Rail Yard Studios

Getting Ready for Our Closeups Photo shoot time again. Just did...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 07:00:46 -0500

Getting Ready for Our Closeups

Photo shoot time again. Just did a run of wine racks – Wedge (4 bottles), 5-Bottle (weren’t we creative with that name?) and our signature Rail Yard Wine Rack (8 bottles).

Note the pattern on the gum timber in the middle front foreground of the top picture. It has a beautiful character to it on the top. The gum have been surprising lately. I just posted some pix of planked gum a little while ago.

We’ll start posting some of the pix from the shoot in the next few days as well.

Planked Crossties These surprised us. We were stunned at the...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:06:28 -0500

Planked Crossties

These surprised us. We were stunned at the beauty of what came out of these crossties.

The gum (top pic) has a flame like appearance. The hickory (two middle pics) has its well-known dark and light striations and an interesting bit of bark seam. The hackberry (bottom pic) has thin dark thin lines coursing through it.

Once we get these down to a finished product, the colors and graining are going to be something truly amazing to behold.

Hmmmm. Now what shall we make from these? Let me know if you have a suggestion.

Going Corporate Thanks to Callie Engstrom with FME for the photo...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:57:01 -0400

Going Corporate

Thanks to Callie Engstrom with FME for the photo of our Wrong Side of the Tracks Conference Table installed in its new home. It’s not easy to see all of the detail on the table (detail shots here as well as an assembly video), but it just goes to show how well our work can fit in virtually any setting.

Callie and Eric Ibsen at FME along with Janet Rogers from Stacy & Witbeck were part of the team that designed and built the new world headquarters right on SF Bay for the light rail engineering firm Stacy & Witbeck.

We were thrilled to be included in their plans and see the project happen. This is just one of a total of three pieces that they installed - 2 conference tables and our signature Sleepers Coffee Table for the lobby.

Thanks!

Boxing It Up Things have been going well for us in many regards...

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:27:52 -0400

Boxing It Up

Things have been going well for us in many regards at Rail Yard Studios.

We’ve gotten better and more efficient by planning and adding some process to the mix – that’s just part of what Rob Humphreys’ experience has brought to the table. He focuses on creating bottlenecks in our process and then figuring out how to eliminate them. That’s led us to add new equipment to the shop among other things.

Here’s a prime example that made our lives easier and made things better for our clients as well:

We had been custom-making each crate as we shipped out. That worked just fine while we were learning and getting up to speed. But as we got more proficient at our design and building process, that became our biggest bottleneck. It was slowing us down getting product out the door to our very patient clients.

So we surveyed our product line. We were able to take our main designs and place them into 4 groups and thus 4 primary crate sizes. So now, 90% of our product will fit into 1 of 4 crate sizes. Trust me, it sure beats building a built from scratch crate each time.

Custom orders still are subject to the one-off crates, but they often times will fit into 1-2 of our standard crate sizes (yeah, like we planned it that way). Suffice to say, it is a huge improvement from where we were.

And just to make it a bit sweeter, we managed to get our branding on the new crates with all the time we saved!

Ambient Fall Lighting The ambient lighting in the early evening...

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:56:04 -0400

Ambient Fall Lighting

The ambient lighting in the early evening this time of year produces some amazing photos with no help from filters or any retouching.

LOVE the shadows on the rough cut timbers. And also LOVE that the shop has been cleaned up. Ready for us to get some work done in the AM.

Nice work Zach!

No casualties. Bandsaw tire gave out on the lower wheel today...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:59:15 -0400

No casualties. Bandsaw tire gave out on the lower wheel today though. Kind of hampered production.

Ears. Ears. And more ears. If memory serves correctly, it was...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:29:14 -0400

Ears. Ears. And more ears.

If memory serves correctly, it was Pop who first named these pieces “ears” – slices of rail that are just thick enough to hold a bunch of different things.

Things like

Wine
Coats
Bikes
Desks (like our Telegraph Desk)
Guns
Guitars
And more.

These are a key component in our wine racks, coat racks, bike racks and in our upcoming gun racks and guitar racks.

Looks like we are going to be busy – very busy.

Sunset on the Rail Yard Studios Shop Simply loved the way the...

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 08:42:26 -0400

Sunset on the Rail Yard Studios Shop

Simply loved the way the lighting was coming into the studio at the end of the day and snapped these few shots.

No filter - just a simple iPhone picture - really.

Yes, we left the shop less than entirely clean, but the next day it was cleaned up - thanks to Zach!

Planked Crossties A handful of mainline crossties met the...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:29:14 -0400

Planked Crossties

A handful of mainline crossties met the woodmizer today. They went from 7” x 9” timbers to 1-1/4” thick boards.

The results were ASTOUNDING!

Hickory almost always impresses us with its beauty.

But we were not prepared for the amazing grain in the gum, sycamore, soft maple and even the hackberry. The photos do not do them justice. Some of these look like they are simply on fire.

Heavily Distressed Double Track Credenza Pop used to see the...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:24:57 -0400

Heavily Distressed Double Track Credenza

Pop used to see the timbers like these and say, “We can’t do anything with that.”

But now we take even the most severe imperfections and turn them into something amazing.

This one works great as an entry hall table, a tv console or many other ways you might like to use it.

We Get by with a Little Help from Our Friends Jim Frazier came...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:44:23 -0400

We Get by with a Little Help from Our Friends

Jim Frazier came by to help us get some of the equipment up and running in the shop. He’s the kind of guy that knows soooo much about this equipment. He had one piece of machinery that had been left outside for the better part of a decade – he broke it down, threw an old Navy surplus motor on it and rebuilt it.

We are deeply appreciative to him. Here are a few shots of Jim at the Meber bandsaw. It’s an Italian machine we bought from a cabinet-maker who was closing up shop. It takes a minute to come up to speed, but once it gets its momentum up, it is a hoss of a machine. And much like a train, it takes a looooong time to wind down.

How We Ship Things We get quite a few questions that start out...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:49:22 -0400

How We Ship Things

We get quite a few questions that start out something like “How in the world do you move that?”

Great question. Now you can see the answer.

All of our pieces are built to easily assemble and disassemble for shipping, moving and storage. This shows one of our most popular pieces, the Sleepers coffee table, both crated for shipping and set up for showing.

5-Bottle Wine Rack in Split Oak Timber We all loved this timber,...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:54:07 -0400

5-Bottle Wine Rack in Split Oak Timber

We all loved this timber, but it needed some special attention in order to successfully pull it off as a wine rack. We’ve started adding in some butterfly joints in some of the pieces with the more pronounced splits to help them along. The results speak for themselves.

This wine rack will be one of the pieces featured this weekend in chicago at the American Craft Exposition. Come check us out if you are in Chi-town!

As a side note, we just had to keep a little Tennessee flavor in this one. The top wine bottle is from Arrington Vineyards located just south of Nashville and owned by Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn fame.

Lectern We’ve had this piece around for a while, but we...

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:40:09 -0400

Lectern

We’ve had this piece around for a while, but we just got around to getting some nice shots of it this past weekend.

We’ve called it generically a Lectern, but we’ve heard people proclaim it a pulpit, a hostess stand and a guest register.

Whatever you prefer to call it, we just wanted a simple design for a railroad conference we attended this past year, and this was the result.

Thanks for the late night photo shoot goes to Nick and Amy McIntyre for the night shots and to Matt Collins for the infinite white background shot.

Did a marathon photo shoot last night at a sprint pace. Thanks...

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:33:44 -0400

Did a marathon photo shoot last night at a sprint pace. Thanks to Nick McIntyre, Amy McIntyre, Matt Collins, Pop, Zach, Bobby, Anthony, Rick (the Vegan Redneck), Hillary, Ferf, Hattie, Zoe, Kate, Annie, and Rob Humphreys - whew that’s a lot of folks. Even Sally and a couple of Italian friends dropped by. The vibe last night was incredible!

Just had to share this candid shot - no set up. Lights were out int he studio and Zach needed to grind something down so his work area was lit solely by the sparks flying off of the steel he was grinding down.

Lots of new photos coming and new products. Stay tuned!

Salt Lake magazine coverage

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:14:37 -0400

Thanks to blogger Jaime Winston for the great article on the Salt Lake magazine web site! http://www.saltlakemagazine.com/blog/railroad-artist-hits-kimball-art-festival/

Prototyping Weekend - Rails and Trails These designs have been...

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:52:15 -0400

Prototyping Weekend - Rails and Trails

These designs have been rattling around in my head for a while. We had some details to figure out and finally got a chance to work through them today with help from Pop.

Envisioning single, double (side by side), double (stacked) and quad versions. Maybe even a crazy “peloton” version on the way for about 8 bikes.

There are many more details and options not shown here, so these are not final.

Lots more to come. Stay tuned.

No rain so far at #centralpennartsfestival

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:04:31 -0400

No rain so far at #centralpennartsfestival

Photo

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:28:16 -0400

3 Bottle Wine Rack It has been hot in the studio, so we’ve...

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 14:00:45 -0400

3 Bottle Wine Rack

It has been hot in the studio, so we’ve not had the courage to go in and shoot photos and there is so much to show. Here’s one we did grab though of our new 3-bottle wine rack. Made to mount on the way, this one is a slice of white oak with a red mahogany finish on it.

Enjoy!