Old Piedmont Commerical

Well it's aftermath time and I'm working with the investigators and the insurance people to try to give them as much info on 'what used to be' Piedmont as possible. I remembered a local contractor Lady was trying to launch a new TV show called 'Contractor Diaries', we were going to support the show and together we produced a little TV commercial for Piedmont. I had a real hard time remembering my lines as you can probably tell. It was a fun day though. This is a rough cut, and about as far as we got with it. I searched this out for the consultants to have some reference for the interior. Turely heartbreaking, what a horrible waste. I musta had a 50,000 hours in that place.

Trajedy Strikes.

It isn't like business has been enough of a struggle for us the last few years.  To add insult to injury fate has to go and throw another catastrophy at my family business.  Saturday afternoon, my mantle sidejob was interrupted by my friend calling to inform me our lumberyard was on fire.  As I ran to my van another friend pulled up in his truck so I jumped in with him.  The video below tells the rest of the story.

Making Corbels

Sometimes I get someone asking me to build a shelf with corbels. Usually that means I'm making some corbels and since I haven't posted any of that info up yet I thought I'd show how its done. You can cut them out of big chunks of lumber or you can laminate regular boards like I'm doing here.  First come up with your shape on one piece and trace that piece on all the others, then cut your pieces.  I used a bandsaw, but a jigsaw or even coping saw will work.  Figure out how thick you want the corbels to be and that will tell you how many layers you need to glue up.  Since I want these blind attached I create a pocket in the back for a cleat.

Next glue them up and clamp them tight so the glue oozes out between the pieces. Notice the wax paper under the corbels while I'm clamping.  This keeps that oozing glue from gluing the corbels to the workbench.

 Notice in the photo below you can see how the cleat recess in the back of the corbel came out.  This is where I'll use a 2X2 attached to the wall to hold the corbel against the wall.  Now I have the corbels roughed out and will finish by sanding them smooth.  I have a machine to do this now, but have spent many hours doing it by hand in the past.