(And oh by the way don’t you love how artists come up with sexy sounding descriptions for what’s really just funny looking furniture. 

The line between the grown up and kiddie tables blur with Netherlands-based designer Tineke Beunders’ Marbelous. It has grooves cut into the tabletop, legs and supports that’ll have marbles rolling all the way down to the floor. The best part? You could also sneak your vegetables: olives, sprouts, peas — just toss them into the trenches at the sides and pray the dog is nearby.

Ok, I don’t know about you but at our house marble runs rule. So what could be better? Build them right into the furniture. Righteous!

So now I just read an article in fine woodworking magazine on making your own varnish with a Varnish/Tung oil blend. I can see this as part of a strategy for longer lasting materials. Mix up just what I need. Possibly add a little japan drier, use it, it’ll be no good after a few days if I use drying agents like “Japan Drier” but maybe , just maybe the base stock of pure tung oil and whatever else I use as ingredients, with the Bloxygen, will keep a little loner as separate ingredients, than a can of of pre-mixed varnish that has driers in it (which is a ticking time bomb waiting to turn into a mass of gel.)

The next piece of the strategy I’m thinking about is this whole color business. Stains, Japan colors, artist paints, they all have a limited shelf life. It’s the binders in these that go bad, ( I think?) Ah but what about just the pigments. Honest to goodness pigments all by their lonesome. I’m talking about crushed up rocks and stuff. Course we want the good stuff, I’m not going into my backyard to grind my own. (Yes, I tried that once with walnut husks, which aren’t really rocks, and technically I ended up with a dye, not pigment, but hey you get the idea, cool experiment but what a mess)

So in my thinking it’s an easy stretch to take a simple recipe like Roland Johnson’s (Read his article)

• 5 parts Tung oil
• 5 part varnish (Perhaps the Pratt and Lambert 38 he recommends, you decide)
• 2 parts Japan Drier (really optional in my opinion)
• 2- 3 parts Turpentine (Smelly stuff! I’m going to try mineral spirits, if you don’t mind)

And if I need color, I’ll add crushed up rocks! Oh I mean pigment. The pigment stored in it’s pure form should keep longer. Just add what I need and no more to the homemade oil blend, which then becomes… stain, ta da. Of course now I have to go learn how to do this.. So after thinking about this I decided that this is all speculation on my part so I better do a little web surfing to learn more. I found a few interesting links and I think there is potential here.

• Making Your Own Oil Stain By Sal Marino
• Homemade and Alternative Stains and Colorant by Jim McNamara
• Make-your-own stains and glazes – Forum thread from woodweb
• Sinopia – Source for Pigments (San Francisco)
• Kama Pigments -Source for Pigments (Canada)

This handmade box took me over a year to complete with various stops and starts along the way. It is made of Cherry, Maple and Cocobolo inlay. All the joinery was done by hand. This box started as an exercise in building an 18th century replica during a class taught by Tom Meiller during the winter of 2007. The frame for the lid was shaped using one of Tom’s antique molding planes. Using one of these is an incredible experience and I’m gald I got the chance to try. All the joints are reinforced with either splines or dovetails.

The lid uses special “butterfly” inserts to reinforce the miter joints. These are small hand cut double dovetail shaped pieces of cocobolo that were inlayed after the miter joints were glued up.The course was offered by the Rochester Woodworkers Society where you can also see some of Tom’s Work. Last week I gave the box to my daughter Melanie as a much belated Bat Mitzvah present. (She’s 14 now, so I’m oh so late on this.) Didn’t matter. She loved it.