TNT Custom Cabinets Featured in Our Most Recent Catalog

If you have not yet received our new catalog, call to request yours today!  You can also request a catalog via our website.  In the new catalog you will find 40 full-color pages, featuring the most recent additions to our product line, as well as information on a new wood type we are carrying (Lyptus®), and pictures of products in use.
We have received some fantastic pictures of kitchen layouts, including some gorgeous pictures of kitchens done by TNT Custom Cabinets of Cleveland, GA.  Tony Greenway allowed us to come out and photograph some of the homes he has done.  The top half of page 2 in our new catalog, as well as the layout on pages 4 and 5 are all pictures of Tony’s work.  In addition to this, we have used pictures of his work in our some of our magazine ads.  TNT Custom Cabinets released the following press release to a local paper, about their presence in our catalog:

“Leon Osborne, CEO of Osborne Wood Products, Inc. has recognized TNT Custom Cabinets in their most recent publication.  Osborne Wood Products, Inc. is a Toccoa company which distributes wood accents to high end cabinet maufacturers in all 50 states and Canada (coast to coast).  In Osborne’s fall catalog, tony Greenway’s cabinets were featured on a full page spread, as well as 1/2 of the inside cover page.  Each year Osborne recognizes a small number of prestigious cabinet makers with this honor.  Beyond catalog recognition, Osborne has featured pictures of Greenway’s cabinets in its national magazine ad campaign.  Leon Osborne has been quoted as saying, ‘We recognize Tony Greenway of TNT Cabinets as a leader in kitchen design as well as manufacturing.’”

Here are the pictures from TNT which we used in our catalog:

Pictured above:  8005 Venice Classic Corbel, 7600 Ribbon Appliqué Right, 7601 Ribbon Appliqué Left, 7203 Large Cap Onlay, and 1422 Old World Island Leg

Pictured above: 8080 Verona Classic Corbel

Pictured above:  8005 Venice Classic Corbel, 1471 Concord Island Leg

Thank you, Tony, for allowing us to use your handiwork in our catalog.  Your hard work and craftsmanship show through in these beautiful kitchens!

We welcome any customer submitted photos of our products in use.  We will happily feature your pictures here on the blog, and professional quality photos may even make it into one of our catalogs!  Also, we are going to be linking pictures of products in use to the items on the website.  You can email any photos to melody (at) osbornewood . com or info (a) osbornewood . com (this is spam-proofing.  to send emails just copy, remove all the spaces, and change (a) to the @).  We would love to see your work!

Osborne Partners with Foothills Community Church!

The Employee Fitness (LLC) building here at Osborne Wood Products is going to be the new home of a church plant!  A South Carolina church is planting a satellite church here in Toccoa!  For those unfamiliar with the concept, a satellite church is a church that – instead of just being a new church with a new preacher – still keeps connected with the main church, usually through streaming or recorded media.  In this case, the worship will be live, and a “campus pastor” will be there to minister to the direct needs of the congregation, but the sermon will be played on a large screen from a recording.

The church is Foothills Community Church, and though it got its start only 10 years ago, in that time it has grown from a group of about seventy to a congregation of over 2,000 attendees.  Pastor Shannon Chiles, who has been on staff with Foothills for about four years in different capacities, will  be the Campus Pastor of the Toccoa congregation.

Since several employees here attend Foothills in Seneca, South Carolina, this is an ideal location to host a satellite in.  Actually, though, it is the second church to get its start here.  Carlos and his wife Olga were a part of a church that was meeting in our break room, back before there was a gymnasium to meet in.  Our “gym” used to be a weight room in the manufacturing facility.  As employee use of it grew and the need for a larger facility became apparent, Employee Fitness, LLC was born.  Containing a full sized gym, a raquet ball court, a weight room, and an aerobics room, it is much larger than its prececessor.  The new gym facility was built with two things in mind.  First, it is here for the employees to use.  The more opportunity we have to keep fit, the healthier and happier we are.  Second, it is a great place to host some of the community events we take part in.  The woodworkers from CMA who came for our tour started and ended in the gym.  The tours we have done for the middle school made much use of the gym.  And of course, such a large facility is the perfect location for something like a church plant.
It is an exciting thing to partner with a ministry, right as it is getting its start.  We are very glad to be able to invest ourselves (and our facility) in something like this!

Here are some pictures of the crew from Foothills setting up the gym for their services.  You’ll see some help from Osborne in there, too!

Above:  Pastor Shannon and crew getting started

Farthest to the right, here, we have Jonathan Osborne.  He’s helping unload the curtain “walls,” which you will see later all set up.

Coffee break already, gentleman?  You should recognize Carl, on the right, from pictures of tours and such in the past.  Carl works on a lathe.

These are the walls I mentioned above.  Here, Leon is in a conversation with a member of the foothills crew.

Children play as adults continue more of the setup

Pastor Shannon stands on the stage as the set up crew sits in the congregation.

Well, that’s all I have for pictures.  Services start September 28 at 9:30 and 11!

Bri-Wax Experiment, Part II

The long-awaited BriWax experiment has resumed.  Today I present to you the first coat of BriWax on our 4075W (4 1/2 inch Bridle Bun in Black Walnut).  Now, on sapwood pieces, you mayy need a second coat, but I was so pleased with the results of just one coat that I had to share them with you.

The process was incredibly easy.  First, I did the preparatory work.  I laid out an old sheet that I did not mind getting finish on (a tarp would work, too, but I had an old sheet).  I got the BriWax, some lint-free cloths, my BriWax brush, and the bun foot.  Now, I was outside.  If you are not outside, you do need to be in a well ventilated area.  In order to make the Beeswax, Carnuba Wax, and coloring mix together a solvent is used.  That solvent does have a strong odor (though not nearly as strong as most finishes), so ventillation is necessary.

This bun foot does have some small crevices, which concerned me a little.  I did not really have any tools (like a paintbrush, for instance) which would help to get the wax into crevices.  However, Jim had reassured me that what I really wanted to do was just put a little too much on, and then use the cloth to spread it out.  For any extra wax filling the crevice, he said I could just wait a minute or two and then brush it out with the brush, which would also help to shine it up.  So that’s exactly what I did.  This particular bun foot took me about 10 minutes, start to finish on the first coat.  Tonight I will try my hand at the second coat, which should go even more quickly.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for…the pictures!

You can see there is a good deal more color uniformity after just one coat.  It is not yet completely uniform, but already the sap wood is much harder to distinguish.

Here is one where the lighting is just a bit different.  You can see the gloss on the finish quite well.  I was very surprised to see this after one coat.  Jim had said that when you are not dealing with sapwood, you really should not need more than one coat, and makes that statement much easier for me to believe.  If this didn’t need the extra coloring just to deal with the sapwood, it would be done!

Again, I really cannot believe the shine on this!  It really is quite a lovely piece.  And it was so easy to use.  I just scooped out the wax, rubed it on with the cloth, and finished with the brush.  It took about 10 minutes.

So, there you have it; the ease of finishing with BriWax.  Next week…The Athens Bar Corbel in Hickory.

Live Chat!

I just wanted to let you all know about the newest addition to our website: Live Chat!  Now help is just a click away!  The “Live Chat” icon right below the search bar will tell you when we are available for chat (which should be any time during our normal business hours, 8 AM – 7 PM EST).  Simply click that button to open a chat, and it will ring whichever one of us is available.  We are still more than happy to take care of you by phone, but if it should happen to be easier for you to use Live Chat, it is there for you, too.

I, for one, am very happy about this, for several reasons.  For one thing, if I’m having trouble describing an item, I can just click a picture and link a customer to it, and then they know exactly what I mean.  For another, it makes life much easier for any of our customers who might be hearing impaired.  Additionally, computers have no regional accents, and similarly, customers who might have difficulty with English can copy the chat text and paste it into one of many language-translating search engines.  Or the opposite is true, our customers can type in Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc., and we can do the translating!

So for many people, live chat can make communication much easier.  For those who want to hear our friendly and cheerful voices, though, we are glad to take your call instead.  Basically, however you prefer to communicate with us, we’re just happy for the opportunity to serve you (and to keep finding ways to do it better)!

Pause in the series / Exciting News

Ladies and gentleman, I am sad to report that there is a slight pause in the Bri-Wax series…I spent a few days under the weather which kept me from finishing the first piece.  We’ll be back on track early next week with a post on the bun foot being finished in the Tudor Brown.  I apologize for the delay.

In more happy and exciting news, we have started a series of email newsletters.  Realizing that our customers need to be more informed and kept up to date, we’ve developed three letters.

E-News comes once every two weeks and is a basic newsletter, telling you about whatever is going on here, new product ideas, industry shows, and such the like.

E-Sales comes with everybody’s favorite items: Exclusive promotions.  Discounts on items, shipping, anything like that will be found in this letter which also comes every two weeks.

E-Wood comes once every 4 weeks, packed with woodworking tips and projects.

Feel free to sign up and take advantage of special promotions, learn about new product ideas, find the best solution to a particular woodworking challenge.  We are excited to be able to offer you this new service!