CFDA Newsletter

Announcements:

July 14 - Intensive Furniture Schools: Dwayne Sperber will share his experiences at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine. Barry Gork will tell of his classes at the Marc Adams School, and Barry Newstat will talk about his involvement at Anderson Ranch.

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CFDA Meeting Report:

CFDA Minutes - Meeting June 9, 2009

In attendance: Jamie Stevens, Chris Brandel, Oswald Martin, Dan Diewald, John Kriegshauser, Chris Brandel, Jan Sopoci, Lloyd Natof, Nevin Peters

Business Meeting

The show at the Merchandise Mart's Neocon will open on Monday.

The Rising From Ashes Show will move, or at least a major portion of it will move, to the Design Within Reach showroom in Milwaukee. This is near the Harley Davidson Center where the Karla Little show will be going on, and the dates for both will be the same in early October.

Compensation for volunteers : The question of why the fees for the Karla Little show are so high is because the people who haul the show there, set it up and site the show will be receiving compensation. The compensation will be nominal, $75-100 per day, but the expense of funding these workers will make the cost higher for those who do not help with the tasks of putting on the show. There was general sympathy for this point of view as, in the past, the same few people did all the work while others just dropped off their pieces. Chris Brandel said that it was common for organizations to provide discounts for volunteer workers.

Chris Brandel hopes to set up an organizational template to make the creation of shows simpler and more efficient.

Tor Faegre: John Kriegshauser complained that he failed to get any information on Tor Faegre's condition from the Caring Bridge website, but Jan Sopoci said that he saw Tor recently walking about at some public gathering. No one had more recent information than that.

Hal Link's building, the East Bank Artist's building, is having a studio open house in connection with Chicago Artist's Month in mid-October. He said he would look into the possibility of having a CFDA space in the building during that weekend.

Lloyd said that Judith was working to arrange so that future dues and show fees would be paid by PayPal through the CFDA website.

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Program:
Built-In Cabinetry
Lloyd Natof presented his experiences with built-in cabinets followed by Dan Diewald and John Kriegshauser

The Business End of Built-ins: Everyone was unanimous that customers were willing to spend more money on built-ins than on free standing furniture, but they also agreed that the complexities of installation made these projects expensive to build and difficult to estimate. Lloyd solves this problem by charging for installation by the hour, but John and Dan agreed that their customers would insist on a quoted amount. Because of his policy Lloyd is not afraid to tackle projects that require complex, on site fitting, whereas John and Dan emphasize quick and simple methods. Lloyd tries to reign in the complexity of his installations by having boxes set aside during the construction of the cabinets into which he tosses small parts, fasteners and specialty tools he will later need on the jobsite insuring that these will not be overlooked. He also keeps in-progress notes to remind himself of insights he has had about installation methodology.

John showed images of a built-in desk and credenza unit that was a nightmare to install because the architect had allowed no flexibility for adapting the piece to the walls. The assumption by architects that the walls, ceilings and floors will be perfect is, unfortunately, quite common, and jobs that do not allow for adjustment to the irregularities of the building should be avoided.

Beginning measurements: All three agreed that they had never seen a building that was truly regular or square, so one has to begin with accurate measurements of the space, the hallways, the elevators and stairs, entry doors, etc. Each member of the panel had stories of pieces that had to be modified or brought in through windows because those pieces had not been constructed in modules small enough to be delivered to the intended space. Lloyd demonstrated a measuring instrument called a Messefix that he got from Haefele. It's a telescoping set of metal tubes with a dimensional readout at the end. With this tool he can accurately measure interior spaces without an assistant and without the inevitable inaccuracy of a sagging, flexing and twisting of a tape measure.

Leveling to the floor: Lloyd explained several methods, but he liked to begin with a base frame that he called a "ladder" because it had one or more cross members. These frames are typically made of 3/4 inch material and are as high as or higher than any base trim in the room. He shims this until it is level, secures it to the studs in the walls with screws and then glues blocks along the interior walls of the ladder that bear the weight if the shims are knocked out of place. To the face of the ladder Lloyd attaches any base trim which he scribes to the base trim in the room. He takes care though that his base trim rides a bit above the actual floor level creating a reveal. He feels strongly about the need for this gap to protect his base trim against water from mopping or spills. He avoids quarter round because it contradicts the aesthetics of his pieces.

Lloyd went on to show two home-made "load jacks", which each consist of a slender wood box spit lengthwise at a shallow angle, and which have a threaded rod down the middle. By turning a nut on the threaded rod these inclined places slide against one another, elevating cabinets that need to fit tight to the ceiling.

All agreed that cabinets should not be rested on carpet, and a further advantage of Lloyd's ladder base is that the ladder can fit within a cut out area of carpet while the base trim can cover any irregularity in the cut line. An alternative is to rest the cabinets on the adjustable plastic legs offered by Haefele or on the steel screw elevators available from other sources. These permit the cabinet to be elevated and leveled when in place. Using these leveling mounts the carpet needs to only be cut away in several, discrete locations in order for the levelers to reach the solid floor beneath.

Fitting to the walls and ceiling: Lloyd frequently uses the time honored technique of surrounding his cabinet with a projecting scribe strip, which he covers with blue painter's tape and marks with a fine Sharpie marker. He then cuts to the line with a jig saw, scoring the wood where necessary with a knife to suppress splintering of the finished surface. He also relies on a small "Rali" plane, which is abrand of block plane with indexed disposable blades, available fromHartville Tool Co, which can smooth gentle curves and plane the edges of MDF and particleboard. Lloyd is also a great fan of power planes though the mess they can leave on the job site is considerable. But an easier way endorsed by both John and Dan is to begin by securing a frame of finished material to the walls and ceiling, and then to have trim projecting from the cabinet that, when the cabinet is slid into place, lays over the wall mounted frame, giving the installation a seamless look.

Connecting to the walls can be a problem particularly in buildings with steel studs. Lloyd explained that he often cuts a hole in the drywall in an area that will later be covered by the cabinet in order to insert a stiffening block of wood into the open side of a steel stud in order to create a mounting point that will hold a screw.

Finishing: All agreed on the near impossibility of matching the finish of the new built-in to something already existing in the room. Lloyd likes to show the customer three appropriate samples that he's prepared in advance, and if the customer requests something different from these, he quotes an extraordinary price to discourage that option. Because it's always possible that there could be a dispute over whether the cabinet you have delivered matches your original sample, you should never leave your original sample with the customer. Later on, if the customer asks for that original sample in order to compare it to your cabinet, you can, if necessary, present them with a newly created sample that does match!

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