Author: MVFlaim Furnituremaker

Woodworker and antique tool restorer.

Making Chalky Textured Paint

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop2 Comments

If you’re familiar with Shabby Chic furniture repurposing, then you probably know all about Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint®. However, if you’re a woodworker who subscribes to every woodworking magazine out there, then you probably have no idea what Chalk Paint® even is.

Chalk Paint®, not to be confused with chalkboard paint, is a very easy to use paint that requires no sanding or priming to the wood. It is often used to revitalized antique furniture and leaves pieces with a warm matte finish. Simply wipe off the dirt on a piece of furniture and start painting. Its ease of use is what makes the paint so popular. The paint get its name from the chalky texture it leaves on the wood. The paint gives a piece of furniture a nice warm tone as opposed to the harsh look lacquer will often give. However, at nearly $40 a quart, the stuff is not cheap.

Annie Sloan is the British lady who invented the paint several decades ago. In fact, just recently her company trademarked the name Chalk Paint® creating a stink around the industry as there are several other companies out there branding their paint as a chalk paint, but only Annie Sloan makes the official Chalk Paint®.

Making paint with a chalky texture is not all that difficult. Many people will add an additive to latex paint like sanding grout or baking soda. Annie Sloan claims that the majority of her additive, but not all of it, is calcium carbonate also known as limestone. You can buy bags of calcium carbonate on Amazon for about $15.00. Each bag will make a couple of gallons of paint. Even though you’re technically not making Chalk Paint®, I found the additive to be close enough that it works just fine for me.

I bought a quart of Flat Black latex enamel at Lowes for about $10.00. Then following the instructions on the bag, I poured half of my paint into a container and added a 1/4 cup of calcium carbonate (limestone) additive to  the paint. I then added just a little bit of warm water to the to container to thin it out since the limestone thickens the paint. After stirring for a few minutes the paint is ready to use.

As you can see in the picture, the paint has a thickness to it. I simply brushed on a couple of coats waiting about an hour between coats. I then lightly sanded the piece with 320 grit sand paper knocking the paint off the corners and edges to give the piece a worn look. After wiping off the dust from the sand paper, I applied a wax to the piece to give it some sheen and to protect the paint.

Up close you can see how the piece is worn away a little bit at the corners and edges. What I like most about making this paint is that its intent is to make the piece look old. If the piece of furniture ever gets banged around and gets dings or dents on it, it will just add more character to the piece.

People who make their own chalky textured paint claim the biggest advantage is that you can make any color you want, which is true. However, my wife has found that the additive slightly changes the color of the paint. So if you go to the paint store and fall in love with a certain color, once you add the additive you may be disappointed with the color you end up with.

The Dog Ate my Wife’s Christmas Present

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop3 Comments

My wife Anita called me this morning while I was at work. She was fuming. Apparently, while she was taking a shower our dog Bentley decided to check out the Christmas presents under our tree. He grabbed a gift I was giving to Anita and tore it to shreds like a wolf, throwing wrapping paper all over the dining room.

Like most dogs, Bentley loves tearing up paper so it made sense that the gift he decided to chew up was the transfer paper. Anita was planning on using the paper to transfer artwork or patterns onto fabric to make seat cushions and pillows out of it.

It’s not Bentley’s fault that he doesn’t know the difference between thirty dollar transfer paper and thirty-five cent newspaper. To him paper is a delicious snack. Unfortunately, all of the sheets are torn and we’re not sure if they will still work through our printer. Another problem is that most of the instructions are shredded. Anita has never used the paper before so she’ll have to get another paper pack for the instructions or find similar instructions on the internet.

The big problem for me is that I’m a cheap skate so I keep thinking of all the things I could have bought with the thirty bucks; like a half tank of gas; a salad and appetizer at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse; two beers at a Bengals game…… Okay so maybe $30.00 isn’t all that much money, but it still burns me that he chewed it up. What a Grinch!

Over The Moon

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

Last weekend was the Over The Moon show in Lawrenceburg, IN. My wife Anita did really well selling her painted furniture and home décor items. People were even telling her that she had the best booth at the show. She did so well that the organizers invited her back for the spring show in April.

Helping my wife out, I made a few things for her to sell at the show. All of my EATs and NOELs that she brought sold which made me happy. I need to make some more and let her sell them in her booth in That Shop in Milford.

Here’s the china cabinet hutch at the show. A lot of people were looking at it, but most were looking at the things inside the cabinet instead of the cabinet itself.  Beside it were chalk boards that she painted. Those are a very popular item for her. I simply cut out the plywood for the frames, she does everything else.

I made a bookcase for her a few months ago, but unfortunately no one bought it.  I’ve made two other ones before and both of them sold within a couple of weeks. We’re thinking it might be the paint job that’s hurting the piece. I’ll make another soon and Anita will just paint it black and see if it sells quicker.

The one piece that didn’t sell was the china cabinet hutch we worked on a few weeks ago. However, Anita is happy about that because she wanted to keep it anyway. It looks nice in our dining room. Now she needs to work for the next Over The Moon show in the spring.

Visting Brian Boggs Chair Maker

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

If your wife comes to you one day and tells you that she wants to go to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC to see how the Vanderbilt’s lived, tell her “sure, let’s go.” Then while strolling the Biltmore Village below the mansion, shopping at all the retail stores, head a block East and take a right on London St. There you will find the studio of chair maker Brian Boggs.

My wife and I visited his shop this past weekend while in Asheville. The building he operates out of is nothing fancy. In fact without noticing his sign out front, we almost passed it up. When we walked in, I looked at one of his chairs and sat down. His wife Melanie looked me up and down and asked “are you a woodworker?” I said I was and asked her how she knew. She said that most woodworkers will walk in and immediately sit in one of his chairs.

Melanie was nice enough to spend a few minutes with us and explain some of Brian’s furniture. She even took us into his shop area where we were able to sit in his new Sunniva outdoor swing. The thing was impressive and very comfortable. You can see the swing here on his website. http://www.brianboggschairmakers.com/product/sunniva-swing/

I don’t have any photos of his shop because I thought it would have been rude to do so. All I have to say is that it is worth the time to stop by and swing in for a visit if you’re in the area. The amount of 16/4 mahogany he has in stock was probably worth more than my house. However, if you do visit, don’t expect to have a long conversation with Brian about woodworking. He was extremely busy while we visited. One of the things that I noticed about his shop is that I didn’t see a table saw. He may have had one, but considering a lot of his work is curved, him not owning one doesn’t surprise me. He does have a sweet Old Iron band saw that looked like it was the staple of the shop.

After the tour, I asked Melanie if Brian would like some hemp oil to try out. She went into the shop and asked him if he did. It must have peaked his curiosity because he came out and asked me about it. I told him it’s made from hempseed, is solvent free, contains no VOC’s, is environmentally friendly, but is not readily available in the US. I gave him a small 4 oz container of the oil and wrote down the website where he could buy it. Whether or not he will use the oil on his furniture in the future remains uncertain, but being able to give him something he was unaware of was pretty cool.

Antique Tool Improver

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools7 Comments

I’ve been cleaning antique tools for over twenty-five years. When I was fourteen years old my Grandpa gave me a Stanley No 77 dowel machine that took square stock and turned it into dowels. Since that day, I was hooked on old tools. There was something about taking an old neglected tool that was just sitting around collecting dust and bringing it back to life that appealed to me.

I’ve cleaned hundreds if not thousands of tools over the years. When removing all the dirt and rust from an old tool, the final step is to protect it with a penetrating oil so it doesn’t rust again. For years I used Kramer’s Antique Improver and loved the way it protected the wood and metal of the tool giving it a nice sheen. The only problem I had with the oil was the price. At $20.00 for a 8 oz bottle, the stuff wasn’t exactly cheap, but it worked so well I kept using it even though my wife couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff.

Since my wife was no fan of the smell when I used Kramer’s Antique Improver, it got me wondering if I could make something that worked as well for pennies on the dollar. I didn’t want to reproduce Kramer’s exactly because John Kramer uses turpentine and solvents to make his oil. I wanted something simple that I could whip up in a jiffy using only natural products.

I started with melting beeswax. I bought a small 100% beeswax candle and cut a small 1/4″ slab off of it and melt it in the pot. You can always buy granule beeswax at a woodworkers store if you can’t find a 100% beeswax candle.

Once the wax has melted, I add equal parts of orange oil and mineral oil to pot and cook them for one minute. They sell mineral oil at a woodworking supply stores as butcher block oil however, I found mineral oil at the pharmacy for a whole lot less.

Once the oils have cooked in the pot for a minute I pour it in a container. As you can see, my container is nothing more than a Sweet Leaf Ice Tea drink I bought one day.

Using a paper towel, I rub the oil all over tool penetrating it in every spot. You can see the difference of the tool with just one coat of the oil. I usually coat the tool three or four times letting the oil penetrate the entire surface.

The oil works on wood just well as metal. In fact, I coat all my molding planes with the oil. The great thing about my oil is that it’s completely natural, there is no odor and it lasts just as long as Kramer’s. Not to mention that it’s dirt cheap to make.

Updating a China Cabinet

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture6 Comments

My wife bought this china cabinet at the Springfield Antique Show in Springfield, OH in September. It originally came with two glass paneled doors but she wanted to take them off and open up the top part of the cabinet for easy storage. We have a similar china cabinet in our dining room now and opening and closing the doors every time I want to unload my wallet and keys is kind of a pain in the ass, so taking the doors off permanently make sense to me.

You’ll see a lot of china cabinets with their doors removed in antique stores but most of them simply take the doors off and paint the piece leaving the sides of the case 3/4″ thin with the hinge mortises exposed and all. I knew I didn’t want to have that look, so I decided to add stiles to front to complete the case.

I started by milling two pieces of poplar 1″ x 1 3/4″ x 36″ and laid out where I wanted to rout fluting down each piece.

I then clamped the pieces in my modern Moxon vise and used a 1/4″ fluting bit to rout a flute about 1/4″ deep down the front of the stile. I opted to have three flutes 1/4″ apart down each stile.

The scrap portion of the stiles is key. Here I gauged where the fluting should go and then tested the layout. As you can tell, I had to move over the middle flute just a tad in order for it to line up evenly with the other two flutes on the side.

After the fluting was routed, I sanded the stiles and glued them onto the cabinet.

The reason I decided to use 1″ thick poplar 1 3/4″ wide is because I wanted to match the stiles to the top rail as it was 1″ x 1 3/4″. Had I used wood that was only 3/4″ thick it wouldn’t have looked as nice appearing like the stiles were an add on which I did not want.

The fluting on the china cabinet’s leg started up 2″ from the bottom so I mirrored the detail starting and stopping the fluting on the stiles 2″ from the top and bottom.

This is how the cabinet turned out. The fluted stiles gives the piece a nice added touch and finishes it off. It will be sold in my wife’s booth at a vintage designer’s market called “Over the Moon” in Lawrenceburg, IN near the end of the month. I think my wife secretly doesn’t want it to sell because she wants to keep it. I can’t blame her.

Making Walnut Stain

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop6 Comments

I have a big walnut tree in my backyard that drops hundreds of walnuts on the ground every fall. For some reason the walnuts were excessive this year as I have never seen so many on the ground. It must have been a good year to be a walnut tree.

I usually just trip on them while I cut the grass but I decided it might be fun to try to make my own walnut stain from the nuts.

I looked around for the walnuts that had opened up while the squirrels were giving me dirty looks and took about a dozen of them to my shop. I then wrapped them in an onion bag and tightened them up so the walnuts wouldn’t fall out. Wrapping them in cheese cloth would work just as well.

I grabbed a big pot I bought a few months ago and a hot plate burner to cook the walnuts. There was no way I was going to use a pot from my wife’s kitchen as I didn’t want to get punched in the face. I filled the pot with water with a couple of gallons of water, placed the nuts in it and turned on the hot plate until the water was at a boil.

After the water came to a boil, I turned the hot plate off and let the walnuts sit in the pot overnight. In the morning, I dipped a stick in the water to see how dark the stain was. It wasn’t as dark as I would have liked so I turned the burner on again. After I got the water to a boil, I turned the hot plate to low and let the walnuts simmer in the water for a few more hours.

This was the most frustrating part of the process. I kept testing the stain on some scrap oak to see how dark it was. Every hour I checked, the stain was real light and looked like tea. I started to think it wouldn’t work. So I decided that I probably had too much water in the pot and poured some of it in the sink. After removing about half the water and cooking the walnuts for a few more hours, this is what I was left with.

Satisfied with the color, I poured the stain into a mason jar using a funnel and paint strainer to collect all the gunk that had accumulated in the water from the walnuts.

This is how the stain looks on white oak. It dries a little lighter than this and raises the grain a bit but considering I made it from nuts in backyard is pretty cool.

I marked the date on top of the can so I know how fresh it is. Ideally you would want to store the stain in the refrigerator so it doesn’t go bad, but I doubt I’ll do that. I’ll  keep it around and test it every week to see how long it lasts. Unfortunately, I have nothing to stain right now. Maybe I’ll make a bookcase out of oak in the next few weeks so I can at least use it before it goes bad.

Free Year of Digital Crafts Report

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop4 Comments

Free Year of Digital Crafts Report

Here’s a quick post for all the Artisans out there. Right now, The Crafts Report is offering a Free one year digital subscription of their magazine. I’ve gotten the Crafts Report in the past and it is a great resource on how to market your business. The offer ends in a few days so don’t delay. I subscribed last night and it appears to be no strings attached. Just click the box of one year digital subscription and hit enter. No credit card needed.

Holy cow, they added me to the testimonials feed!

Fixing a Childs Rocking Chair

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture4 Comments

My wife’s cousin’s husband (does that make him my cousin in-law?) has a childhood rocking chair he wanted me to fix. My wife Anita brought to me and asked me what I could do with it. I looked it over for a few minutes and noticed that it had old glue repairs and screws all over the place trying to hold everything together. It must mean a lot to him if he tried so hard to keep intact, so I decided that it I’ll give it my best to return this chair to its former glory.

The first thing I had to do is carefully disassemble the top of the rocker and save as many pieces as possible. The seat was a piece of MDF that I was going to use as a template for the new seat.

The crest rail was all beaten up so I had to cut a new piece out of poplar using the original as a template.

I then used the holes off the old crest rail as a pattern for the new crest rail and drilled the appropriate size holes.

Since I was using the seat as a template, transferring the holes to the new seat was easy. I simply stuck the auger bit in the hole at the appropriate angle and drilled through. I realize that in theory that this doesn’t exactly work because the angle in which I drilled the holes through the new seat won’t perfectly line up with the where the holes are in the original seat, but the difference was miniscule and not enough for me to be concerned with.

After the holes were drilled, I shaped the seat on the band saw and cleaned up the edges with rasps and files.

I needed to make new spindles underneath the arm stretchers as one of them looked like a dog chewed on it. Luckily I had a couple of short 5/8″ dowels that would work.

I needed to put a 1/2″ tenon on them to fit in the 1/2″ holes I drilled through the seat. I used my tenon cutter and brace to do the job cutting a tenon on both ends of both pieces.

The test fit looks pretty good. Now I needed to make 3/8″ dowels for the back spindles.

I didn’t have a 3/8″ dowels on hand but I do have my Stanley No 77 dowel machine with a 3/8″ cutter in it. I actually sold this tool on eBay earlier this year, but the guy I sold it to claimed it was damaged in shipping so he returned it. I took it as a sign that I should keep it.

I grabbed some maple and cut 7/16″ square stock on the table saw. I then took the stock and shoved it into the cutter while turning the handle which makes the cutter head spin cutting the square stock round.

In no time flat I get perfect 3/8″ dowels. I cut them to size and stuck them in the holes to act as the back spindles.

After some sanding and glue, the rocking chair is back in business. Now Anita will paint it and give it back to her cousin’s husband.

UPDATE 12/24/13

The rocking chair has been repainted just in time for Christmas. My wife Anita did a nice job painting it with chalk paint and distressing it a little bit. We’re on our way to my Anita’s cousin’s house to deliver it to her husband. I’m sure it will be well received.

Woodworking in America

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop4 Comments

I stopped by the Marketplace at The Woodworking in America show in Covington, KY today after work. Living in Cincinnati I’m spoiled that I get to waltz right in like it’s no big deal when the majority of people who attend have to make travel plans and hotel accommodations. I attended the first WIA a few years back in Berea, KY and had a blast listening to presenters like Roy Underhill, Brian Boggs and Frank Klaus. However, the money has been too tight for me to afford to attend any of the seminars since then.

I picked up a few things while I was there, nothing much. I mainly went there to buy the book “By Hand & Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin. I’ve read good things about it and knew Lost Art Press would have a booth so leaving with that was a no-brainer. I also picked up a couple of DVDs about using SketchUp. I’ve been wanting to learn how to use this design software for years but after fiddling around with it in the past, it never clicked. Hopefully the DVD’s will make a light bulb go off in my head.

I stopped by the Knew Concepts booth and looked at their fret saws again. I see them every year but they never bring any inventory to sell. They would give me a card and tell me to go on the website and use it for free shipping. Every year I took the card and just forgot about it. Well not this year. They finally brought saws to sell so I bought one.

I’ve wanted one of these saws for a few years now. They are much stronger and hold the blade much stiffer than an ordinary coping saw. I’ll use it mainly for cutting the waste out of dovetails as well as some fret work from time to time. The difference between a Knew Concepts saw and a coping saw is night and day. I may turn a new handle for it out of cocobolo to beautify it someday, but I’m in no rush for that.

With my Knew Concepts saw, my coping saw is perfectly happy in his new home.

All in all, the Woodworking in America is a good show that’s worth going to. It’s not like The Woodworking Show that travels around the country. It’s mainly focused on hand tool woodworking so you won’t find a lot of power tools or boxes of discount belt sander sanding belts. About three quarters of the vendors focus on hand tools which is fine by me.

I was disappointed not to see Welch chair maker Don Weber again this year. He hasn’t attended in a couple of years and I’m not sure if he will again. I took a blacksmithing class from him a few years ago at his shop in Paintlick, KY. He’s extremely knowledgeable about woodworking and a hell of a craftsman, as well as down right a nice guy. I did talk to a few young chair makers who were selling some sweet ass chair making tools. I wanted to buy a drawknife sharpener and adjustable calipers but my funds were already spent. I got their cards so maybe sometime down the road I’ll buy them off the internet.