woodworking
this one's about steam-bending.
Mike Jarvi is a well known furniture maker/woodworker. Most of his stuff doesn't appeal to me personally, but his simple steambent bench is a thing of beauty.
this vid is 15 minutes long. starting with the selection of a white oak butt and through to the finished bench, it's a lesson in mastery and awesome workshops.
at about the 9 minute mark, he pulls the piece from the steam barrel and sets it to form in six minutes. pure poetry.
his gallery is online at Mike Jarvi
Mike Jarvi is a well known furniture maker/woodworker. Most of his stuff doesn't appeal to me personally, but his simple steambent bench is a thing of beauty.
this vid is 15 minutes long. starting with the selection of a white oak butt and through to the finished bench, it's a lesson in mastery and awesome workshops.
at about the 9 minute mark, he pulls the piece from the steam barrel and sets it to form in six minutes. pure poetry.
his gallery is online at Mike Jarvi
Comments
I think I maybe in the wrong profession.
(Remind me, why did I leave furniture-making/restoration? :happy: )
Because this morning, If you were me.. You crawled into an attic/basically a crawlspace with 2 feet of room to work in..You then put 2 2x8"s flush with the drywall ceiling between 2 10" roof joyces (36"s apart) so the Home owner could screw some hooks into her kitchen ceiling to mount a a really crappy artsy pot and pans holder. You did not fall through the ceiling onto the very ugly "Island/cooking thing that is the pride of their kitchen. You only had 2 roof nails stick you in the head due to the fact you had 2 feet of moving room.. Then there was the joy of crawling out with 100 year old black dust on you...
do any of you have a woodworking collective in the area? that's the only way most people can afford the tools and the space.
dang, blues'.....a working class hero is something to be.....
the crawl space.....they always make me do that shit... "you're small; you'll fit better". i have a sawed-off hammer for those short swings.
the dust sounds horrible. i'm sure you wore a properly fitted dust mask/respirator. (sure i am)
i'd settle for a workshop 1/4 as awesome as Jarvi's. as it is, mine is the size of a large bedroom and there's precious little cool power equipment.
this (Canadian) fellow made his own mortising machine. i'm impressed.
That said, we were lucky that mostly we worked on biggish jobs and you got to see the end of something, you made something. Where as some of the 'paperwork' I'm about to start doing for project evaluation is like banging a nail into oak... ...with your head! :happy:
Another big reason many people don't get into woodwork is that it happens to be a really hard way to make money. Price is important to everyone and competing with mass production is tough. And as mick said, those machines are EXPENSIVE. Each easily worth a multi core MacPro plus studio display monitor.
I've always loved my own shop space which is built into an old barn but wow, this guy's shop is huge ....and that ceiling height would be wonderful too.
I steam bend a lot of pieces for my rocking chairs and loved to see the setup. Owner built like mine and perfectly adapted to a specific use. I believe the essence of wood craftsmanship is finding a creative way to make what you want, using what you have available. When I was making my press to bend the wood I was all set to go a supplier and buy an official bending press mechanism, Then I thought... that old car jack will lift my car so... maybe that'll work here.... and I used that. It's a bit hard on its bearings, but pretty cheap to replace! For some reason, I am foolishly proud of that idea.
Good tools are wonderful, but many people have a 'precious' attitude about them. It's not about the tools. A good craftsman can make a beautiful piece using an ax if that's what he (or she) has available. The other important skill, which I'm sure that Blues will agree with, is the ability to make a mistake and then to make it look as though you always intended it to be that way.
Mick, I think of steam bending as more of a dance than poetry. I rehearse the steps in my mind before starting. Absolutely everything has to be in place and accessible. It’s the heat more than the humidity that makes the wood flexible, so speed is essential. Even at his 5 minute time it's pushing things and the wood can start to cool. And believe me, it's disappointing to have done all the cutting, shaping and other preparations and then put the wood into the steamer for the proper amount of time and ..... to hear a CRAAACK just as the clamps bend it into the final shape. And even worse if it's because you've forgotten to have a clamp or something ready and the wood is cooling while you rearrange things. Even with everything perfect, the wood can fail under that stress. Some more than others and he is using white oak, which is one of the best bending woods.
And.. now I expect to hear no more about lurkers not posting! You guys may not realize it, but we lurkers have a list too, and believe me you don't want to get put on that list!
NOD!
I'm with you on the value of tools, you look after them, but they are tools, same with cameras, computers and cars, use them, don't abuse them (or is that women, joke ).
Oh yes, and the serendipity of mistakes :happy: true - designers know that too!
Anything I make is built to be sat on, eaten off, tripped over when drunk.. and hopefully it will be around for another 100-200 years.
i've only steam-bent small pieces, and cedar is very forgiving. (i use a bamboo steamer over a wok).
your work is stunning, vfb, and that rocking chair is goodness made palpable and fine.
not that it isn't lovely, but... that would go for 300 max here. they're almost no work at all, and ... 'course, wood's there for the finding. milling into slabs is the most expensive part. you usually have to slip one of the loggers an extra 20.
he has a nice big workshop, too.
Break out the clamps get out the powdered blue to make your formula from scratch depending on the humidity and weather for the next few days.. Then.. Do you biscuit or Domino? For a table top we Domino.. (This ones for peak.. we love the fucking domino system for tabletop glues-ups!)
http://www.festoolusa.com/products/domino-joining-system/domino-df-500-joining-system-574307.html
"mick said...someone paid him 1500$ for a freakin' trestle table?? "
Hey mick ..we made 4 of these out of old 130 year old red heart pine from demoed house... $1.200 each. Breadboard ends, hand waxed finish,.. sorry no minwax poly etc, etc, no nails or metal.. just a lot of old wood and love...
The table Is 8 feet by 36"
if it's flat, it's cheap here. (exterior doors excepted) there are more low-end woodworkers here than there are almost anything. maybe there's more potters.... you can get a set of hand thrown ramekins fresh out of the kiln for 15$. there's no work here. you sell your stuff for what you can get. since almost no one has any money, that "what you can get" ain't much.
i wasn't suggesting that skilled work isn't worth much, but a flat table knocks together in a couple of hours (after the glue sets).
i looked too, sorry 'peak. cool system. mark, plunge, and assemble sounds dreamy.
it just wouldn't sell for anywhere close to that in my neck of the woods.
x
You read it here first
not sure how i feel about the other end, though, but hey (or the price ) https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/63394039/10x42-bench-live-edge-cedar
anyone for sushi?
other sets, in maple, will have sliding dovetail joints on the feet (honestly, these should have, but the very slight curve in the bottom made shaped straight dadoes more practical) and matching chopsticks. we'll see how they are received when the shop opens in a couple weeks.