If it were up to me everything in life would be encased or decorated in wood. With my recently acquired vacuum-veneer press I’ve been able to test that theory on skateboards and mousepads. This latest project, however, has been a real design challenge. The contours of the iPad and the perimeter of buttons and outlets have made this an especially difficult project to design and construct.

This latest prototype  – the second of more to come in this design-build process – is a big leap toward success but still a work in progress. It’s made from tiger maple and decorative veneers and is lined with leather. As a protective layer it works great to keep the iPad safe during transit. The wood case is extremely durable and it’s no more than 1/8-in. thick, which means it’s ultralight. The skin-tight fit also allows me to carry it in any orientation without the iPad slipping out.

But there are some improvements still to come. While the iPad case fits the contour of the tablet like a glove, it’s more like an “iPad sleeve” than an “iPad case.” To use the tablet, you have to remove it completely and then find a place to store the case. Not to mention, most iPad cases provide some sort of stand to prop up the device or hold it comfortably while in use. Those are the features I’m hoping to design into the next prototype.

The iPad fits snuggly inside the contoured case.

To remove the iPad from the case, a crescent cutout on the flat side of the iPad case provides a spot to grip and pull the tablet.

For the next prototype, my goal is to fully encase the iPad and make a hinged cover that can be folded back to reveal the working surface of the tablet and prop it up for display. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: A company in Holland has apparently cracked this nut already with the artfully designed Miniot iPad case, I just discovered with a Google search. It’s clear these guys use computer-operated machining tools to manufacture the precision parts. This would be near impossible to match by hand, but impressive nonetheless.

That scene, which I play over again in my head during my deepest day dreams, was the inspiration for this pair of checkerboard longboards that recently emerged from the Weekndr shop. One of them is headed that way in just a few days to meet its new owner.

Bergerboard No. 056
“Venice Bound“
This 7-ply hardwood maple longboard is decorated with a classic checkerboard pattern in Birds-Eye Maple and Tiger Maple, flanked by redish-brown Sapele. It measures 44-in. long and 9-1/2 in. wide. The popsicle-stick shape has a kick in the front and tail, and the width of the board is concave for improved footing. The top of the board is covered in grip tape with a checker diamond in the center.

Bergerboard No. 057
“Patch“
This 7-ply hardwood maple longboard is decorated with a checkerboard pattern in European Beech and Sapele. The checkers deconstruct at on end of the board, a design detail that covered a flaw in the board, hence its name “Patch.” The checker pattern is flanked by tiger maple. The popsicle-stick shaped board measures 44-in. long and 9-1/2 in. wide and has a kick in the front and tail. The width of the board is concave for improved footing. The top of the board is covered in grip tape with a checker diamond in the center.

Bergerboard No. 055
“Ebony and Ivory“
This 7-ply hardwood maple longboard is decorated with Ebony Macassar, Tiger Maple, and Sapele veneer, and measures 44-in. long and 9-1/2 in. wide.

The popsicle-stick shaped has a kick in the front and tail, and the width of the board is concave for improved footing. It is the first skateboard output from my recently acquired veneer press, and is one of five  that will emerge from this latest batch of South Pasadena made Bergerboards.

Take a closer look in this slideshow

There isn’t much to a vacuum veneer press, but a good one with high-quality parts and features can costs a lot of money. It’s comprised of a motorized pump that attaches to a thick plastic bag with a hose.  Turn on the pump and its sucks the air from the bag. Whatever’s inside – typically layers of wood ready for lamination – compresses as the pump pulls all the air from the bag. In woodworking this tool is most-often used to adhere decorative veneer to curved or flat surfaces with glue. The sealed bag holds the veneer tight to the surface of your substrate as the glue dries.

Craigslist score: VacuPress Hi-Flo vacuum veneer press with rolling table.

The custom made vacuum veneer press table shown here with two skateboard forms inside.

Before I drove off with my new tools I talked with the shop owner for nearly an hour. He gave me a tour of the 30,000-square-foot cabinet shop where he spent the better part of his life creating magnificent furniture and interiors. At one time, he said, there were 40 people working there. He told me about his first big job – a billionaire’s media room in Aspen – which he charged $1.3 million to complete. I heard a story of back in 1974 when he invented the first-ever automated TV-lift; that’s the thing that makes a TV rise and retract from a media cabinet. He charged $500 for it, but it cost him $7,000 to engineer and build. Didn’t matter though because it got him bigger and better jobs and allowed him to acquire more and more tools, like the one I was buying.

The kit that I purchased was the smallest of nine vacuum veneer press kits he was selling off. And those were just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment that would soon be plugged in at someone else’s shop.

It was hard to miss the sadness in the owner’s eyes as he said goodbye to his lifetime of work. But as I talked with him that morning and told him about what I planned to use it for – making decorative skateboards and mousepads with highly figured veneer and marquetry -  I could tell he was a small bit satisfied that at least this tool would live through another interesting adventure.

This weekend I get started putting it to good use with a colorful batch of veneer I recently acquired. Have a look at some of the patterns I assembled for my next batch of projects.

LA bikers cruise the Venice Beach boardwalk. Photos/Weekndr.com

There are few ideas less believable than commuting to work in Los Angeles on a bicycle. Mention it to your family or coworkers and many respond with wrinkled brows, curled lips, dismissive guffaws, and sometimes even an expletive or two.

With car-stuffed freeways and thruways the primary methods of transportation here, most people wouldn’t even know how to get from one place to the next on bike-friendly city streets. You’d be lucky to find a dedicated bike lane painted on any of the roads. And then there’s the exposure to air pollution and scary drivers.

Despite the long list of reasons against the idea, there are a couple in its favor. Few cities in the world boast such a moderate climate; nearly 340 days a year are amenable to biking. It is immune to the price of oil or the whims of the city’s public transportation system. And, it’s great exercise.

So after one year of slogging to work and back by bus-train-walk-bus, I’ve decided to give the bike-to-work commute a try. No more waiting for tardy buses. No more stuffing into seats or standing on the rush-hour trains. No more rubbing elbows with the eclectic LA public commuter population. And most importantly, no more having to go to work at exactly 6:47 a.m. when the bus arrives, unless the driver is late or early.

Enter the Hill Topper. After days of internet research, I narrowed in on the idea of building an electrified bike to assist my 15-mile round trip trek to work. I settled on a pedal-powered Giant Escape hybrid roadbike aided by a battery-powered electric hub motor.

This is not a funny looking electric bike. It’s a conversion kit that adds an electric boost to any normal bike. After much price comparing, I chose one from an eco-conscious start-up in the Northwest called Clean Republic. The company manufactures an electric-bike conversion kit right here in the U-S-of-A that combines lithium ion battery technology with electric motor technology.

It’s a super simple concept: First, you replace the front wheel of your bike with a motorized wheel called the Hill Topper. It comes in standard wheel sizes (mine’s a 700 cc), and attaches to the front fork like any other wheel, except without the quick release. The motor plugs into a battery pack clipped to a rear rack or seat post. And a small ignition switch attaches with Velcro to the handle grips for easy access to an electric boost.

You really can’t imagine the experience until you try it. It’s not a replacement for pedaling, but it boosts the power of your pedaling on any terrain.

I call it RoboBike.

The Weekndr workshop turned into an aeronautical studio today for an inspired project building a balsa wood glider from scratch. Ours turned out a lot like the ones you buy at the toy store, only since we started with raw materials and used our own tools we came up with a fun wing design.

The inspiration for this family woodworking project was the new scroll saw we acquired a few weeks ago from cheapo tool maker Harbor Freight. For $69 we can now cut precise curves and delicate wood parts. That’s incredibly inexpensive for a scroll saw, but you get what you pay for. It’s actually a pretty wonky tool – the table is made from thin flimsy steel and the blade guard wobbles loose after a minute of use from the vibration of saw. I knew what I was getting though, and I managed to trick out the tool with a new table and blade guard, and now it cuts pretty well.

Without it, we couldn’t have made this:

The glider is made from a single thin sheet of balsa wood. Using a ruler and pencil each part is drawn on the balsa wood and cut to shape with the scroll saw. The edges are shaped and smoothed with sandpaper.

To attach the wings to the body of the glider the parts are assembled with joining notches. We devised a unique design for the tail wing assembly that features two rudder fins to accommodate this joinery technique.

To prevent the glider from tumbling through the air with each throw, we weighted the nose of the glider with three screws – not too many and not too few. It gave the glider just the right balance and they came with an added benefit: the screws protected the nose of the plane from crushing on impact.

And impact it made. Over and over all morning the kids tossed the glider off the front stoop and into the driveway. Parts broke off regularly as it crash landed again and again. But with the hanger nearby and a stock of balsa wood scraps at the ready, we were able to repair or replace each broken piece and get the glider back in flight in minutes.

“Natural” is not typically a word associated with anything LA. But it’s just right for the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, which lived up to its name during a Weekndr family visit yesterday.

Our photographic highlights (after the jump) include: Taxidermy paradise, rockin’ minerals, gold fever, dino bones, and the awesome mosaic ceiling photographed above.

The in-house taxidermist set up a display in the lobby of his trophy stuffed cats. He told the crowd that all of his materials come to him through natural causes. I wonder if there’s a donor card for that?

The exposure on this shot was set to the back-lit diorama. I’d like to shake the hand of the taxidermist who stuffed that elephant. Or, maybe not.

The gold exhibit – one of dozens of minerals on display – is more relevant than ever these days as the price of gold continues to rise into bubble-territory. The display features scores of hunky gold nuggets and memorabilia from California’s gold rush, as well as previous eras of gold fever in history.

Holy crystal, Batman!

The kids always appreciate some good dinosaur bones, and LA did not disappoint.

You can check out the complete slideshow on our new Weekndr Flickr page! (check out our spiffy new sidebar, too.)

The father of American fitness, Jack Lalanne, passed away this week at the age of 96. It reminded me of the day I met Jack for an interview, about 15 years ago at his home in Morro Bay. I dug out this old slide of us sitting in his living room while I probed him with pointless questions like any green college journalist would. He covered by filling the time with stories about Hollywood’s old guard, or advice on how to stay as healthy as he did with exercise and healthy eating habits.

What a cool guy. I hope they have a big gym and lots of fresh vegetables wherever he’s gone. - Mr. Weekndr