512 days ago
by Todd A. Clippinger |
24 comments »
Like most individuals, I consider myself to be self-taught. I have no formal training as a woodworker, I did not apprentice under anyone, nor do I possess any formal education in design or art. But it would be dishonest to say that I have not had any teachers. Like anyone else, I read everything that I can get my hands on and I have inflicted myself on many a hapless professional craftsmen.
I want to introduce the LJ community to one of my mentors. His name is Mike Blatnick and he lives in...
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776 days ago
by Mark A. DeCou |
23 comments »
Over the past few years, I have had the chance to build my own door handles out of copper for several commissioned art-furniture pieces. This is something I enjoy doing, and it gives my work another niche to offer.
I would not say that I am a coppersmith, as there is a lot that I don’t know about the process. I am almost completely self-taught, so there is bound to be a lot I haven’t learned yet. I bought two old reprinted books on the subject of coppersmithing, and I think ...
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783 days ago
by Mark A. DeCou |
22 comments »
Several have asked about what I am working on now, so I thought I would take a minute and post some progress photos.
My current work is a Kitchen Shelving and Desk system in Birch to match the styling of the exisiting cabinets built in the early 1960’s. Seemed like a fairly straight forward project for a past customer, and I like working for them. They “discovered” me, and that “Rates” in my book, regardless of what they want me to do.
During the planning...
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767 days ago
by Mark A. DeCou |
16 comments »
I’ve had a fun week. I’m building a chair to match the Tilt Front Desk that I previously posted, and blogged about. If you want to read about the desk, the posting link is given at the bottom of this blog.
The desk chair is designed to fit the customer’s kitchen, as the desk is being placed in the kitchen area. She loves to cook, and hopes to move her laptop computer station to the kitchen where she can capture her thoughts on her cooking blog, and do more writing.
...
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776 days ago
by Mark A. DeCou |
16 comments »
I’m in the midst of finishing up a project I have really enjoyed. Sure, it has taken me two times the hours I bid, but I am happy with the result. Actually, it has come out better than I expected, which is always a nice surprise.
This is a functional-art piece I wish I wasn’t selling, to be honest. But, I have already spent all of the down payment. So, giving the money back is not possible, so the customer will get her desk.
There have been a few pieces I wish I could ha...
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864 days ago
by Damian Penney |
16 comments »
So my next project is going to be a desk that I’m currently designing in Sketchup. I’m a big fan of the Art Deco & Streamline Moderne style so I’m trying to incorporate aspects of that aesthetic in my design.
This is the first pass..
I’m going to try and sneak a small form factor PC (perhaps a Mac Mini running XP) into the center drawer of the hutch, and have no visible wires.
I’m also going to use elements of my entry bench in the design i.e the...
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689 days ago
by Mark A. DeCou |
15 comments »
I have a client that lives close to me, and we have had a lot of fun designing and building things for their home. They sort of “pushed” me into quitting my day job by offering a long term commission to transform their home with functional-art pieces one at a time, according to an overall game plan. They had a general idea of what they wanted, but needed someone to turn the dream into wood.
They were willing to adapt their ideas to mine, and vice versa, and I have really appr...
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573 days ago
by Jeff |
14 comments »
As mentioned in the previous entry, at the suggestion of my instructor, I modified the design such that the whole top would be a torsion grid. This approach did present its own problem though. Since the design called for the ‘leg’ to act as a massive tenon seated in the underside of the top, I would need a lot of bulk around the leg. I considered laminating solid wood pieces to build it up. I decided against that; I can’t recall why.
Instead, I opted to take what I call t...
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581 days ago
by Jeff |
11 comments »
As I mentioned in the last entry, I found a project that jumped off the page and gave me the inspiration I needed to start the design for my project. I picked up the book Tradition in Contemporary Furniture and started thumbing through the pages…
Here is a shot of the cover for anyone interested.
This is the work that gave my creative juices a jump-start:Copyright 2001 by The Furniture Society. Artist: Gord Peteran, Toronto, Ontario, 1999. Photo by Elaine Brodie.
It reminded me...
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487 days ago
by Chris |
10 comments »
For quite some time now I have wanted to build a piece of furniture from scratch. This is partly because I could not find any one plan that suited me and because there are SO MANY things I just don’t know. Many folks like to “Prototype” or build mock-up’s / models. I wanted something more and something quicker and less expensive. That is were my Sketchup journey began; I started by working through the tutorials, then asking a whole lot of questions. Several of the most...
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24 entries
