the quest for quality

So in my last post i detailed about making some more furniture for my local gallery and i made a nest of my 'cant' tables, i have included some photos of them and showed the detail areas that i am trying to improve on to get the all important quality factor in my work.
  i think the quality will come with time, as you probably are or arent aware i have not been making furniture long but have always been very practical with my hands so i feel this has stood me in good stead. Also being a designer helps in the practical side, understanding how things work, drawing out how they assemble all adds to the skill of making but one thing that i am still learning and i feel will take years to fully understand is the properties of wood. How wood is constantly changing and never stays as a constant. And these traits of wood i have to prempt or factor in when im making my pieces. So far i have had a number of trys before i am happy with the final piece. Wood is never truly straight and making sure the wood is as straight as possible and the grain runs in the same direction to allow for natural movement and allow the wood to expand all at the same rate is a struggle. So this area has been particulary important for the nest of tables, to make sure they sit right and level and dont tip, so selection of certain pieces of wood was vital. Couple this with only having wood from local sources meant my choice of pieces was limited, but i feel i overcame these hurdles fairly well. But as mentioned above the quest for quality and dare i say it perfection continues, a trait nearly every designer has.

the catch up part 2

So my second attempt at updating my life online continues with detailing what i have been making for my local gallery. If you remember my 'scape' mirrors are sold in a local gallery and the owner has asked me to make some more designs to display. So since returning from cumbria i have been making a nest of the 'cant' sidetables. After making the first prototype a few months ago now i had to do alot more testing into how the table top was secured into the frame, as it is based on a cantilever construction and i had to make sure the table top could hold a fair amount of weight, in keeping with traditional sidetables of the same size. I found that metal helped alot! and so the new design incorporates metal pins that go through the wood frame as well as the acrylic top, but all consealed in the frame work.

So once this was achieved i set about scaling down the table to make a smaller version that would slide underneath, hence a nest of tables was created. This was not as easy as it seemed but finally i reached a size and proportion i was happy with and set about buying the ash from my local wood yard and preparing it for working.

The first table had a clear top but i wanted the design to be more stark and colourful so i looked into gettting some different coloured acrylic panels to use for the table top. But annoyingly i could not source any coloured acrylic thikcer than 5mm. My design needed 10mm or the whole principle would not work. So i had to settle for white acrylic sheets, which if you look at the sneak pic i will post on twitter later today looks amazing, and gives a great modern contrast, which i am really pleased about. So these past few weeks have been a manic mix of gluing, sanding, cutting, measuring, screwing and clamping in order to get these finished. And as i write this all i have to do now is one last piece of gluing and then the frames can be sealed and waxed/oiled i have'nt decided yet. Then they will wing there way to the local gallery and i shall also put these on www.talentunified.com as well so there will be two versions of my modern unique table to choose from.

Once they are finished i start on my next project which is bedroom based this time and will include a combination of reclaimed sapelle wood and an as yet undecided second wood that needs to contrast with sapelle really well. any ideas??

the catch up

it has annoyingly been far too long since my last blog post, and time i got up to date and explained why i have been so busy.

a couple of weeks ago i had a small vacation to the beautiful lake district in cumbria, a very imspiring place with truly breathtaking scenery. i will let the photos do the talking. i want to go back as i only stratched the surface of this vast county. i got alot of thinking done and had some good ideas for present and future projects. so well worth the 6 hour drive