After steam bending the London Plane rails in a steam filled chamber for 45 minutes, the rails are left in a press for 48 hours to help hold the shape. The legs are then jointed to freshly steambent rails and are really looking great. A subtle curve like this is easy to get perfect and I cant wait to make the other rail.
Dressing Table - 1. Legs shaped for new dressing table in London Plane Lacewood
Vanity table in London Plane is progressing well. Finished London plane legs for new dressing table. The cupped facets, hand planed with a spoke shave have pulled out various weights of lacewood from mild feathering to wild tiger stripes
Another #walnut & grey glass #coffeetable ready for delivery
This walnut coffee table is light on its black leather feet, the considerable weight of the tinted glass tabletop anchoring the piece to the ground. The leather on the feet is adhered in a twisted formation, not unlike the handle of a badminton racquet whilst the leather stays on the leg tops provide the friction to keep the glass top in place.
Wild Craft/Modernist Context - Future Furniture with Provenance
After many experiments and prototypes, the final designs have a modernist styling with very simple lines and jointing to illustrate the visual versatility of London Plane and power of the Lacewood grain figure. After making reproductions and reinterpretations of early 20th century furniture including Gerard Rietveld’s Red Blue Chair along with research on the American Arts & Crafts Movement and European Modernism, I realised that designing furniture with stylistic restriction was the appropriate way to showcase both traditional hand tool methods and the visual qualities of London Plane, and Lacewood in particular.
Completed #Rietveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
The Rietveld Red Blue chair reproduction is complete. Looking good in the clients mid-century home.
Paint added to completed #Rietveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
The project to construct a copy of the Rietveld Red Blue chair is completed and now its time for the painting. It was important to obtain the precise colours to finish off this reproduction chair, the red back is Vermillion, the blue seat Ultramarine and the yellow end grain is Cadmium Yellow.
Of course this is the later version of the chair. The original version was designed and made around 1918 but the famiar, iconic colour version is from 1923 .
#revolvingbookcase in #walnut #Ariel finishing off in the workshop #furniture #craft #bookcase
The jointing and planing flush and sanding are all done by hand at the Bermondsey workshop. The detail and finishing are completed slowly so all imperfections are slowly removed.
Ariel is a totally bespoke bookcase, the design can be adapted to fit most book sizes. I have made nearly a dozen of these, all in walnut (maybe two in oak) and I would love to make one in a native timber such as ash, oak or cherry. I can offer 15% discount to anyone interested in an alernative to American Black Walnut.
#revolvingbookcase in #walnut #Ariel coming together in the workshop #furniture #craft #bookcase
Ariel is a totally bespoke bookcase, the design can be adapted to fit most book sizes. I have made nearly a dozen of these, all in walnut (maybe two in oak) and I would love to make one in a native timber such as ash, oak or cherry. I can offer 15% discount to anyone interested in an alernative to American Black Walnut.
Another #revolvingbookcase in production in #walnut #Ariel #furniture #craft #bookcase
Ariel is a totally bespoke bookcase, the design can be adapted to fit most book sizes. I have made nearly a dozen of these, all in walnut (maybe two in oak) and I would love to make one in a native timber such as ash, oak or cherry. I can offer 15% discount to anyone interested in an alernative to American Black Walnut.
Grerat feedback from customer in #Brockley #SELondon #Modernist #Diningtable & #Footstools in #EnglishOak
Hi Chris,
Thank you for the beautiful table and footstools. They look wonderful and fit the space perfectly. Thanks so much for your creativity and skill in bringing my ideas to life.
Mark
Brockley, London
Completed #Rietveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
Our small project to construct the Rietveld Red Blue chair is completed apart from the painting. What fun!
This project was a discussion about paired back design; resisting all superfluous elements in design and architecture was Rietvelds ethos and MO. The restraint in this chair design is exercised to facilitate possible mass production but also to achieve maximum visual impact, the chair is visually arresting from all angles and I cannot remember working on a chair design with so much negative space!
Making the #Reitveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
The chair is now jointed and glued up. It looks and feels very stable and solid, the low centre of gravity of the frame is more pronouced without the seat and backrest.
Reitvelds ideas for the Red Blue chair, as with much of the early furniture design, centred around contemporary techniques and technology. It is in this spirit that we elected to use a Festool Domino and its accompanying dowels rather than the round dowels specified in the original making notes.
Reproduction project #Reitveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
Unique to this project, the customer has requested to participate in its making. In this film he is concentrating and keen to show me that he has listened to my instructions but has been fairly giddy all day.
He has so far been invaluable, sizing components, painstakingly marking out the dowel positions and even helped with the jointing machine. I may even persuade him to paint it!
Reproduction project #Reitveld #RedBlueChair #modernism #destijlmovement #modernism
The first project of the year is a reproduction of the Gerrit Reitveld Red Blue cahir from the 1920s. Reitveld first designed the chair in the early 1920s and it was left in its natiral colour or painted black. The familiar chair with the red blue and yellow was made in 1927.
The picture above shows Reitveld outside his workshop in Utrecht in the early 1920s, sitting in an early version of the chair. Reitveld was a hands on maker, prefering to design as he made, and was every bit the artisan that his cabinet maker father was.
