RX Workshops

I signed up to teach some of the ReBuilding Exchange's Make It-Take It workshops this spring.  Each Sunday for a few months, I taught two three-hour classes on how to make a simple home project -- a wine rack, a laptop/bed-in-breakfast tray, a bench, an end table, a kitchen blackboard, and a crash course in bandsaw taxidermy, creating a wooden facsimile of a mounted deer head.  Promoted through Groupon, we got a healthy turnout throughout, though we lost some folks to the wiles of good weather and playoff hockey.  


All the projects are crafted out of lumber from the vast RX warehouse.  For the wine rack, I wanted to go as simple as possible while retaining a healthy dose of visual theatrics.  Given the beauty of our source material, we didn't need to go too crazy -- the old-growth pine and fir speaks for itself, dense, rich, and finely-figured.  I settled on a slanted L-shape, punched with three holes, allowing the bottles to cantilever out into space.  This makes the bottles the centerpiece, leaving the rack to recede somewhat.  

Rack 'em.

Going Against the Grain

The ReBuilding Exchange, one of my places of employment, has a DIY fest, called Going Against the Grain, every year.  This past Sunday, a laundry list of hands-on crafters, improvisers, builders, and designers descended on the warehouse, fueled by the folks at New Belgium brewers.  So, like the good little green citizens that we are, we biked over a little after noon, skies threatening overhead.

The amount of bikes there was kind of out of control.

The lady and I, and some good friends, gathered much information on our nascent, studio-apartment-sized experiments in homesteading, home-brewing, bread baking, furniture building, and food growing.  Unfortunately, we don't have room for chickens just yet, but all in due time . . .


Right as we walked in, there was a badass rickshaw contraption by Alex Gartelmann and Jonas Sebura.  

Puts a regular 'ol Harley to shame.

Shop Improvements

Every shop is a work in progress.  There is a constant flow of background tasks, dedicated to keeping the place clean and organized.  Dust is a hazard to breathe, and can cause fires.  Clamps, glue, drill bits, blades, hand tools -- things end up all over the place at the end of the day, making it hard to find what you need the next morning.  These improvements are a key part of the life of a workshop, as they enable one to make things faster, cleaner, and ultimately, better.  

Every shop I've ever worked in has had bursts of self-improvement from time to time.  When I made cabinets, I built some insulated doors to the bench room, to keep in the heat from the pellet stove so the concrete countertops wouldn't freeze at night.  In Alabama, I built a shed for the garden tools.  The last couple of weeks, I've been doing a lot of shop improvements at both ReBuild Foundation and the ReBuilding Exchange.  

At the ReBuild Foundation, I built a four-tier, 5' x 16' x 10' tall lumber rack for all the salvaged treasures they have down there.  It was a scrapful effort, patched together out of old 2" x 4"s, pallets, and bits of plywood.  When a piece wasn't long enough, I scabbed two together.  It felt good to be wielding a nailgun again, shooting something together. 

The lumber racket.  Ladder included, no extra charge.  

Sunday in the Shop

Sunday, I took advantage of a rare free day in the ReBuilding Exchange shop to work on a new project and photograph some old ones.  My Scrap Armchair came together pretty well, but, as usual, there are a number of problems with it.  One, I didn't get the ergonomics right, so the back is too vertical, and hits the spine at a less-than-ideal location.  Two, the maple floorboards I used for the back and seat are flat, failing to conform to the body.  Three, the frame is really bulkier than it needs to be, strength-wise.  Four, I thought I could make the exposed fasteners look attractive, but I should've used dowels, or at least plugged over them.  

As modeled by chair impresario Blake Sloane.  

Dabble

In a couple weeks, on November 13th, I will be giving a class on how to make fruit bowls from old license plates.  It is planned and organized by Dabble, an internet startup located right here in Chicago,  and will be held at the ReBuilding Exchange, at the corner of Ashland and Webster.  Dabble provides a platform for experts in any field to design, pitch, and deliver a class on just about anything.  They have a full slate of lectures and demonstrations on how to brew beer, make pasta, speak in public, build your online business, and get in shape.  It is a  great idea for a start-up, connecting audiences with folks who have something to share.


In 2008, with the acquisition of my first road sign, I started experimenting with home-brew metal-bending techniques.  Sheet metal, mostly aluminum or thin-gauge steel, is typically manipulated with a brake.  However, breaks are big, heavy machines and cost quite a bit, especially box-and-pan brakes, which allow you to make more complex, 3-D shapes.  So, my first attempts revolved around drilling a series of 3/8" holes, 1" on center, then beating the signs into the desired shape with a rubber mallet.  To hold the folds, I pinned them in place with machine bolts.  I made chairs, tables, and fruit bowls this way.  However, it was a laborious process that burned through drills, bits, and my back.  Each fruit bowl, at only 10" x 15", required 62 holes.

The Nine Square Chair, my first road-sign experiment.

Design Nomad

A little over six weeks ago, I arrived in Chicago driving the remainder of a '98 Corolla. Hitched, improbably, to the back, was a trailer containing what little my girlfriend and I own.

God bless the 'rolla.

This is my seventh move in five years. I've studied architecture in Virginia; poured concrete in Arizona; built cabinets in Baltimore; studied more architecture in the rural south; and taught youth carpentry in Alabama. Along the way, I've designed and built houses, furniture, and landscapes.


Some of this nomadism has been motivated by my own wanderlust, and some motivated by the vagaries of the Great Recession. The economy has been down since I got out of school, and architecture, tied as it is to credit and real estate, has had a particularly hard time recovering. I've tried to see the economic uncertainty as an opportunity, exploiting the gaps in traditional design practice and going off-the-grid, into the world of guerilla design.


Chicago has been great (a little warm, even after Alabama), and I've met a lot of wonderful folks in a very short time. As I put down some roots and look around for work, I've had a chance to explore a lot of great programs, non-profits, and firms. On the thirtieth, I started volunteering at ReBuilding Exchange, an architectural salvage warehouse, jobs training program, and furniture workshop.

The ReBuilding Exchange.