Charles' & Jeff's Dining Table

Here are a couple simple drawings of one of several tables I'm in the midst of making. This one is a dining table for my clients Charles and Jeff, who live in Lincoln. Aside from the legs, which will be slightly tapered, this is basically what the finished piece will look like. This piece continues my series of objects inspired in part by quilt patterns, though employed here in a subtler way here.

This, and another dining table I'm working on simultaneously, are my first forays into tables with leaves. For both I'll use a set of extenders that attach under each table top, allowing the top to separate in the center so the leaves can be dropped in.

For this design, the long side of each leaf includes 1/2 of a star pattern, which will allow the center star design to grow and continue as each leaf is added. The star inlays are paduak and yellowheart, and the table structure is cherry.

Cheers,

Peter

Fall & Winter Stars - 2 Experimental Tables

Before my friend Doug and I got rolling on the Organic Chair in November, most of my attention was concentrated on further exploring the repetitive, geometric technique I developed while working on my "Ark" chair. The two tables shown below are inspired by the recent transitions to Fall and Winter, respectively, and both follow the same symmetrical, 45-degree angle model. However, with these pieces, I concentrated on the star pattern that naturally emerges when using triangular-shaped pieces.

The tops of both these pieces might be the first thing that catches peoples' eyes, and I'm happy the fabrication of each worked out as well as it did with the number of variables presented with using so many pieces for each. They were somewhat tedious and time consuming to put together, but the base and legs for each proved much more challenging to put together. I should quickly mention that the fabrication process for the tops of each are not "inlay" as several people have commented. They're not stained either; the colors you see are the natural colors of the woods (mostly walnut, paduak, canarywood and redheart), with only a topcoat of semi-gloss polyurethane. Inlay involves insetting thin, non-geometric (marquetry) or geometric (parquetry) shapes into another surface. These star tables are made by putting together hundreds of individual diamond-shaped pieces.

But back to the base and legs. These were more challenging - particularly the curvy orange (made of paduak) and yellow (made of canarywood) turned ones.











In the picture on the right side, you might be able to see a curved cut mark near the foot of each one. These wrap around each leg, again in a pattern, and were partly the result of an accident. I'm not sure if this is a common occurance of more seasoned woodturners, but I often get a lot of splintering near the top and bottom of my stock. In an attempt to combat this, I started off by cutting a 45-degree angle around the stock near the top, thinking this would preempt any splintering that normally occurs. As I was turning the area around the cut, I noticed a rounded, petal-like form emerging. This did fix my splintering problem, but also resulted in an innovative form that further highlights the botanical spirit of the whole piece.

Next up, I'm going to try to make a massive form using this pattern technique. My dad, who is much better than I am with math, reminded me that the angle of cut of the triangular/diamond shaped pieces would determine the number of points on similarly star-shaped fabrications: 60-degrees = 6-sided; 45-degrees = 8-sided; 30-degrees = 12-sided; etc. So next up, I'm tackling a project that will use a combination of 60- & 30-degree pieces. But this time, I want to make something that has a rounded or wavy top surface. Any fellow woodworkers, artists, designers or math whizzes out there who can help?

Fleeting Thoughts like Falling Leaves

One of the reasons I usually enjoy living in Omaha is that I'm basically a small-town guy at heart. And let's face it, Omaha is kind of a small town. I want to think I'm a big city kind of guy; that I'm drawn to the largeness of movement and noise and action, but it's really not true. I travel for work several times a year, usually to larger cities, and after a few days, I usually can't wait to get back HOmaha. Even so, growing up in the midwest - first in Kansas, and for the last 10 years in Nebraska - I think I've had a tendency to take for granted the richness of the midwestern landscape. Who isn't at least a little drawn in by a soft breeze flowing over wheat fields before the harvest? Or the simple pattern of rows of corn, soybeans, and whatever else farmers grow around here?

The leaves started turning and falling in my Benson neighborhood several weeks ago. Initially they fell fast and hard, pulled down by the weight of a premature snow. Soon a wet, yellow blanket was covering the ground.

Over the course of the last few weeks bursts of rusty reds and oranges have joined the yellow blooms in a dying explosion of color. I don't remember the colors being this vibrant before. Or being so drawn to the contrasting tones. I'm nearly overtaken every time I turn a corner on my drive home from my studio. It gives me chills to see the yellow leaves flutter from the tops of the trees after small gusts of wind pull the stems from their branches. I don't remember being this influenced by nature either - maybe marriage is making me soft.

As beautiful as the view is now, we all know the landscape will soon give way to a neutral wash of white and brown. But as with the rest of the natural landscape, the lines and contrasts of brown against the impending snow will display a subtler beauty that is harder to see.

These same past few weeks have been busy ones for me. I've been stealing as many hours in my shop as I can trying to turn these star fabrications into tables. They are also a simple gesture at both capturing and honoring the beauty of the Fall and coming Winter landscapes, respectively. The uniform shape of each piece - both in the star form and each contributing diamond shape - echoes the symmetry and simplicity of the fallen leaves. And like a leaf, the simplicity of their form sometimes masks a design that is more complicated the closer you look; it was not easy cutting and fabricating between 200 and 300 individual, uniform pieces of wood together. As I mentioned in my previous post, these pieces are my attempt to - dare I say - turn over a new leaf, in attempt to make work that is more environmentally sustainable than I've attempted in the past. I like to think that with each successive piece of furniture or art or whatever you'd like to call them, that I'm honoring the materials as much as I can.

These tables are also part of my contribution to the ORGANISM project in the Empty Room. If you'd like to see how they turn out, please stop by ORGANISM throughout November and help us grow the space. Don't forget to bring your hammer.

Jean's Drawers

Here's another recent addition I haven't had the opportunity to post yet. I designed and fabricated this and another similar drawer for my friend Jean, to be joined an existing table top she made from wood salvaged from the Falstaff brewery. 

The quilted look of the drawer fronts were accomplished by fabricating a series of small (1") diamond-shaped pieces of cherry and Spanish cedar together. This is very much the same process I used for the body of the "Ark" chair in my Share Your Chair blog. The center starburst is made of alternating pieces of cocobolo and redheart. The knobs are made turned from cocobolo and cherry. Though not really visible in these photos, the top and bottom are walnut veneered plywood; the sides are cherry and cocobolo. I finished it all off with a couple coats of semi-gloss polyurethane.