The Pueblo Deco Fiddle

Well, the news on the TV and web just seems to get worse and worse (Oklahoma, London, etc. etc.), which only seems to drive me more and more into the good old woodshop.

This week I made this strange take on the fiddle. Yes, a fiddle. Not a violin, not a dilruba, not even a regular fiddle, but a true original: a Pueblo Deco Fiddle. Boom. Copyright, yours truly.

 

Humble origins

Finished soundbox; it was a real pain because of the angles and 

my general lack of basic mathematical skills, but did it get done? 

You better believe it. 

Precision neck surgery

At this point I wasn't sure if it would be another cigar-box guitar but I quickly realized that the size of the bit of wood I was going to use for the neck (which I managed to liberate from a heap bound for the garbage trucks despite being run off by an old timer with a ZZ Top-style beard - a story unto itself) was too big for a guitar. Also, I had to insert that wedge you can see up there to level it off, and that would make it too thick for a man's hand to wrap around. A gorilla, perhaps, or an orangu-tang could play it guitar-fashion, but not a man.

 

More neck surgery

Recovery 

Adding a touch of class - inspired by this book I got at the library 

about the Pueblo Deco school of architectural design

The tuners were salvaged from an old guitar found under the bed and that's a cello bow I sometimes play on my regular, store-bought guitar. All that's left is to find some strings.

A tune is sure to follow soon.

Built & designed by James

Bird Feeder Pagoda

I've made over two dozen birdhouses in the old woodshop, but it has occurred to me recently that shelter alone does not for a bird's every need meet. Food, is what I'm trying to say. Seed, if you please.

So I built this eight-sided pagoda as a sort of mobile aviary soup kitchen. Being of an octagonal design (much like the cage mixed martial artists use to pound the motherloving spit out of each other) this bird feeder has the potential to feed up to eight birds at once. Note the small perches at each opening. Note the roof, the eaves of which hang slightly past the perches, thus providing shelter from the wind, sun, or rain while the bird dines.

I haven't filled it with bird seed yet, however, as I have it on good authority that the neighborhood squirrels are quite wily at pilfering food meant for birds.

But I have a plan: mount the thing atop a length of slippery PVC pipe and drive it into some ground away from the trees. If that doesn't get the best of the squirrels, then I have a Plan B: it involves a Red Ryder BB Gun, a seat on the porch with a clear eye-line of the bird feeder, and a surfeit of patience.




Built & designed by James

"Rusty Wire" - A Small Tune Played On My Homemade Guitar Box

Rusty Wire from James Holland on Vimeo.

The Freebird Cigar Box Guitar

Let's get this out of the way right now: I built this sucker soup-to-nuts - except the strings, that is; they have weird laws against hunting cats and making cat-gut string in the US, so I didn't make the strings; I bought those at the local music shop and they're nylon - and it sounds...pretty good. For a handmade guitar made in a shed.

But everything else you see, I drilled, sawed, nailed, sanded, chiseled, and pretty much went America all over it.

How does it feel to build your own backyard guitar (or "cigar box guitar", as it's colloquially known) with your own bare hands? Well, let's just say it's sort of like being an American bald eagle punching a commie brown bear in the throat mixed with the feeling dear little Mary Lou Retton must've felt when she stuck that landing off the vault on her bum foot...but in a manly way.

Here's the progression of this beauty as it went from scrap wood to guitar glory:

The body of the guitar, with that support bit at the left end

 Fretboard and soundhole added!

Dig that crazy finish - it looks like the hood of the coolest 

Trans-Am never made - also, the frets (metal wire chopped with chisels)

are being glued into place on the fretboard

Letting it cure in the sun; absolutely mouth-watering

All strung up and ready to play!

This was probably the funnest thing I've ever built and also the most challenging. I might have to modify the tuning pegs because right now, in order to tune the son of a gun, requires a pair of pliers and a hammer. But like I said, it DOES carry a tune.

I'll post a song soon.

Built & designed by James

Pencils and a Case For Them

I'm a writer of the old school breed; that is, all first drafts are always scribbled longhand with a pencil in a trusty Mead notebook. Over the years, I have used many different brands of pencils: from your standard #2 Sanford with the pink, useless eraser to the stubby yellow pencils they put out at my local library that often end up in my pocket.

But there is one pencil I have discovered that has made me man of extreme pencil prejudice. For I now refuse to use any pencil other than the Dixon Tri-Conderoga. How it is that any other pencil manufacturer has managed to stay in business after Dixon introduced the Tri-Conderoga speaks as much to my ignorance of business as the utter superiority of this particular pencil.

Allow me to list a small fraction of its many accomplished attributes:

- It is triangular rather than hexagonal; as such, it fits in the hand like God Himself designed it.
- It is coated in a soft black miracle paint that discourages the growth of unsightly callouses.
- The eraser functions better than all other erasers who make it their sole business to be erasers.
- The graphite is neither too soft nor too hard.

I could go on, but one must truly experience the epiphany of crafting a sentence with the Dixon Tri-Conderoga for oneself to know the pure bliss I speak of.

And so, I reasoned, such an accomplished instrument of communication deserves a better storage place than an old coffee cup or, heaven forefend, the back of a desk drawer. So I built a pencil case.

And yes, I'm fully aware how bizarre it is for a grown man to put this much time, effort, and thought into pencils.




Built & designed by James.

Art Deco Birdhouse No. 3

I've been accused in some circles of being an elitist builder of birdhouses; that I cater to the wealthy, to the class of bird that could feather their nests without plucking a downy strand from their own wing. But nothing, I say, could be further from the truth. As I have emphatically stated time and time again, I spend absolutely no money on my birdhouses. All materials (except, admittedly, for the occasional jar of $0.50 paint from the Home Depot bargain bin) are salvaged by me from sidewalks, alleys, dumpsters, and the free section in CraigsList.

I believe great design belongs to the masses. And I believe that it is within the grasp of the masses. Here's an itemized list of the materials that went into the building of the above birdhouse:
1. Wood - $0.00 (found on the curb not far from the woodshop)
2. Stain - $0.00 (found in the trash bin of an undisclosed hardware store)
3. Nails - $0.00 (procured at a CraigsList "Everything Must Go Today" Free Bonanza)
4. Labor - Please, I build birdhouses for the love and noble service it provides to my feathery friends; I require no pay.

There, now who dares accuse me of being elitist? Why, if we lived in a more civilized time, I'd challenge all comers to a duel to the death; or at the very least, three rounds of bare-knuckled fisticuffs, Marquess of Queensberry rules.

A Birdhouse For All Seasons

Spring is upon us, blustery winter is but a memory, and a seasonal birdhouse, I thought, was in order. Giving my fondness for right angle geometry, I designed this little birdhouse and used the most colorful wood stains in the shop to bring it to life. In a fit of goodwill, I even used the knots in the two natural pieces of wood as decoration.

No hole was drilled to allow birds to enter; rather a gap was left open in the upper left corner. Birds are smart creatures. I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough.



Built & designed by James

My Whale Kick

I've been reading Moby Dick lately, and while it's a tremendous novel - full of insight about man's unquenchable longing and the nature of obsession - it is also the single most terrifying book I have ever read. You see, among the myriad other conditions I suffer from, I also contend with thalassophobia; that is, a fear of the ocean. Moby Dick, in case you haven't read it, details the adventures of a whaling ship, the Pequod, doing battle with the mightiest leviathans of the sea. The novel is in turns graphic, horrifying in its honest appraisal of what drives men to the brink of obsessive madness, and completely unflinching when it comes to the gruesome business of harvesting oil from freshly massacred sperm whales.

It probably doesn't help that I read the novel prior to going to bed. In an attempt to exorcise these oceanic nightmares, I have turned to woodworking, as is my wont.

 

I carved this Sperm whale in an attempt to own my fears and confront the terrifying beast head-on. It hasn't worked. Nightmares of the stranded ocean and its myriad slimy, deadly denizens continue to haunt me. My next attempt at ridding myself of these dreams consisted of building a small keepsake box with a Right whale on the lid.

The second whale harpooned by the Pequod is a Right whale and I thought by carving both he and the Sperm whale would in some degree free me from my watery nightmares. But it has not. My mind continually returns to that moment when, in an attempt to conquer my fear of the ocean, I went snorkeling around some reefs in Cuba. All was going well - shoals of beautiful tropical fish were flitting past, emerald coral rose like Atlantian architecture - when suddenly, I turned my body to head back to the diving platform and came face to face with a two foot long barracuda. His mouth was open and I had a full view of his rows of sharp, terrible teeth. How I didn't defecate my swimming trunks is a miracle unto itself. Without so much as a backwards glance, and losing a battle to control my nerves, I made a beeline for the ladder.

And so ended my forays into the sea.

Built & designed by James

The Nautical End Table

After cruising my regular downtown scavenging grounds, I lighted upon a heap destined for the municipal garbage trucks. To the myopic, this heap would have appeared as nothing but a pile of garbage. However, to mine own eyes, this street side heap elicited my trademark rallying cry: "Abbondanza!" In a matter of seconds, my trusty 1999 Volvo S70 was swung onto the curb.

For there, sitting apart from the plastic bags full of tangled wire hangers and a particle board dresser half gone to warped sawdust, was the frame of an end table. Upon closer inspection, it was determined to be made of solid wood and not in the least wobbly. Behold:

Nothing fancy, and no, it did not have the actual table part, per se. But did it contain promise? You betcha. Did it stand tall and proud? You better believe it. Did it exude endless possibilities and a certain joie de vivre that would make even the most enlightened human blush? Indeed it did, and in spades!

My task: to bring out its beauty. Step the first: primer. Two coats, if you please. Followed by some cream paint.

Next, came the small matter of giving this table a tabletop.

This board you see on top (which I had salvaged some months ago - it's important, if you have the luxury of space, to stockpile all the good wood you come across; you never know when you will have the perfect application for it) was the right length but it was wanting in the width department.

I found some extra boards, cut them to length, used some blue wood stain on the two inner boards, clamped and glued them up.

Next, I took my larger board (the one that lacked the necessary width) and clamped and glued the two extensions to it.

After letting it dry overnight, I was all set to finish the table. I laid a bead of glue around the table frame, gently maneuvered my new tabletop to a proportioned spot atop it, tapped down gently with my 8oz. hobby hammer, clamped it to the frame, and sat back.

The finished, dry table:

This is probably my favorite table so far. I just rubbed in a nice coat of tung oil followed by a slathering of hardy polyurethane, so this sturdy little table will be with me for many moons to come.


I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce the newest member of the Holland Wood Shop, Miss Jazz Spaceport:

She was brought on for security reasons, much like Patrick Swayze in the classic picture Roadhouse. The shop was getting too rowdy: fights every night, drug peddlers running rampant, prostitution, pimps, gambling, organized crime...you name it. I needed to clean the riffraff out. But I knew I couldn't do it alone. 

That's where Miss Jazz Spaceport comes in. I had heard she was the best cooler in the business, able to neutralize any disturbance quickly, efficiently, and with a minimum of property damage. She showed up driving a 1986 Mercedes coupe and quickly set to work. Needless to say, she cleaned up the shop in no time and peace once again prevails!

Yes, she may look like the cutest little puppy dog you've ever seen, but that's merely a front. Like Swayze in Roadhouse, she spends her morning drinking black coffee and practicing T'ai chi ch'uan. She's more a philosopher-warrior than a cooler, really, like the ancient Buddhist monks who meditated before picking up their samurai swords to do battle with the ninjas of olden times.

Built & designed by James

Wordworker's Manifesto Part 4: The Mars Colonists

When folks hear you have a wood shop, three assumptions are immediately made: 1) That you're socially conservative, 2) You have a closet full of denim work shirts, and 3) You're a gun aficionado.
Now, speaking for me - and only for me - I can assure you that I am a man of peace. You might go so far as to say that I walk the path of the righteous. The Golden Rule is my moral compass and I follow it like a happy dog follows its owners.
Which brings me to the year 2013 and our continued prejudice against minorities. Folks, this is the year 20-motherlovin'-13 we're talking about here, and yet we're still denying gay folks their very basic human rights? If you asked a twelve year old me, circa 1994, what major social debates we as a society would be grappling with in this year of 2013, I would have ventured a guess that we're not sure if the Mars colonists should have equal voting power in the World Federation Congress as our Moon colonies. It would never have occurred to me that we're still not sure if a gay dude should be able to join the Boy Scouts, or a couple of lesbian gals can get married in a court of the land. As the great TV character Frank Reynolds once said, "Who cares if the gays wanna get married and be miserable like the rest of us? No skin off my nose!" My sentiments exactly.
It's time we get with the times, folks. I'm not the smartest person in the world - heck, probably not the smartest person on my block - but I've watched enough History Channel to know that institutionalized discrimination never succeeds, always harms, and leaves deep scars that take generations to heal, if at all.
Anyway, here's a birdhouse I recently built using reclaimed lumber. For those of you chafing under society's glacial progression and acceptance of truth and basic decency, I hope it takes your mind off it for a second or two, because that's all I have to offer.

Built, designed, & socially conscious ramblings by James.

Abstract Expressionist Birdhouse

When birdhouses are recognized by history to be the next step in art's continuous metamorphosis - from Rafael to Goya, Picasso to de Kooning - let it be noted that here and now, in the year 2013, it was the Holland Wood Shop that first proclaimed the birdhouse to be the new medium of 21st Century art: the canvas from which all further major visual developments will spring.

Laugh now, ye heathens; I, on the other hand, shall be laughing with history as the genius of my birdhouses echoes down the very corridors of time and space. Your children will study my art in grammar school and smack their rosy cheeks in wonderment. "Mapa, papa," they'll call, tugging your coat sleeves. "That birdhouse of the Holland Work Shop speaks to the angels above and derides the devils below, all through the beauty of art. Of art, I say!"

Yes, I'm sure history will be kind to my immense skill and God-given gift of building birdhouses. Trouble yourself not with pressing donations or sponsorships on me. Leonardo may have needed his Florentine sponsorships, but as for me, well...my succor comes from the knowledge of making totally bitchin' birdhouses. Mazeltov!



Built & designed by James

Eine Sprocket Birdhäuschen

I'll level with you: any formal knowledge I may have of sprockets is limited to the childhood observation that George Jetson worked at the Spacely Sprocket factory in the classic cartoon show The Jetsons. I didn't know what a sprocket was back then, and I'm only guessing that a sprocket is a metal ring with teeth, such as the one affixed to this latest birdhouse. Why guess? Because I'm American. And Americans like me just make stuff up as we go along. It's a great way to go through life; very liberating.

I suppose I could dial up some Google Images of "sprockets", but where's the mystery in that? Also, there was that old SNL sketch that Mike Meyers did called Sprockets. If memory serves, it was a talk-show hosted by a German character named Dieter who owned a pet monkey. Funny, funny stuff!

Designed & built by James

Fleur-de-lis Birdhouse

Built as a subtle homage to the late, great Stanley Kubrick's last picture, Eyes Wide Shut, this little birdhouse is dark, a tad mysterious, more than a little seductive, and features a fleur-de-lis. This being a family-oriented article, we'll say no more about Eyes Wide Shut other than that it really is a fantastic picture and only got dogged, we think, when it first was released due to the tabloid-baiting pairing of real-life cuckoo husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman playing fictional cuckoo husband and wife in the picture.

So if you're a fan of the movies, and especially if you're a fan of Kubrick, and never thought much of this picture, do yourself a favor and give it another watch. It affords study and is quite rich and rewarding. Almost as rewarding as, say, building a birdhouse. But not quite.

As we write this, we're listening to a CD we found in a dumpster this morning entitled, Life In Balance: Star. It's got an ambient, world-techno groove that is especially heavy on the two Eastern flutes known as the shakuhachi and the bansuri. Consequently, we presently feel like honored shoguns resting after a long and tiresome battle. It's a good feeling.

And if you're wondering how it was we came upon a CD in a dumpster, you should know that everything in the pictures above - the material comprising the birdhouse (even the little brass fleur-de-lis) as well as the gilded table it's sitting upon - was found in or around a dumpster. Just another day in the life for us here at the Holland Wood Shop, where we fight daily our sad, throwaway culture to rescue dusty treasures.

In the words of the RZA: "A lot of us need to think like 

a warrior in our lives, even when we're at peace."

Built and designed by James

Shaker Furniture: The Shelf

So I got this book at the library that has been rocking my world: How To Build Shaker Furniture by Thos. Moser.

I know, the title alone gets you giddy with excitement, am I right? And check out the author's first name: Thos.! I've never seen such a first name like that.

Anyway, here's my first attempt at woodworking in the Shaker tradition:

It's only a humble shelf, but there's a long and storied tradition behind the Shaker method of furniture building, and I wanted to start with something simple; ie) something I couldn't screw up too badly.

But you have to admit, it doesn't look half bad. And the shelves are level, too, which is a nice feature to have in a shelving unit.




Designed by Thos. Moser & built by James

Birdhouse Barrio

In an effort to ease overcrowding in the avian inner-city, I have recently embarked on a program entitled Bird Abodes for Indigent Avians (or BAIA). Our main goal here are BAIA is to provide safe, secure, and, above all, affordable housing for low-income birds with families to care for.

Hence: this mini-birdhouse complex. It's roomy enough to fit five birds and their brood comfortably, yet offers that cozy sense of community so vital for an avian community to flourish.

Amenities include plenty of open air for young birds to frolic and an abundance of earthworms and other small critters to provide nourishment.

Now, for you urban planners out there, I know what you're thinking: this project smacks more than a little bit of government subsidized housing; subsidized housing that, in the long run, almost always ends in crime, corruption, and failure. The Pruitt Igoe urban housing project in St. Louis in particular casts a long shadow in this regard.

Allow me to remind you, however, that these are birds we are talking about. And birds can fly. They have freedom us terrestrial residents do not. If they find this Birdhouse Barrio stifling, well, they only have to hoist their wings and find a more suitable home. Such is their God-given gift.




Built & designed by James

A Mallard Duck Bird House

I found about a dozen sheets of this nice paneling on the curb a little while back. As you can see, the paneling (which I imagine once covered the walls of a fisherman's den) features woodsy little scenes that harken back to the ill-informed interior design schemes of the 70s & 80s.

However, the panels are perfect for adding a bit of visual vitality to an otherwise run-of-the-mill bird house.

Side view; the red-painted wood was found in the same pile, I think, as the paneling.

Did I mention I scored about a dozen sheets of this stuff? Expect it to pop up whenever a touch of glamor is needed in an HWS project.

Built & designed by James