OAK FURNITURE & ASH BASKETS FOR SALE

I have some baskets & a few pieces of oak furniture for sale.

The furniture is all joined & carved by hand. Almost all the oak was split from a log, hewn & planed, etc. (except for the box lid and chair seat – those are quartersawn stock) Construction details are throughout the blog here, in my videos w Lie-Nielsen and books with Lost Art Press.

The carved box I can pack & ship. The larger pieces I will have to take somewhere (UPS probably) to be packed & shipped. Or I can deliver them within a couple hours’ drive of Kingston MA. (or you can come pick them up if you wear a mask…)

The baskets are all ash, with hickory rims & handles. There’s videos on the blog recently, showing all the steps in making baskets, from pounding the log apart, weaving, (and next up for the videos) shaving and bending handles & rims.

If you’d like to purchase anything, leave a comment here or send an email peterfollansbee7@gmail.com  you can pay through paypal (with additional fees) or send a check. Just let me know which you prefer.

The carved box is the only one ready for sale right now, but I have two more underway, and will take orders for boxes anytime. They’re something I keep stock for all the time, so there’s never too long a wait for one. Email me if you’d like to order something.

Thanks as always,
PF

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CARVED OAK BOX –

white & red oak, white pine bottom.
H: 8 1/2″ W: 23 3/8″  D: 13″
$1,050 includes shipping in US.

This pattern is often found on 17th-century work – a surprising amount of detail in small spaces. (the bottom photo shows the detail well…)
Glued & pegged at the corners, bottom nailed on w handmade nails. Handmade hinges as well. A lidded till inside.

 

 

 

JOINED & CARVED CHEST
red oak & white pine. Handmade hinges & nails. Lidded till inside.
H: 30 1/2″   W: 45″  D: 21 1/4″
$4,000 plus shipping.

I was recently trying to estimate how many joined chests I’ve made. It’s well over 60. This is one of my favorites – the wide front panels separated by an extra-wide muntin is an unusual format. I based mine on a Devon chest I saw 20 years ago, and have seen others presumably by the same maker since then in photographs. Back when I was writing my book, I wanted to include a short detour on making the “brackets” that fit under the bottom rail. So I made this chest just to get the photos for the book! Then it sat around unfinished for years. Now it’s done, and there’s no room in the house for it. Room for your (or someone’s) initials or date on the muntin…

Here it is with junk piled on it:

I cleared out some room in the shop today to take “proper” photographs (as proper as I’m going to get…) – but there’s only room for the 53″ wide paper, and the chest is 45″ wide. Technically, it fits on the paper, but not for a photo…so here is what I call a “half-view” –

 

The lidded till inside, and the handmade hinges visible in the rear rail.

The only way it fit, but you can’t see the front. Two-panel ends, typical of my chests. Single-board white pine lid.

One of the panels in this chest:

WAINSCOT CHAIR

red and white oak. Finial is ash.
H: 47 1/2″ W: (widest point across front of seat) 25 1/2″  D: c. 24″  Seat height: 18 1/2″
$4,000 plus shipping

I’ve made versions of this chair three times before. This one I designed the panel as well as the top rear rail, just below the crest. Otherwise, it’s a close copy to two originals made in Ipswich Massachusetts, probably by Thomas Dennis, between the late 1660s and 1700.

Sometimes it seems from photos that these chairs are huge, there’s a shot in this gallery of me in the chair & you’ll get a sense of its actual size.

 

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BASKETS – All of these are ash splints, with hickory handles and rims. Most, maybe all, have hickory bark lashing around the rims. These baskets are made for use; I’ve been using baskets like these around the shop and house for over 30 years.

If you’d like to purchase one, leave a comment here. Prices include shipping in the US – you can pay through paypal or send a check. Just let me know which you prefer.

 

large round basket –
14″ diameter at rims, basket height 9″ to handle 18″
$600 including shipping in US.

 

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rectangular basket  – SOLD
10″ x 13″ at rims; basket height is 8″, to handle about 15″
$400 including shipping in US.

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Swing-handle round basket  –  SOLD
12 1/2″ – 13″ diameter at rims; basket height 8 3/4″, overall 16″ high.
$500 including shipping in US.

This form is a favorite of mine, based on baskets made in eastern New York state in the early 20th century.

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long rectangular basket   SOLD
10″ x 16 1/2″ at rims, basket height 6″, to handle 14″
$400 including shipping in US.

 

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square-to-round basket   SOLD
10″ diameter at rims, basket height 9″, to handle 17″
$350 including shipping in US.

next basket-making video

This one took some effort. It had been a while since I looked at the video footage I had of the next step in basket-making. And there were some holes in the sequence. So this one might be a bit choppy, maybe too long in some places and too short in others, but such as it is, here’s the last steps in weaving the basket.

That means next time it’s handles & rims…

 

 

wainscot chair terminus/termes

a lot of photographs today. I got some nice quartersawn oak (thanks Rick D) – and have been using it for box lids and now the seat to my wainscot chair that’s been hanging around waiting to get finished.

I didn’t shoot the whole sequence of test-fitting the seat over those front stiles. A lot of wriggling around to get it just right…then you peg it to the side and front rails.

Then the arms can go back on, and get pegged to the rear & front stiles. Above you can see why the arms go on after the seat, you couldn’t peg the seat down if the arms were in place.

After the arms are pinned, it’s time to carve & install these figures that adorn the edges of the rear stiles. All I know about the two originals these are based on is that there are two or three large nails fixing these things in place. Whether there’s anything more than that is conjecture. But I’ll show you what I did.

This is one case where I use a template to outline the pattern.

Then I use a V-tool to cut just outside this outline, I find this helps when sawing the shape out.

A turning saw, used carefully, does a good job of roughing out the scrolls and other bits.

Then I clean up with a large #5 carving gouge. Often with the bevel up.

Carving some of the details.

Installing it – I add some belt-and-suspenders action. I use pegs between the stile and this appliled ornament. To locate them, I drove two small wire brads into the applied bit, then snipped off their heads.

Then blammed it in place and the brads made prick marks where I then want to bore holes. I pulled the brads and bored 3/8″ holes in the applied bit and the stiles.

then shaved a couple of small pins, and glued the whole thing & knocked it in place. Then clamped it and came in for lunch. Later I’ll add a couple of toe-nailed wrought nails.

I’ve heard many names for these figures. We often refer to them as “Easter Island” figures, which is of course nonsense. I learned of Atlantes/Atlas, carytids, and probably other names too. Jennie Alexander gave me a copy of Cyril Harris’ Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture many years ago. Told me to keep it in the bathroom. I did for a while. But now it’s in the shop. There, I looked up “termes” – what I knew as another name for these figures. Harris has “terminus” – “the upper part of a human body springing out of a plain block…pilaster, console, bracket OR THE LIKE”!

 

Basket-making video posted

It’s high summer here now, but back when I shot this video of basket-making, it was still cool enough for long-sleeve shirts, etc.
Daniel has just finished editing the next installment, weaving a rectangular basket, part 1. There’ll be more of these, I’m finishing up handles and rims these days, between other stuff.

Baskets for sale coming up as well…

back at it

I got back to some bench work the other day. Began fitting bottoms to three boxes that have been waiting around…

Sharpened the planes, thicknessed some white pine (above) and trimmed it to size. Jointing the edge here, prior to planing the bevels where the bottom will overhang the box’s sides & front.

Here’s the bevels, and pilot holes for the nails that will secure the bottom in place.

This small, 4-square reamer is one of my favorite tools. Here I used it to open up those pilot holes from below, to match the tapered shanks of the hand-made nails.

Nailing the bottom on – two in each side. Sometimes I add a 3rd in the front edge. Depends on how nail-rich I feel.

This one gets iron hinges too. Here’s the holdfast pinning the box down to the bench so I can bore and install the hinges.

A detail of hammering the gimmal/snipe-bill hinges in. That same reamer opened up this pilot hole as well.

Bent on the inside, about to be clinched.

Lids for these boxes before too long. Here’s a snapshot of the three underway…that desk box goes all the way back to my book Joiner’s Work. I needed a few photos for that book, and had to make this box to get the shots. It’s been waiting to get finished since then, maybe 3 years?

All the details about making boxes like this are in my book Joiner’s Work and a DVD I did with Lie-Nielsen – and scattered throughout this blog over the years too. If you need to know more, here’s links and don’t forget the search button in the sidebar –

Joiner's Work

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/carved-oak-boxes-with-peter-follansbee?path=home-education-videos&node=4243

Then yesterday I took some time to go birding with Marie Pelletier & Paula Marcoux – lousy light for photos, but a nice day down at the beach. Saw piping plovers (Charadrius melodus), including 3 chicks. Here’s one of those chicks. Paula’s been one of the monitors for this beach, these chicks are now just shy of 3 weeks old.

There’s maybe 3 pairs of killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) nesting there too. Here’s one of them.

On our way out, we saw a black & white warbler (Mniotilta varia) feeding a chick – deep in the bushes it was hard to get enough light for a shot. This is the juvenile.

 

Speaking of  Paula – she’s done a couple videos recently, one about making chive pancakes and the other about brown bread – see them here – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbDDMEyH2wQ57gpgS1gDv8Q