Fitted furniture work

Here's a few pictures of some fitted bedroom furniture carried out a little while ago, finally got around to getting some pictures taken.

It is a sprayed finish in "Slipper Satin" and has soft close drawers. The work also included a cantilevered sink unit, which due to the depth was a bit of a challenge. Some heavy duty bespoke steel brackets solved the problem, they are neatly hidden in a void in either side of the cabinet.

                 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

           To start the year off, here's some pictures of a couple of recent commissions.

The Elm for this coffee table was sourced from 'Whitewood Management' based in Okehampton. They have the great ability to let me know the exact location of the trees that they have planked. This particular tree was growing up the side of the local bridge in Tavistock. A fairly straight forward table in design terms. However this allowed me to focus on the crisp through tenon joinery and showing off the beautiful 'partridge feather' grain on the flat sawn sections, as seen on the sides of the table's surface.

The second table was made from locally sourced oak. The oak was used 'green' for the curved sections to allow the bends to be achieved through steam bending; minimising waste and allowing the grain to follow the curvature on the bent components. Scribed tenons were used into the legs and the glass was cut to have a complimentary curvature and soften the usually harsh edges. 

Here's a couple more detail shots with many thanks to http://ajpayne.com/ for the great photography.

I've finally got myself a new phone so can update this much more easily now!

Had a couple of discoveries today, one nice, one not so much...................................

Found this lovely spalted section whilst planing up some Oak for a small table, may have to save this for something special.

Not so nice was this little fella living on the underside when I picked it up. He wasn't quite as big as he appears, I have zoomed for clarity!

Just a quick post of some pictures of the table finally finished at the CCD exhibition in August.

            Table Progress

I have finally managed to get back to making the table after a few other jobs were ticked off my list.

I spent the extended bank holiday weekend shaping the base after gluing in the fumed oak plugs and started on making the top.

The top section is built up a bit like a segmented bowl in woodturning. Angled sections( in this case 16 of them) are joined together to from one layer and the another layer is glued on top. This is repeated and eventually shaped through. In the case of my table the mid layer is formed of fumed oak sandwiched between two pieces of ripple sycamore. When shaped through the fumed oak will be partially revealed to add a detail that ties in with the base of the table.

My basic fuming setup: a sealed bag, some ammonia in an old bottle, and a flat base so you can move it around.

Sycamore - Oak - Sycamore end-grain shaving.

I do a lot of work using shooting boards. I tend to make new ones from scrap pieces of MDF as I need them. The quality of the board material isn't critical, only the accuracy and a good quality shooting plane. This Lie Nielson plane was expensive but I feel it was well worth the investment. 

View of the top of the table with the first layer of ripple sycamore resting in place, now for the next two layers..............Back to the shooting board.

 Great British Menu

This week I have mostly been watching....................

Have a look at this link to see some Oak platters made a few months ago for talented local chef Simon Hulstone who has been appearing on the Great British Menu on BBC 2.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jkc0h/Great_British_Menu_Series_7_South_West_Starter/

The platters were designed to represent a running track to tie in with the Olympic theme.

Fellow Cockington residents "Our Glass" also made a lovely wave shaped serving dish for the fish course.

About to tune in to the final instalment of the show to see how he got on overall!

Table progress

I have rough shaped the base further, as much as is possible before I glue in the struts(they are currently dry jointed). 

I also made up the plugs to cover the plywood joints between each base piece,but haven't glued them in yet. These are currently being fumed with ammonia to darken them and give a nice contrast with the sycamore.

The time consuming task has been scribing the top of the struts to the underside of the top. I used a piece of MDF cut to the correct diameter and dowelled it to the struts at the correct positions to give me a level to work to. It was difficult trying to keep everything level and positioned correctly in order to mark it. Clamping the round and curved struts in order to plane the correct angle also proved awkward. I used a scalpel blade with 0.5mm magnets on the underside to give me the offset to mark the scribe line. Then it was just a case of working to the line with a block plane, all easier said than done!

But I got there in the end!

Next job is to make up the blocks with angled holes that the struts terminate into at the top.