From the Studio — wood

Today I'm sharing a legendary shop secret that I use at least a few times a week. I forget who and where I attained this golden tip, but I know it's used around the world. My hunch is that an inventive Mexican thought of this;)

Whenever there is a need to drill a certain depth you can either use the (guessing) force or go out an buy a drill press. Here's and ingeniously cheap solution that only requires a slice of tape.

Just planted the first of my new line of table designs at City Life in Brea, CA. It is a dining table made of 'sun tanned' poplar with steel lags that I decided to call the Ceasar.

It's named after my amigo who commissioned it first as a custom order last summer. He wanted something that looked and felt like, "the Last Supper if it was in Manhattan". I love design challenge riddles like that. So we carefully chose some...

This week I had the pleasure of cranking out another custom farm table for the über creative, Found Vintage Rentals. The wood was carefully selected from the dwindling stockpile of our pal Jim, the west coast's king of salvaged lumber. He has a 30 year collection of old growth wood from demolished houses. Now I get to turn it into sweet stuff like this...

I was asked to build some ramps for the R I D E exhibition at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, CA. The curator happened to be my cousin, the very talented and visionary Elle Seven. She had a very clear idea that this wouldn't be you're average cheese and wine art opening. She wanted some drama and excitement to go with the work, so why not let people 'ride' inside the gallery. Yes there were some obvious safety issues to consider, but danger always = fun right?

The following pics are technically 2 weeks worth of work. Lots of cool stuff for the forthcoming creative epicenter, "The Vault" in Orange, CA. I'm not the best at blogging and building at the same time, but getting better. Enjoy...

Employing the secret arts of 'bend' all over the place here.