From unconventional wooden bowls to my interpretation of a wooden stool I’ve covered a lot of ground again in the workshop in the last two weeks.
If your a regular reader of this journal you’ll know I’ve been making a selection of eclectic pieces for a client of the guys I share the workshop with (Thomas Philpott Cabinet Makers). I was at the clients house this week to take some measurements and took the opportunity to snap a few pictures. Below you can see (in order) the large walnut/oak Celtic knot inlay, the ceiling rose for the 20 light cords I made, the card-suit screw hole plugs and then three photos of the door stop flower carvings. The last photo in this group also shows a large walnut peg which goes between the skirting and the door frame that I carved. Not all of this is finished but it was interesting to see most things in place. The client is happy too which is good…
The same client has an arched hall ceiling which has a grid of moulding across it that requires a small light within each square. I was tasked with making something that would hold the LED light, had the shape of a flower and curved away from the ceiling. Below you can see the prototype for this. Its about 60mm across the petals (just over 2.25”) and 35mm deep (approx 1.5”). There are a couple of things to tweak if I this is approved and I do end up making the 55 that would be required to fill the space…
I’ve also been continuing to develop products for sale and experiment with my own ideas in the last fortnight. Below in the first three pictures you can see the latest incarnation of the standard magnetic beer cap catcher. This is cut in Ash wood. I used mask to help minimise the sanding required after the paint. You can also see I used my new logo branding iron to mark the backs.
In the fourth image you can see a new iteration of my magnetic key-holder. I changed the shape to an octogon and switched back to maple as the oak one I experimented with did not show the rippled shape well.
The fifth picture shows some prototype meat carving boards. In each of these the grooves are sloped to allow juices to run down into the circular well. This can then be poured off for making sauce etc. These turned out well and I now need to oil them and test them all to see which works best and also decide on my favourite designs. These heavily used the 2D toolpaths and fluting to achieve the slopes and carve the wells.
Lastly in this section you can see a project I did to experiment with some repeating tiles. The design for these closely resembles the walls in the current Tardis from the new TV series of Dr. Who. They did take a while to machine but look very effective and I learned a lot as their design is quite tricky to model and machine.
Another of my own projects I’ve been developing further is something I originally called the pot-belly bowl, after I posted a picture of it on Twitter a reply from @Scottran means I’m now dubbing it the “Pear Chair - A single fruit bowl”- thanks for the suggestion…
You can see from the first image why it was given this name. I love the shape of this but wanted to make it a bit bigger (perhaps to accommodate a pineapple or banana), shape-wise I also wanted to slope the corners down. These also allowed me to try some different parameters for the machining to create a ridged finish on the bottom. I found a large chunk of scrap Sapele in the workshop that was perfect for cutting a new batch (it was a big piece of scrap). You can see the progression of this below, first cutting the backs with the legs, then the fronts. The fifth and sixth image show a close up of the most ridged version and then all four of them with a single coat of oil. I love the look and feel of these bowls and how unconventional they appear. They are almost impossibly thin and can easily bend and flex - although its not really advisable if you don’t want it to snap. This batch will be finished now and then they’ll go on sale. The original has been taken home.
Last thing in this update is a stool I made for my son to go with the desk I built for him. I saw a design on the Open Desk website in a blog post that I thought was a good design and would suit his needs. I did not follow their design but instead developed my own to suit and cut it in solid Ash for looks and also to give me enough depth to put a curve in the top for comfort. It went together perfectly after machining although I did manged to snap the ring when clamping for glue. As a clean break it was easy to repair invisibly but I would adjust the design to probably make it thicker for more strength if I made another. I deliberately curved all the corners on the joints both to make them easier to cut, less likely to tear-out when cutting and also as a design feature. I think this is a good idea for CNC jointed furniture. I was very pleased with the finished object, it is comfortable and my son is happy which is most crucial element of all…
