Bedside Table Assembly
Posted: April 27, 2015 Filed under: Exhibition, Field | Tags: assembly, bedside table, dowel, furniture, mortise and tenon, oak, wood Leave a comment
This week I routered the channels for the drawer runners to slide through and began to join the top of the bedside table together. Like in the tall chest of drawers I made in first term, I used dowels to join it as it prevents the wood from moving.
Then I moved onto the legs, they were tricky to assemble as the legs taper and this meant that supports (skirt) between them had to be angled to accommodate this. The angle was hard to cut accurately on the band saw so I finished cutting the tenon out with a chisel.
I angled the feet of the legs and also kept the wood the same thickness of 15mm like the chest of drawers to give a sense of continuity between my pieces.
Bedside Table Development
Posted: March 9, 2015 Filed under: Exhibition, Field | Tags: casting, ceramics, furniture, glaze, mould, oak, pine, slip cast, wood Leave a comment
I’ve been working on the ceramic element of my beside table design; the drawer front will be a ceramic panel with an angled underside to pull the drawer out with. It will be made of English Oak and pale pine to provide contrast. The sides have slits so that the drawer runners are visible and contrast the main body of the piece. The legs are tapered to ‘slim’ it down and make it appear less bulky.
I cast a piece of wood slightly larger than the desired size to allow for shrinkage when it’s bisque and glaze fired.
The ceramic piece will act like a ‘fake’ front and sit over a piece of wood that fits into the back of the slip cast and be attached with strong araldite.
I tested some glazes that give the appearance of moss to see if they would look good alongside the wood I’m using. I like the speckled green on the left as it varies subtly between pale and lime green with white flecks.
It is important that the panels stay flat during firings to prevent any warping. This was possible during the bisque as they fired upside down, however when glazed to 1280 they were propped on stilts to prevent sticking to the kiln shelf and as a result they warped due to the high temperature.
![IMG_0330[1]](https://kerrysmakerblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/img_03301.jpg)
To get around this I will make them in porcelain which will be able to withstand the high firing needed for the glaze, however to do this I have to make the mould larger to factor in the porcelain shrinking by up to 40%. Despite this setback I am very pleased with how the glaze turned out, as it took some trial and error with the glaze thickness to get the right opacity.
Finished Chest of Drawers
Posted: December 17, 2014 Filed under: Subject | Tags: bark, chest of drawers, furniture, Lime, oak, raw, wax, wood, wooden 1 CommentI assembled the base and top together today which completes the chest of drawers!
I coated the Lime with bees wax to bring out the colour of the wood and add a slight shine to it. The raw edge also had to be varnished so that it didn’t crumble off when pulling it to open the drawers. I stippled a matte varnish into the cracks so that it kept the natural colour and texture.
I’m very pleased with how it looks, I think the types of wood complement each other well and I really like using the bark as a focal point. I learned a lot of new techniques with this piece, such as how to biscuit join and how to assemble a drawer with runners. As this is only the second piece of furniture I’ve made I had some guidance from the technicians in getting my design off the page, however I now feel more confident that I can utilise these new techniques for future pieces without the need for much help. It took just under 3 weeks to make from start to finish It was really satisfying to see it grow from a rough plank of wood to a polished outcome and functional object and I enjoyed the whole process.
Chest of Drawers Progress
Posted: December 17, 2014 Filed under: Subject | Tags: chest of drawers, drawers, furniture, Lime, oak, wood Leave a commentThis week I made I lot progress in assembling the chest of drawers. I attached the drawer box sides together using wooden dowels so that the joins were hidden. I drilled holes for the dowels and glued them in place with Gorilla glue.
Once the glue was dry, I sanded the outside so that the sides were flush with each other and attached a thin band of Oak to the front on the box to hide a few biscuit joins that were showing.
Next I screwed on the runners for the drawers, I made them in Oak so that they can withstand the drawers constantly sliding over them.
The drawers themselves are also made of solid Oak and were constructed using rebate joins. Before gluing them together, I routed a channel for the runner to slide in and one for the drawer base to fit into.
I then fixed the panels onto the front of the drawers. The raw bark edges sit slightly higher and lower than the top and bottom of the box to act as ‘handles’ to open the drawers with.
Lastly I made the base with mortise and tenon joins. I added stretchers around the bottom to add support, as the legs are quite long.
Sourcing Wood and Initial Ideas
Posted: November 19, 2014 Filed under: Subject | Tags: bark, ceramic, furniture, oak, raw, Westonbirt Arboretum, wood Leave a comment
I’ve sourced wood for my subject work from Westonbirt Arboretum, the UK’s national arboretum which has over 2500 types of tree. It has a monthly wood sale where you can buy wood felled from various trees including softwoods, hardwoods and some exotic woods. I was able to pick up large pieces of oak and some smaller bits of cherry.
I had the oak planed but left the raw bark on to make a feature of it as I want to keep as much of the character of the wood as possible. I plan to varnish the wood with bee’s wax to keep its natural colour.
As it is hard to find wood of the right size and type without paying a lot of money, I may have to alter my ideas to suit the wood I have available to me. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I like the idea of the wood influencing the design and overall look of a piece.
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