Even tract builders, who are closer to manufacturers than we in the bespoke trades are, refine their designs and processes according to input from their tradespeople and trade partners.

This is why the writing in the magazine bothers me- it ignores the real process that creates a great house that will last and be comfortable. It’s not just a client with money and one superhero architect.

More, this type of writing contributes to the small thinking that damages so much of the country. It’s not an intentional thing- the writer is only intending to do well; they are praising a good design for (hopefully) interesting clients. But the end result of the writing is a stratification; it presents the idea that there is one person who is special and the rest are dispensable.

This type of writing is to buildings what the one-line political quote is to politics; reductive and simple. Brevity is great- it is fast, easy, and it is shallow.

Too often we avoid the complex because it seems hard, or it isn’t clear. It is much more enticing to find something simple, easy, and sure- if you can say it in one line, then you have a clear concept, right? Wrong. All of the one-liners, slogans, and that article that praises the architect without mentioning the people who built it? They all rely on preconceived notions. They aren’t simple, they are filled with prejudice and lazy thinking.

This avoidance of looking at the big picture is why we have people earning $200,000 a year organizing to allow for homeless encampments in their city (hopefully not in their neighborhood, though). It is easy to be depressed by the plight of homelessness and to organize to feed them. Head off to meditation, do a little yoga, feed the homeless, go to work. It’s all part of the world, right?

It is- it is the status quo. But all the organizing to feed the homeless isn’t going to do anything to solve the question of why they are there in the first place. It is much easier to think about how to get blankets to them than it is to ask why there can be almost 2,000 children under the age of 18 living on the streets in Seattle.

It is much easier to look at a 17 year old homeless kid and think “runaway” than it is to think about what they were running from. It will break your heart to meet the 12 year olds who are also living out there, but they will probably be surrounded by a bunch of 15 and 16 and 17 year olds, so you won’t really think about that 12 year old.

It’s sad, too, because the complexity of the world is also most of what makes it beautiful. Go look at an old cathedral. You are looking at a beautiful piece of the religion that it is part of, but you’re also looking at the product of many hands working together.

Go drive down the Columbia Gorge on the old highways. Look at the amazing bridges and intricate rock work. Those, too, are the creation of many people collaborating to make something; they are the culmination of lifetimes of skills passed down through generations.

When you look at the built environment you are looking at a very real history of human learning. Whether it is the blacktop road out front of your house, the bridge you drive over to work, or the trim in your brand new tract house, you are looking just as much at thousands of years of the creative process as you are when you travel to see the Taj Mahal.

Talking to my wife about this she said that she thinks of meditation as a different way to approach these things. I think she is right, for her they may be. For me, I worry that these are also the ways that people are taught to be complacent, to accept things as they are, and to think only about changing themselves.

Humanity has come a long way. It hasn’t gotten there by being happy with how things are. Every advance in technology and culture has come from people who were not happy with how the world was. Sure, some used meditation and some prayed, but they didn’t stop looking at the world and being discontented. They created saws, paper, cotton gins, and computers. We are able to support more people than ever before, and we are more peaceful as a whole than ever before. This is a good thing, it is progress, and it means we are moving in the right direction.

That direction is not defined by the status quo. By definition, the status quo is the state of society as it was, and for humanity to progress we need to continue to change. We need to move past how we were, never to return to what we once were. That edict doesn’t just apply to war or to technology, it applies to how we think and to what we think about.

We didn’t think about women’s rights 500 years ago. We do now. We think about removing barriers to equality based on gender, sexual preference, and we are starting to think that, just maybe, people with mental health problems and a criminal record might be people, too.

One of the longest lasting and most difficult struggles has been against hero worship. This is the tendency to see people in power as superior; to look at kings and queens as Gods, at the famous as having been smiled upon by Heaven, to think that that doctor or lawyer over there is a better human being because of their degree or their income.

As we have evolved, we have learned (slowly) that those people in power are not inherently special. They can be amazing, but so too can the taxi driver.

When I read those articles it brings all this up in me. I see the worship of heroes, the lazy, easy path of adoring the Architect while fawning over the possible achievements of the homeowners, while simply omitting the people who didn’t matter. It looks like hero worship to me, and I believe that is lazy. It promotes the idea that people deserve what they get, and that carries with it the idea that the people who don’t have it don’t deserve it. That they are less human, and these people are more special humans.

I would much prefer to see these articles have more about the real process of the design and building of those homes, and less selective royalty. I want to know who put the wall together, who the arborist was that showed them how to build next to a Fir tree without damaging it. I want to see the people in the trades celebrated for their ability to make other people’s ideas come to life.

I want this because it brings respect to everyone, and I think that having respect for all the people involved breeds more respect for everyone. I think that learning to have that respect will teach us how to look at that 16 year old living on the street and give us the ability to have compassion for their plight. That just might allow more of us to look beyond their appearance.

I believe that learning to have that respect will also give us the insight to look at a person who is starting to struggle and ask why they are struggling instead of blaming them for not working harder. There is no person on the streets that wanted to be there. All of us should take pause to realize that there are that many people who can say with conviction that they are more comfortable living there than they are living in the society that we are part of, that we create.

It doesn’t matter where you find the space to give respect and caring. But it does matter that you and I look at the things that promote this separation between us, that diminish the chance to feel respect for others. When we have learned to have respect, we can have an idea of how to give another the means to feel they matter.

Finishes

Posted May 7, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

It’s been interesting to be working with various stains and finishes lately. I prefer to have specialists do finishing, but as a woodworker, we wind up doing our fair share.

Stains

Stains are (mostly) pigments or dyes.

Pigments are, essentially, solid colors ground to a very small particle and suspended in a solvent of some sort. They will soak into wood some, but basically sit on top of the surface. With open grain woods, like Oak, pigments will fill in the open grain and can enhance the grain pattern. On closed grain woods pigment stains will often wipe off, especially if the wood is sanded too smooth. This is why pigment stains contain binders- basically glue to hold the stain onto the wood.

Pigmented stains are a lot like paint, and there are some “stains” that are designed to act like paint. Arborcoat is a solid pigmented “stain” that is painted on, but not wiped off later. The binder is designed to be strong enough to hold a full film coating onto the surface.

Dyes are soluble salts that, when dissolved, are much smaller than a pigment. With closed grain woods, like Maple, a dye will react to the different grains in the wood and can enhance differences in the grain. With open grain wood the effect can by to muddy the wood as it soaks into the open pores and dyes the rest to a similar color. Dyes can be used to add much more, and more vibrant colors than pigment stains- that flamed Maple Fender Stratocaster most likely has a dye.

In general, stains are designed to color or tone wood, possibly to bring out or highlight grain patterns. Stains are then coated with a clear finish to protect the wood, and perhaps the stain, also.

Penetrating and Film Finishes

There are basically two types of finishes that are applied to wood (and stone, for that matter); Penetrating finishes and Film finishes.

Penetrating finishes are generally oils- Tung oil, Linseed oil, Flaxseed oil. The oils used to finish wood need to be stable, won’t turn rancid (start to smell), and this generally means they dry to a hard finish.

Tung oil and Linseed oil are commonly used to finish furniture, taking many, many coats with extended drying times between each coat (even with drying agents, these oils often require 12 hours between each coat). As each coat is applied (often wet-sanded or buffed between coats) it becomes glossier and harder.

Many deck coatings, such as Cabott, are penetrating oils, often with a pigment or dye in them to create a more uniform look to the deck.

Penetrating finishes cause the wood to become more moisture resistant by filling in the outer layer of the wood, causing it to become more water resistant.

Film finishes sit on top of the surface, binding to it through chemical and mechanical means. Examples of film finishes are Paints, Lacquers, Varnishes. Film coatings protect the wood by coating it in a hard surface. The benefits to film coatings are that they are continuous over the surface and do a better job of preventing water and sunlight to damage the underlying surface.

Film coatings are good in climate controlled places and on non-wearing surfaces. IE, paint is better than a penetrating finish for most walls because it doesn’t get a lot of abrasive wear. Decks generally are not painted because they quickly start to peel from wear; as the paint is cracked or scratched, water can get underneath the film and breaks the bond. Floors, which generally get a film finish these days used to only be oiled with a penetrating finish. Today we can use film finishes, but they are expensive and require extensive preparation and careful application.

Lacquers and Varnishes

There is a historical difference between these products, but as time goes by and technology advances how we can create and suspend polymers the distinction becomes more of use than of ingredients. There are water based “Varnish” products, Epoxy “Lacquer” coatings. Even the concept of a water based Lacquer requires that the ingredients be something that hardly resembles the original. So the following is a light explanation of my reading on the subjects and is based partially on my own bias and not-deep understanding.

Varnish

Varnish was originally tree resins dissolved in turpentine. As the tree resin dries it hardens into a protective film.

Today most Varnishes are Alkyd resins that use mineral spirits as a solvent and linseed oil as the carrier. The benefit to Varnish originally is that it dried slowly to a very hard, thick, coating. That has been maintained as a primary difference in how Varnish is used- high solids (solids can be thought of as how much wear the product can take).

Lacquer

Lacquer originally referred to a resin secreted by the Lac bug. It was used extensively through Asia. Shellac is the pure resin, cleaned, and is soluble in alcohol, which makes it very easy to use. It also can be a food-grade finish, depending on how it is processed; it is sometimes used to coat apples and some candies to give them a shiny look and to prevent them from melting. Shellac dissolves in alcohol.

An interesting thing about Shellac- it has the reputation of getting “rings” from water glasses, etc., is actually the wax absorbing the water. Wax is used to protect the Shellac from scratching or dissolving should someone spill their wine or whiskey. Shellac is very brittle, scratches easily, and dissolves in alcohol- French polish’s benefits; oil to make the wood grain pop and help keep the shellac a little more plastic and wax to protect the shellac from alcohol. Shellac naturally has some wax in it, and that can cause difficulty with some finishes, and the wax gives Shellac an orange-tinge. Fortunately, it is easy to de-wax Shellac, and de-waxed Shellac is a (nearly) universal covering. It will stick to nearly anything, and just about everything sticks to it.

Today lacquer generally refers to a polymer dissolved in volatile organic compounds. The early polymer resins were Nitrocellulose, and that is still available, but is being displaced by Alkyd and Acrylic.

Paint

Okay, now what’s an Alkyd? And what is an Acrylic?

Alkyd is a Polyester made of alcohol and organic acids. Alkyds are the most common resin in “oil based” coatings. Alkyds are flexible, take color well, and last relatively well.

Acrylic is a plastic created from an acrylic acid. Lacquers mostly use an emulsified Polymethyl Acrylate. Wikipedia explains that “Acrylic resin is a general term for any one of the plastics (resin) generated through chemical reaction by applying polymerization ninitiator and heat to a monomer.”

Paint

Now that we have an idea of the fancy films, that information translates well to paint.

Latex is a rubber derived from many plants and trees. The famous “rubber trees” were first used to make tires, but other more reliable methods of creating latex quickly supplanted that. While we can buy latex gloves that have natural latex in them (which is what some people have allergic reactions to), virtually all latex paint is made of synthetic latex or vinyl.

Acrylic latex is Latex paint (that may be vinyl) with Acrylic added to create a stronger coating that wears longer and retains color better.

Solid Acrylic paints are more color stable and have better wear than Latex or Acrylic Latex paints, but the formula.

Enamel. Enamel used to be synonymous with a tinted Varnish in that it was an oil based coating that dried to a thick, hard surface. Today it is mostly a term meaning that it dries to a very hard finish. Oil based enamels are mostly Alkyd resins, while water based are Acrylic or resins. There are also Polyurethane enamels.

Polyurethane. Polyurethane coatings are a stronger plastic than Acrylic. Most automotive paints are Urethane paints, and the chemistry gets very complicated. Polyurethane paints comes in three types- Water-based, Oil-based, and Oil-modified Water-based! Like Acrylic, Polyurethane can be added to Latex paints to increase the durability, although there are some color concerns. Oil based Polyurethanes tend to yellow.

Well, that’s enough for now. More later!

Jack Straw table

Posted May 7, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

Jack Straw Table.

This table was designed by one of the lead carpenters at Method Construction with one of the managers of Jack Straw, an upscale clothing retailer in Seattle.

The carpenter had drafted a basic set of line drawings with dimensions using an existing slab and table base that I have since lost. I took those drawings and put them into Sketchup, a 3D design program, where I could easily adjust dimensions and get a better sense of the eventual look of the table.

The curved section of the table is the difficult part of this table; I decided to build a form that I would use to vacuum form sheets of MDF.

I sent the drawing to Warmington & North, a cabinet shop located in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. Carter Warmington transferred the drawing to a CAD file that he used to cut parts for my form.

While I could have created a template and cut allthe form parts myself, I was working on other projects and had a limited budget for this one. CNC is very accurate and was more economical than my time would have been.

Once the parts were cut I built a form for the curve.

Glue up can be intense, and I never got around to taking pictures of the vacuum in place. This one especially was exciting. Vacuum creates a lot of pressure. The basics of how it works is that by removing the air from a space, the full weight of the atmosphere exerts itself on the parts. We don’t feel it because the pressure is equalized and we are used to it, but the atmosphere is 14.7 pounds per square inch. This is like when you jump into a pool- you don’t feel the weight of the water just above you, it is fairly evenly distributed all around your body.

The process looks like is: we set up the form, cut the sheet goods to size- in this case the form is wider and longer than it needs to be so the sheet goods don’t extend past the sides. We spread glue on each sheet and stack them up to reach the thickness we need. I was using 1/8” MDF and had 6 sheets to get them to a total of ¾” thick. Once all the sheets are glued, they are placed on the form and one side of the layer of sheets is screwed to the form. Then we pull a thick plastic bag over the whole thing, seal it, and attach a hose that is connected to a vacuum pump.

We have to help push the stack of sheets down onto the form in order to keep them straight, make sure the bag doesn’t twist the form or get stuck between the sheets we are bending and the form as that would create a hump at the sides.

We got the form together, the sheets on, and the vacuum on, everything seemed good. I was heading to get my camera when I hear this loud explosion! I run to the shop and see that the form has blown in. We had to pull everything apart and rebuild the form with doubled up sheets of ¾” MDF on each side- and added a center support.

The curve is approximately a 3’ tall half circle. That comes out to around 56.5 square inches per side, or 831.27 pounds of force. The MDF just couldn’t take it and imploded with enough force to shatter 2 interior sheets of ¾” MDF. The second attempt worked great.

I made the drawer box and fit the internal ribs around it, epoxied into place. I used woven fiberglass to reinforce the ribs to give that big “foot” some extra strength. I was worried about what sort of stress that a commercial desk could be subjected to and didn’t want it collapsing after someone decided to climb on top of it for some reason.

As you can see, the inside cover was epoxied into place and sheets of fiberglass reinforcement added.

The drawer box was built and veneered prior to placement. Much care was required to keep epoxy off the veneer surfaces.

This picture shows the outer surface being glued into place. Lots of clamps and lots of epoxy! If you look at the ribs, there is one missing on the front. This is the side has a bank of drawers.

Here is the piece with the outer layer of the curve installed. You can see we screwed the center to the ribs. I was worried about getting enough pressure to push the panel onto the ribs over that distance, and as the piece was getting painted I could fill those holes.

The top and bottom sheets were fitted,creating a torsion box of the table. I filled all the screw holes with thickened epoxy and coated the entire table with a thinned epoxy designed to penetrate the MDF. This soaks into the MDF giving it a uniform, hard surface that also reduces the chance of standing water causing any damage.

Paint was a long, tedious process. I used “Nuwave White Water Based Lacquer” from Rudd, a good local coatings manufacturer. This is a nice product, water based which means that it requires fewer chemicals and doesn’t off-gas toxic fumes. The Oak was finished with the same product in a clear satin.

The oak drawers miter into the corner, creating a seamless look.

The completed table with slab mounted on top. To install the slab I drilled holes in 4 spaces to fasten through the top of the table. This allows the fasteners to be hidden, but also allowed the holes to be over-sized so that the slab could move without cracking or destroying the table below it. The slab had a bit of a twist to it, but that is also part of the charm of the wood.

Mutiny Hall

Posted May 6, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

Mutiny hall was a short lived pub.

This was a classic job where at first I was just going to build the bar top and a few small boxes for the back. The job morphed into much more than that, with additional work including:

Several days of demo.
Framing new walls and re-framing old ones.
Building up the pony wall under the bar top (which was later drilled to a shocking extent by the superintendent- an electrician who also did a lot of the plumbing on this project).
Tap tower detail- Pomelle Bubinga surrounded by Sapele
Consulting on plumbing, etc.
Building up partition walls.
Platforms for raised booth areas.
Wainscotting.
Trim around windows.

I can’t find the pictures for the paneled wall under the bar, but I still have a few of the bar top.

Bar top, inside corner before drink ledge added.

Boffice

Posted May 6, 2016 by Lavrans Mathiesen

A recent project to take advantage of a house with a boat slip in the basement. A bare aluminum shell was supplied with a bare sketch of a cabinet layout, but the rest of the design and materials was left to Molior to design and install.

We ordered cabinets from Abodian to match the cabinets in the house, and then proceeded to fill in the details.

First step was to define the ceiling. We were aiming for “fishing boat chic”.

This is after the cabinets and counters were installed. The ceiling is Okubo panels with Sapele battens. The walls are upholstered panels.

The finished look from the windows at the bow.

May the bow Windows Molior created a sill with a chart of Bristol Bay made with Maple stringing, Pomelle Bubinga veneer, and a carved salmon of Walnut.

To create a standing desk Molior built a writing table box. Sapele with Pomelle Bubinga panels and drawer front and a leather top.

Defining my self/business

What is Creativity, or My Problem with Heroes.

A quality of time

test

Unintended Consequences

Finishes

Jack Straw table

Mutiny Hall

Boffice

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