Finally my chair for the ‘Chairs of the Alumni’ exhibition is finished. You will have noticed the lack of the promised progress reports. Just too much on I’m afraid but I have the photos and will publish some ‘making’ posts in weeks to come.
'Spare' chair - decent photos coming soon!
The exhibition which runs in parallel with the George Ingham Retrospective opens this Friday. Details are here. I’ve put up a skeleton website about George, the book about his work which has just been published and the two exhibitions here. I will be adding lots of material from the book and exhibitions over the next month or two.
Woven with dyed nylon mono-filament
Stay tuned.
September 29th, 2009
My design for a chair for the Chairs of the Alumni exhibition has ’sculpted’ joints where the stretchers intersect the legs and where the middle cross stretcher intersects the two side stretchers.
3d render showing the location of the joints
I’ve just completed the two joints where the stretchers meet. This progress post shows how these were made. However, as always seems to be the case, the most interesting stages are when you forget to pick up the camera - so you might have to join the dots yourselves.
1. Mortices are cut in the middle of the two side stretchers to receive the tenons from the cross stretcher.
2. The elements are rounded in a modified router lathe leaving ample blocks of material for making the joints. (I will describe the router lathe and the process in a later post.)
This pic shows the two side stretchers in the middle and the cross stretcher that joins them at the front of the picture.
leave stock for making the joints
3. The tenons cannot be cut before this stage because the router lather requires mounting holes to be centred at each end. The tenons are cut to fit the mortices and then tested and tuned.
The joints can then be fitted and glued. I have no pic of the gluing setup I’m afraid but effort was made to ensure the whole structure was flat and the elements were square.
the orientation of the elements to be joined
Cramping pressure was applied across the whole structure using custom-made clamping blocks that fitted the curve of the elements. Additional clamps were used to ensure the flange on each side of the joint was firmly pressed against the side stretcher.
the excess is roughly removed on the bandsaw
4. The excess material is carved, filed and sanded away leaving a smooth transition between the elements.
the shaped joint
the stretcher assembly
In the next installment I will show how the legs are shaped and then glued to this stretcher assembly.
August 16th, 2009
Well it was a long time ago that I promised to keep you up-to-date with my progress towards a chair for the Chairs of the Alumni exhibition. No updates (other than this general one) fortunately doesn’t mean no progress - although as always I wish I was further along the adventure.
In-progress design for alumni chair
The above image shows the current state of my design. This is a CG rendering that I hope gives a reasonable idea of what the chair will look like. At this stage I’m thinking of building it from Tasmanian blackwood so it will be a touch lighter in tone (at least initially) and slightly less warm in colour. The generously wide seat will be woven in a dark blue nylon mono-filament.
Rendered for form only
I use 3D modelling and rendering quite a bit as an additional tool for resolving designs. While it can sometimes be misleading about overall proportion and scale, it is always useful for visualising different woods and design details.
When making a completely new chair design however you always need to create a sturdy mock-up and get multiple people to sit in it to check and adjust the dimensions and angles for comfort and usability. The position and angle of the back rest in relation to the seat is usually the critical investigation. This rough prototype in pine was done very early in the design process. The seat is woven from the same blue nylon as the final chair will be.
A structural prototype used for ergonomic investigations
You might notice in the renderings that each joint of the substructure has a smooth transition between the elements. This is shaped after glue-up. Extra wood is left on each element where it joins another so that this transition can be created. I’m currently working out systems for accurately turning the cylinders of the stretchers between these blocks of extra wood.
June 21st, 2009
Transitional chook house
Like many makers of ‘fine furniture’ I find it a challenge to build low-precision structures. Hacking out a garden bench with an adze is one thing but as soon as a joint is involved I can’t resist finely paring the shoulders perfectly square or tuning the tenons to a suction fit. Even when working with salvaged pallet timber I find myself matching the grain and picking the best side to show.
This project was a ‘quick’ job to build a temporary chook shelter. We are expanding our flock from 4 to 7 and wanted to accommodate the new young ones separately until they are accepted by the existing chooks. It needed to be waterproof (in case it ever rains here again) and rat-proof. The new chooks have a separate run during the day so the pen only needs to house them overnight.
(more…)
May 2nd, 2009
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