Describing himself as “always a hard worker,” Mark said he lifted a lot, sanded a lot and, when his father began doing apartment renovations, did the drywalling. “I was essentially my father’s indentured servant for the first 15 to 20 years of my life.”

Despite all that, Mark at first didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps of making furniture. Instead, he wanted to do something nobody else in his family had ever done: building houses. Operating out of upstate New York, he ran a housing business for several years, building the first LEED platinum certified houses in seven states. “I was lead carpenter on all of them,” Mark said.

Then came the housing crash of 2008. “It was like the fall of the Roman empire in the housing business,” Mark said. Although his business did survive the crash, by the end of the crisis, Mark said, “I didn’t want to build houses anymore. I wanted to get back to furniture.”

With the support of his wife, Heather, he sold the housing business and moved back to New York City, finding a space in the DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”) area of Brooklyn. He designed and built 12 pieces of furniture for his showroom and opened the shop about four years ago.

“It’s a very visible showroom and shop within the middle of the city,” Mark said, noting that the company became popular very quickly – and he’s not sure why, other than that it seems to have struck a nerve.

“My goal is to make people’s furniture dreams happen,” he said. “People come to me when they can’t find what they want existing in the world.”

“I don’t really gravitate to one particular style,” he continued. “It’s what the clients want.” For instance, one day, that might be something with a Mid-Century Modern feel; while another project may incorporate live edges a la George Nakashima.

What does often (although not always) creep into his pieces is some of the industrial sensibility inspired by the shop’s location. A recent renovation of the Manhatten Bridge, built in 1929, involved replacing all the original connector pins. A foreman on the job brought a truckload of the 2-feet long and 50-pound stainless steel bolts to Mark’s shop, where he has integrated them into different furniture pieces. “The connector pins really make the piece a part of the history of the city,” he said.

Another material Mark has worked with is redwood that came from 50-plus-year-old water tanks in the city that needed to be replaced. Although he said the wood looks terrible when he first acquires it, after planing it down, the combination of the old-growth lumber and the mineral deposits on the wood from its use as a water tank creates an attractive look. “When water tanks are older than 50 years, they’re made out of 1,000-year-old redwood,” Mark said. “There’s an entire redwood forest out there that was made into something else. It’s not easy to find, but when you find it, there’s a lot of it.”

Mark has also done a lot of work with reclaimed “sinker cypress,” as well as longleaf pine repurposed from other older pieces. Although he doesn’t work exclusively with reclaimed materials, he said, he tries to use them any time he can. “One of my favorite things in the world are trees. If I can avoid harvesting them, I do.”

That’s one reason Mark really enjoys making conference tables. “They’re lots of fun to make. They’re big and bold and beautiful, and companies are spending tens of thosuands of dollars to make a statement. I can have a lot of fun with it,” both in his material choices and his designs, he said. “The deeper the story goes, the more they love it. In New York City, there’s a lot of demand to have something special in your very expensive office.”

Mark is, in fact, currently working with West Elm to develop a full line of conference tables for them.

He’s also thinking that he will likely outgrow his shop space within the next year or so. For the first approximately eight months of the business, he was a one-man shop; now, he employs a couple of metalworkers, five woodworkers, and back office people for sales, bookkeeping and drafting, for a total employee contingent of 10. The Mark Jupiter shop is producing about 200 pieces a year.

Mark notes that, in addition to being a woodworker, he is a sculptor as well. While he might use large power tools to refine the wood he works with, “I love connecting my hands directly to a piece.” Because of that preference, he notes that he has lately been carving a lot on his pieces.

For all of them, he said, “Story is a big part of it for me. I want to anchor a piece in space and time and history.”

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– Dan Martin
Galena, Ohio

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– Don Vercamen
Clermont, Florida

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The battery housing of Bosch CORE18V is designed to transfer more heat to the outer surface, resulting in up to 35 percent better cooling effect than previous CoolPack batteries. The CoolPack 2.0 system employs advanced design to keep the battery cooler for better runtime and longer life; updated CoolPack technology provides up to 135 percent longer battery life than batteries that don’t have CoolPack technology, Bosch says.

With CORE18V, Bosch intends to answer the need for stronger and longer-lasting battery performance in high-load applications, where cordless tools have been unable to provide enough power and runtime. The Bosch CORE18V Battery, rated at 6.3Ah, delivers up to 20 percent longer runtime than previous-generation Bosch 6.0 Ah batteries and up to 50 percent longer runtime than 5.0 Ah cells in extreme applications.

Bosch CORE18V batteries have an on-board fuel gauge, and they are 100 percent backwards compatible with all 18-volt Bosch lithium-ion tools and chargers. Bosch also says that it is developing new cordless tools that will take full advantage of CORE battery technology.

“Bosch looks at battery power from the user perspective. What do users want? They want greater power and more runtime in a compact size, which is what CORE18V is all about,” said Theron Sherrod, product manager, Robert Bosch Tool Corporation. “CORE18V represents a big piece of the Bosch effort to build end-to-end product systems that offer superior performance, no matter what the job is. Based on increased power and runtime, plus backward compatibility across the full power tool lineup, we feel this is a step beyond battery power systems that are currently available.”

Bosch’s GBA18V63 CORE18V 18V 6.3 Ah Battery sells for $149 through its dealer network.

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Rob Johnstone: I’ve built up thicker stock from thinner pieces before and had good results. Here are a few pointers. The main thing is to wet both faces of the boards with a thin coat of glue and then figure out a way to clamp them evenly across their width and length. Give the glue-up a full 24 hours to cure in a room that is above 60 degrees F. One challenge you will find is that the two pieces will want to slide side-to-side as you clamp. There are a few ways to deal with that — everything from shooting nails through the boards at either end in order to keep them aligned (after the glue has cured, cut those end off to remove the nails), to using clamps across the width for the same purpose.

If the boards are long enough, I suggest cutting them in two and gluing them face-to-face, folding them together like a book. This can give you very similar edge grain along the length of the glue-up. (It does not always work, but sometimes the joint becomes almost invisible.) I have gleaned these tips over the years, and I hope they are helpful.

Tim Inman: I think it will be a huge waste of wood to laminate those boards to 1-1/2 in. thick. You certainly don’t need that thickness for strength. I would recommend you “cheat” and make the top look like it is the thickness you want by cleverly joining a thicker edge all around. This is done in cabinet and furniture work all the time. It isn’t just to be cheap with materials, either. Think about wood stability. All that thickness is just a huge pile of stress waiting for a place to exhibit itself. As for glue, well, just about any good wood glue would do. My first recommendation would be a yellow glue such as Titebond II. I would definitely stay away from the polyurethane glues like Gorilla Glue. Choose a glue that sets hard and does not have the ability to allow the wood joints to creep or move as they stress.

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This cradle was built for the daughter of a couple of good friends. Though it was begun over seven weeks before her estimated due date, with the hope that it could be completed around the time of her birth, she chose to arrive 5 weeks early. Finishing it quickly became a mad frenzy encompassing just about all my free time for several weeks.

– Fernando Vigil
St. Louis, MO

See the Gallery Below:

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“I, too, find the comings and goings of various tool manufacturers’ products strange and sometimes disconcerting. I’ve been doing woodworking for the last 15 years or so, first in half of a one-car garage and now in two bays of a three-car garage in our home in Hudson, Florida. Most of my stationary power tools are Craftsman, which I find more than adequate for the type of hobby woodworking I do. But, what I really wanted to tell you about is my first tool purchase.

“I must have been all of fourteen years old when I discovered a Sears Roebuck store just a few blocks away on Queens Bvd. in Elmhurst, New York.  I would go by the store from time to time and look at all the tools they had there.  At the time I did earn a little money with my newspaper and magazine deliveries, so when I had enough saved up I went into the store and bought the hand plane I had my eyes on for the last year or so.

“It was a Sears Dunlap plane which, as you may know, was their less expensive line, as their new line of Craftsman tools were their top line. I’ve had that Sears Dunlap plane for 75 years now and have used it on almost every one of my woodworking projects.  I had occasion recently to sharpen the blade using my new Veritas honing guide before using it again on one of my gift projects.  So it’s with some sadness that I see my old friend, the venerable Sears Roebuck, go under and another era come to a close.” – Joe Barceloa

“I emigrated from Scotland in 1969 and brought my Britool tools with me. Still have them today! Any tools bought in Canada were always Craftsman. Sooooo sorry to hear they’ve gone! How come nothing lasts? I still have all my tools, and they still work. So sad.” – Brian S. Campbell.

“I learned my craft in a shop with a similar radial arm saw. The scariest parts for me were startup (it sounded like a jet plane taking off) and, with no brake, it took a full half hour to coast to a stop. As to dad’s tools, I had his old Craftsman electric drill. Again, all metal, no plastic, which I used on and off until about 10 years ago. I’m now 76, so you can guess the age of that antique. The motor finally seized and gave up, much like my dad’s motor. Sooner or later we all go. Thanks for the story about mergers and acquisitions. I never like them because, there goes another piece of my life.” – Bob Adler

“It was shocking to hear about this.  However, when the Craftsman products began showing up in hardware stores, it made me wonder what was next.  For many years, I bought Craftsman products almost exclusively.  Their hand tools were great and power tools never failed.  Lifetime warranty implied superior quality. I have several Craftsman tools that are over 40 years old and still work (except for the 7-1/4 saw that I cut the cord on).

“I’m sure the competition from all the other brands has been the major factor.  A lot of them are being imported and are also high quality.  Plus, Sears didn’t seem interested in expanding the line. I refuse to buy any Black & Decker product.  It is inferior quality and material, plus made in Mexico products are difficult/impossible to get service or parts.

“Still, it’s sad to imagine Craftsman’s future. Typically, the best products and people are siphoned off and the rest are either resold or retired. I’m afraid the Craftsman brand is done for.” – Pat Monk

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