Making Figured Maple Wainscot for a restaurant
Over the summer one of my instrument building customers told me he bought a restaurant. It seemed out of the blue but I wished him well.
Then I realized that he was not telling me this coincidentally. Rather, he wanted the restaurant's interior to pay homage to the exotic instrument woods he uses to build guitars.
I invited him out to the warehouse to take a walk and see if something inspires him.
Unfortunately, there were some limitations. Not the least of which was budget - there wasn't a lot allocated since the wainscot idea occurred late in the project. Also, exotic tonewoods are expensive, generally speaking.
Then there was the logistics. He wanted wood wall paneling in a wide width combination of 4",5",6" faces. Since it's applied to the wall, the lighter the better, for installation purposes.
We saw a bundle of Western Pacific Coast rustic figured maple which met all of the criteria. Also, it's the lightest weight specie of maple available, less dense than both sugar maple and red leaf maple.
Finally, to reduce the cost and spread the resource a little more efficiently, we ran a scant knife profile so we could thin kerf resaw 2 profiles from each 4/4 board. It's just on the wall anyway, right?
And to finish of the project…some tasty ramen!
This was a fun project.
If anyone is in Southern California, the restaurant is Ramen Song in downtown Redlands.
View on YouTube
Over the summer one of my instrument building customers told me he bought a restaurant. It seemed out of the blue but I wished him well.
Then I realized that he was not telling me this coincidentally. Rather, he wanted the restaurant's interior to pay homage to the exotic instrument woods he uses to build guitars.
I invited him out to the warehouse to take a walk and see if something inspires him.
Unfortunately, there were some limitations. Not the least of which was budget - there wasn't a lot allocated since the wainscot idea occurred late in the project. Also, exotic tonewoods are expensive, generally speaking.
Then there was the logistics. He wanted wood wall paneling in a wide width combination of 4",5",6" faces. Since it's applied to the wall, the lighter the better, for installation purposes.
We saw a bundle of Western Pacific Coast rustic figured maple which met all of the criteria. Also, it's the lightest weight specie of maple available, less dense than both sugar maple and red leaf maple.
Finally, to reduce the cost and spread the resource a little more efficiently, we ran a scant knife profile so we could thin kerf resaw 2 profiles from each 4/4 board. It's just on the wall anyway, right?
And to finish of the project…some tasty ramen!
This was a fun project.
If anyone is in Southern California, the restaurant is Ramen Song in downtown Redlands.
View on YouTube