Annnnnd we're back!

Here we are, its been awhile (8 months now), I've made promises in the past about posting regularly again, going to give it another shot. Those of you that keep checking in to see the same old, apologies, thanks for sticking around. 

A lot has happened and there's even more on the horizon, we're going to mix up posts of new happenings and things from the past 8 months. For now, enjoy some pictures of our lovely studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and take a sneak peak at our latest completed commission, the valet chair. 

Rocking Chair Debuts at the Interior Design Show

I know it has been a long time between posts, the business and life side of all this took priority for a little while. Through January and February I was preparing for and exhibiting at the Toronto Interior Design show as well as relocating to Brooklyn, New York. In this post is a picture from the show as well as the most recent piece produced, Rocking Chair No. 1.  It is walnut construction with a steel subframe, the steel gives the piece the structure it requires to take the load of a person. The cool (and somewhat unexpected) thing about it is the chair has no noticeable flex from the cantilevered seat or back, but has a slight flex side to side. It allows the back and seat to move independently from one another as the sitter adjusts in the chair.

I will go back in the coming weeks to post the process of creating this chair as well as posting about a new chair commission I am in the midst of currently designing.

Thanks for following, hope you enjoy.

Bar Stool Prototype

Recently finished up the walnut prototype of the counter height bar stool I began designing while co-teaching the chair design workshop with Jeff Miller at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship this past October. The minimal structure and clean kinked lines was inspired by a students chair design. The miters joining up in the back of the stool to give the "birdsmouth" look came about as a bit of an accident, a pretty happy accident perhaps going back to my days sharing studio space with Brian Reid.

Already there are some changes I think I would make in the next reiteration. For one I think I would like to pull the foot of the back leg in a some, the stance is a little too extreme for my taste. A wise chair maker once told me, "every chair you ever build is a prototype, you will always see improvements you can make no matter how many of them you have made." With that said I would like to welcome the counter height bar stool no. 3 to the family and look forward to testing this one out and developing it as time goes on.

Dining Table No.1 Finds Its Home

Dining Table No. 1 has arrived in its new home. I was enormously nervous while delivering this table, I was unsure of how stable the table would be but was very pleasantly surprised to find I could actually sit on the outer edge of the glass without the table so much as budging. Relief. The current piece of glass is from the clients old dining table, they plan on purchasing a longer piece of glass that may have some shape to it. I will professional photograph it once the real top has arrived.

66 Slats / 198 Fasteners

With the white oak slats twisted into shape and drying it was time to layout exactly where each slat was going to attach to the frame and drill holes in the steel frame for where the fasteners would go. It took a few tries to get the spacing right with the dividers, a centreline was scribed and the holes were set with a punch and hammer. The steel base was clamped down to the bed and using a jig that held the drill parallel to the bed 198 holes were drilled through the 3/16" thick steel. 37.25" of lineal steel were drilled through over the course of two days. As the 66 wood slats got fit into place the same drill jig was used to drill out the wood slats for the fasteners.

Twist and Shout!

A little while back we were twisting the 3/4" thick by 2" wide by 34" long white oak slats to make up Dining Table No 1. We were doing this with kiln dried wood, which typically speaking doesn't steam bend all that well, but given that the most extreme twists for the table are around 45 degrees we tested it out, and it seemed to work without any problems. After one long day and some 70 slats twisted and clamped to the metal base to dry we decided to "test the limits" with the few that remained in the steam box. The slats were steamed for roughly 2-3 hours at 200+ degrees fahrenheit, the results were pretty incredible, to watch the bending happen check out this video.