Doki Designs

Little kitchen cafe table is done! Redwood slab with sapele legs and rosewood collars around the wedged through tenons. Simple oil/wax finish.

Took old saddle racks off the wall and made a saddle cleaning stand out of some of the parts today.

Been a while! Working on the wedges for the through mortises on the little cafe size table for the kitchen. Redwood slab, sapele legs, maple wedges, cherry and mahogany bow ties.

The wine stave chair is done! Legs, armrests and back are French oak burgundy wine barrel staves. Seat is sapele. Finish is modified maloof.

The wine stave chair…started carving the Maloof inspired seat yesterday. Most of the bulk has been hogged out, now to get the drawknives and scorps out…

Final layer of finish curing. Of course I mixed up a batch of maloof and rubbed, wet sanded it in. Because it’s for a dog…but still. ;)

Things happen when the older rat terrier can’t all the time leap up on the bed and I happen to have a few pieces of guanacaste lying about…

We have a leg to stand on! East Indian rosewood, shaped with spoke shave and card scrapers. I have a design for a humidor cabinet in my head that has a subtle Japanese influence. This will be one of the legs for the base. Deciding whether to keep with a rosewood for the humidor or possibly go with macassar ebony. Obviously the internals of the humidor will be Spanish cedar. This is what happens when we have afternoon storms…

Prototype barn chair is done! The critical test is passed:the coffee stays balanced.

So this is what happens when I need more seating in the barn for Friday evening world problem solving sessions. Had some scrap left over (walnut, cherry, mahogany, tiger maple)so I built a mock up of what I had in my head. It's ridiculously comfortable, but I think it's a little low to the ground (good fire pit chair or beach chair) so I will retool the design and see what happens. Bonus is that it folds up and is easy to tuck out of the way. Used 550 cord on the top of the back and front of the seat, 350 woven rope for the seat parts. Needed something to fiddle with while the finish on the coffee table is curing.

Ready for the final layer of finish and then I leave it alone for 2 weeks to cure before hand polishing. Then there are a few commissions I need to get to before starting on the massive walnut slab dining tables. In the meantime I will also be building a solar kiln so that I can dry my own slabs in the future. I have 4 (relative to the normally found size) huge Bradford pear slabs that need kilned.

Tuning the fit of the top to the base before permanently joining the supports to the base. Very happy with how it found its home position easily and how well the drawbore holes lined up. The figure in this walnut is absolutely stunning, both in the top and in the sequential filtch mini slabs used for the base.

After many hours, I do believe I am satisfied with the mirror-like shine of the epoxy river. Wet sanded through 12000 grit. It is not wet in the photo and there is no finish on it...that is elbow grease! And if you think the top is nice...you should see the base! It is still raw, but amazing. I will tune that once my persnickety self is happy with the top.

The coffee table is in the finishing stages! I’m currently wet sanding and polishing the river and put the first layer of hand rubbed finish on the wood to protect it from the polishing process. After the top is in the curing stage, I will be fine tuning the base and then finishing it, then it will be offered for sale on the website I need to finish and get up and running. The fire and chatoyancy in the figure is amazing!

Cabinet for feed room is done! Cherry doors and framing, cherry and walnut with mahogany drawers, maloof finish. This, of course, makes me really think I need to do something about the osb walls... I really am a character in “If you give a mouse a cookie “...

Commissioned broken heart keepsake box complete. Finished to 1000 grit and wet sanded with maloof finish it has a glass like feel and has stunning figure and movement to the grain. As I understand, it is to be a gift for a mother who tragically lost her son. I hope that it will be a small way to hold some precious memories. Her friend who commissioned it asked for the vertical grain in front as a suggestion of falling tears.

Things happen when I find a $20 slab of marble on FB marketplace. Progress report on cabinet for feed room: cherry frame, doors, top drawers; walnut and mahogany bottom drawers left over from another project.

So, to update: the recent post of the finished broken heart keepsake box...that is this in its final form. So the time from this post to that one is about half the time it took to make. And I love doing this/these/designing original furniture pieces but am also glad it’s not how I make my living.

PSA: For all those wondering why bespoke furniture, custom pieces, etc are so pricey when the “same thing” can be found on Etsy/Amazon/(ack)wayfare for much less: it’s not just cut and (gasp) screw wood together. First one has to source the materials and the exotics tend to be dense, heavy, and expensive. Add to that the waste factor: if you care to make the piece to have movement or flow to the grain/figure, you are going to be using parts of the lumber selectively, not just as hoc length and width and thickness as needed. Then there are the other materials: for this commissioned piece (which is a broken heart box for the customer’s friend whose son died, so the figure will be arranged to resemble falling tears), the customer requested padauk which is a naturally oily exotic. That means that your standard glues/epoxies won’t work; one needs specific ones engineered for oily exotics (which have a price tag). Then there is the time factor: that adhesive takes 15-60 hours to cure depending on temperature and humidity. Other things to consider: is a piece of furniture crafted with joinery work, or is it glued and screwed together? Joinery will hold up longer, should accommodate wood movement (wood is alive and will expand and contract with humility and temperature changes...if this is disallowed, there will be failures). How about the finish? Polyurethane slathered, or hand finished with multiple thin coats of oil or water based finish...each layer of which needs to cure and be polished before the next is applied? Think of all that time and the skills that had to be acquired. A custom piece made by a craftsperson will be an heirloom piece, not something that ends up on the curb in 5 years. I’ve got two massive walnut slabs in my living room that will be dining tables. They’ve been there over a year. Each one is 2+” thick, at least 108” long and at least 36” wide. They need to be fully acclimated before they can be worked on, so that when they go to their eventual homes, I know I haven’t cut a single corner or rushed the process...it took each of the trees they came from over 100 years to get to the point where I met them...

Router cabinet is done (now to build the fence). Just noticed that I hadn’t pushed the second drawer all the way in... The door is held shut with magnets (clamped while epoxy sets). Maloof finish. This is how I build a piece of shop equipment...if I have to look at it every day, it’s going to be functional and look like a piece of furniture.

So I decided I needed a router table. Then I thought:why a table when I could build a cabinet with drawers for bits and wrenches, and a few larger drawers for the palm router and whatnot. The face frame will be hard maple and the drawer fronts will be cherry. Photo of three of the drawers in finish. This will definitely make things easier/safer than trying to hand rout narrow pieces.

The glass lites are in and am just sourcing the trolleys that can handle the thickness of the door. Then it will be done done. And then I will start on the second door...
Vorovka wanted in the photo since she feels she was instrumental in construction.

Using up my scrap and making storage for woodworking finishes/glues. Bonus:chalkboard on front, dry erase on inside for feed chart/notes.

Puzzle table for my sister is done! Cherry with mahogany dowel/supports, green suede flocking on the puzzle surface (her favorite color), piano hinge to prevent torquing, and the removable cover is chalkboard on one side and dry erase on the other. OsmoX finish. Now to ship it...

The leather seat is done on the Morris chair! Will post full details when the back cushion is done. Mark did the stitch work, so it may have to wait until spring break

Commissioned broken heart dog memorial box: purpleheart with ribbon of quilted maple supported by a quilted maple dog bone. The front has two broken heart drawers for tags and other small keepsakes, the back compartment is sized to hold the ashes. Hand finished to 1000 grit with Maloof finish.

Things I do when I have one less training horse to ride in a day...
1. Build cabinets for the feed room to replace the crooked shelves that came with the barn. This took a few days total because horses come first and a woman never has enough clamps to handle a big glue up. The face frame jenga glue up was interesting (involving 20 # dumbbells 🙄)
2. Use scrap from various projects to make a stand/drawer for the keurig/k cups in same feed room.
3. Make a handle for an ulu knife from red mallee burl.

Chafing buffet made from knotty alder with figured walnut top, walnut and mahogany accents. Wedged through tenons in the shelves. Wrought iron hinges. Stands 32" high, top is 16x20", Osmo finish. This was a piece I designed as I went based on cut offs and various scrap I had lying about and the wedged tenons were a learning curve, so this is a piece that I will keep as it is not perfect (or as close to perfect as would justify selling). I do like the design though and will make it a custom order piece.

Anti-complacency warning: do not trust that the replacement part you ordered that claims it's to OEM standards actually is - I needed a replacement 1/2" collet for the router. Original one got ruined getting a bottomed out bit out of it. So, new one came about 2 months ago and I just needed it with the 3/4" diameter 2" cutting head pattern bit. Chucked it up, turned it on. Holy guacamole!!! Terminal wobble...at highest speed setting and in the plunge base set all the way down to pattern route. That is an awful lot of mass out of control. It shattered the base on the router, and wrecked one of the plunge arms. There is a 3" piece of the plastic base impaled in the shop wall... Fortunately I was able to hit the kill switch on the power strip the router was plugged into. First thought: did I not tighten enough? Nope. It was tight. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the collet sleeve was slightly off center so I am assuming a small burr in the retaining channel. Even if I were wearing my glasses when I chucked it, I likely wouldn't have noticed. I will now notice. This might have been the start of the new horror movie: the North Carolina Router Massacre! In holding pattern for new collet. And new pants. :)

Chafing buffet: knotty alder with walnut and mahogany accent. Solid walnut top. Iron hinges and latch. Wedged tenon joinery on shelves. Better photos to follow, finish is still curing.

The new original design. Free standing, room for a name plate on the base. Solid padauk. Sold!