He’s back. I’m proud to announce that Creature made it into Lark’s 500 Cabinets. It was juried by John Grew Sheridan, and is the third title in a series of books focused on furniture making. I’m sure that many of you will remember the piece, but here he is in case you don’t.
500 Cabinets is going to be released on August 3, but it can now be pre-ordered at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I was privileged enough to receive an early copy and must say that it is a fabulous showcase of cabinets. It is great for a reference book or to add to your design library.
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago. Add a comment
I’ve been stewing for sometime now with what to do with the little piece of cultipacker. This has been a hard one, but after much thought and sketching I have decided to do a jewelry box of some sorts. The negative space under the cultipacker is 3.1875″ high, 2″ wide and 13″ long. This should help when visualizing my sketches. I left the notes off the sketches, I don’t read them and figure no one else would either. The ideas shown are my favorite so far; I wanted to post them to show where my mind is going on it.
I used a color pencil for the sketches, one of my favorite mediums before I found my way into industrial design. I questioned once again why my instructors back in college ever convinced me to leave it behind. I love using it for exploration and the soft feel of it. I also discovered that my scanner is no longer working properly so sorry that they are not fully in color and a bit speckled. Materials, color combos, etc. haven’t even been a thought yet, just the function of everything either being push drawers or a hidden box accessed by lifting up the clod breaker. Any thoughts or opinions are welcome before I continue to go down the avenue that I am.
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Here is the next piece for the found art project. First though, many of you have been asking what happened with the fruit bowl. Well, I have been unable to locate a finish that works for both wood and steel that is food appropriate. Some would fail depending on the food placed thereon and others would apparently leach. So I have kept it for myself and when I figure out something that will work I’ll post the pictures of the final piece.
Until then I am going to move forward and keep the art pumping. This rusted beauty is a piece of a cultipacker, crumbler roller, and dirt clod breaker amongst other things. This is what makes Creature’s headpiece. When in its normal state, it makes a full circle and sits side by side with others along a steel bar. The width of this roller and the teeth on the individual pieces come in all shapes and sizes, but in the end all do the same thing. For those of you who want to know more about these rollers you can read about them here.
Like times previous, I will start sketching out ideas and share one with you as soon as I find something worthy of your time.
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago. Add a comment
Right now I am building a home, which I have found to be quite the experience. One day while walking through I was noticing some behavior that I thought was far from safe. Not wanting to lecture someone on a process that I truly know nothing about, I withheld from saying anything. A few days after that one of the supervisors came to visit. Later, once he was gone, I took my normal walk through to see the progress and saw there was “safety first” written all over the place and safety devices set up that weren’t there before.
Well, as many of you know I have a fancy pants SawStop. About two weeks ago I had turned the bypass on (keeps brake from engaging when it meets something conducting, like pink soft fleshy stuff) so I could cut a piece of wood with a thin sheet of metal on it. I made the cut and while clearing a piece of wood to make another cut, whack. Of course I let my guard down while the bypass is on and while inspecting the damage the little story shared above came to my mind with emphasis on “safety first.”
I cut my finger in the morning and the first pic was from later that night. The little thing bled like something from a Monty Python skit for the first two days. However the bleeding was not immediate and it was shaved as such that I could see the tip of my finger bone before it started gushing. The last picture was taken a couple days ago. You can see that it is healing and filling in quite nicely. Safety First. Tomorrow is the last day to get your Pirate Abe shirt.
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago. 4 comments
I must start by apologizing for the poor quality pictures. My lathe sits in a darker spot, which causes problems, but my camera seems to be malfunctioning as well. However the pictures get the point across, and I’ll make sure the camera is healthy for the final photos. All that is left to do is to apply a finish. I am researching what would be best for the rusted steel and would love any advice, if any is to be had.
I chose spalted maple for the base. I liked the idea of imperfect with imperfect to become perfect. The piece is a good size and fortunately the spalting ran through the entire piece. I felt a little wasteful using the spalted maple for this as so much of it will be unseen, but think that it will make the piece.
The piece of wood that is to be turned is piloted with a 3/8 drill bit and then screwed on to the chuck. The chuck here is already screwed onto the lathe.
Once the chuck it secure and the piece on the chuck, the shaping process begins. Not wanting to have the wood warp, I used a dry blank as you can tell from this photo.
Not wanting to waste any of this beautiful chunk of wood (I’ve got something planned for the rest of it) I used a skew and parted the now shaped and sanded base piece. Once the connecting piece got fairly small, I used a saw to cut the pieces apart.
Without the disc on it you can see that it looks very much like a UFO. The disc will be permanently attached to the base via liquid nails to keep it stable and together. This project feels like it has been sitting in my shop for way to long . . . oh wait, that’s because it has. It is now coming to an end though, and I have another great piece already picked out.
Again if there are anything thoughts on what finish would be the best, let me know, and be sure to check out Darrin’s shirt and get your own.
