PSeverin

Another top option might be to use 3 layers of 3/4" Baltic birch plywood. It comes in 5-0 x 2-6 size as a cut size, and so can be loaded into almost any car. You could probably skip banding the edge using the plywood. Yes it is more expensive, but so are the pills for curing a strained back from hauling 4 x 8 sheets of MDF to say nothing of the delivery charge from a lumber yard.

There are many ways to do things. I appreciate the simple direct, low cost approach for building a bench. Thank you for the well done article.

Peter

Very nice and fun to see a modern take with a few old elements. I like them as they are but I always wonder how they appear with a stack of magazines and books piled below and lamps and water glasses on the top. Still they are very striking by themselves.

Peter

Eccentric and fun. The waves across the front and the bubbles on the drawer side are wonderful and whimiscal. The feet, as if taken from some old animal seem not quite a match to what they are holding up. Than said, I am in awe of skill in making it and the courage to put it together all the elements in one piece.

Peter

When all else fails, Matt Kenny speaks Italian

Very nice. I wish there was a stronger tie between the mirror and table, the diamonds appearing on the table or the hanging black drawer in the mirror. Other than material similarity one could separate the two pieces and neither piece would be weakened. Still really nice work and perhaps way off base

Peter

I missed "bench" in the description and just imagined it as a spirited alter table or such in a church. I like the quirky and fun in design too which is why I am drawn to this bench. Perhaps that is why I hoped it was being used in front of a large group of people who could puzzle over it as they sat in the pews.

Peter

Definitely spirited and fun and well done. A few words on the why and how and where it is being used would be nice as well as a few other photos. I like it.

Peter

The chairs are very nice. It is curious to see them linked together, but I bet they don't stay that way long. I'm not sure how many people could place a love seat like this in a room. You must have a place for them.

I'm suggesting that they might function better as solo chairs, that fold flat rather than just transform volumes and yet somehow still nest together in the way you've made them.

Nice job.

Peter

Very well done piece. One wonders if the legs should have been less figured making the piece less monolithic, but one always wonders such things once you've done it the other way. Congratulations.

Peter

Making your own cut list is not hard using a spread sheet.

Unlike many I also use the information from a cut list to tell me how many lineal feet of a certain width stock I need to rip. That's a piece of information often not shown on cut lists. But knowing widths and lineal feet needed helps use the board widths I have efficiently. And yes, there's always a bit of waste so you always need cut a little extra.

I've even gotten to pasting little end profiles of the finished material so I don't mill everything the same as I go along. Obviously I've made that mistake.

Cut lists are a part of planning. Make them available on line. But being Fine Wood Working, see if you can't make the most useful cut lists out there.

Peter

I called it the "why Lord me" project. A house client said her former boyfriend wanted us to re-clad the 1st house they had built when they were together in Seattle. It was not a very pretty house in the one photo I would see of it... a stark 2 story structure over a basement garage, tiny punched window in fields of Masonite siding under shallow gables. What does he want it to be I asked?

A Japanese bungalow he said.

Can I change the roof? No he said. Can I change the eave, no... Can I see a picture of the side and back of the house...and he was too embarrassed to give me one. It's so ugly he said. Here are floor plans.

I could hardly drive over to see the thing. I live in St. Paul and Seattle is not close. But we must solve the problems we are given and well designed things don't really need much help. In the end it looked remarkably better and yes just slightly Japanese. We were both pleased with the results. It would be years before I could sort of see it through the thick Washington tree growth.

I know some will say a house isn't furniture. But it's just the way you look at it. Buildings are just big decorated boxes we bump around in instead of into. And this project was truly a "you want me to do what?" event.

Peter

Ed and MKenney

Stamped hinges aren't necessarily cheap or bad. Open the door to almost any office or house and you are exercising a stamped hinge. They can be heavy. They can be costly. They can be very precise. The method of manufacturer doesn't necessarily make a hinge cheap, sloppy or bad looking.

Most cabinet doors aren't very heavy and you don't really need 1/8" thick brass leaves to support them. The trick is to find the appropriate scaled solution to the problem. Among the options out there and I don't think most people can feel the difference in operation between the fancy extruded butt hinges and the less expensive one. They both work. They both look good.

My other point is that mortising both door and frame adds to the complexity of making a cabinet for a limited aesthetic pay back. Just because heavy house door hinges are mortised into the frame, doesn't mean the only way to go is copy the practice on much, much lighter doors. Mortising almost the depth of the hinge into only the door greatly simplifies hanging doors, particularly when set back from the face frame. The fact that the barrel of the hinge is not centered on the crack will scarcely be observed.

We all value different things. I believe there are better way to show craftsmanship, and expend limited time than mortising overly heavy butt hinges into a frame, just for the sake of doing it. And although I can afford the cost of extruded brass hinges, I don't find them appropriate or worth the expense. Which is probably why I've never wanted to own a Porche.

Peter

Garret Hack is amazing craftsman and it is always an education to see how he does something. But mortising the doors is the easy part. Why isn't there one picture of cutting the mortise in the cabinet frame. How do you get that router inside up against the top and the bottom?

For the quality of Garret's work the thick brass hinges may be the right choice. But on light doors for most cabinets, the ones from Ace hardware with or without ball ends are more than sufficient. I'm willing to bet they have a service life almost as long and at a fraction of the price. Heavier is not always better.

I also think the method where you only mortise the doors for the hinges and surface mount the hinges on the frame is under appreciated. Using the thinner pressed hinges you probably aren't mortising the door any deeper. Yet it reduces the work by half, improves alignment and allows you to inset doors from the plane of the face frame.

I may be the only one, but "fine" doesn't always mean doing things the hard way. I would encourage the magazine to show alternate ways to achieve the same thing.

Peter

Rob,

The post started with a question: how much camber should I put in a blade. You then gave us a starting point, a fact or a known if you will, saying you want to make a shaving .001 inch tapering to nothing at the edge. The problem becomes if you want to do that, how much camber is enough? The direct answer to the question is the thickness of shaving desired divided by the sin of the frog angle. You can and did, despite your denial, answer the question in the post.

My point was the math you used, in the form you used it disguised the answer, rather than reveal it directly. It doesn't matter much whether you use the answer directly or not. It is an answer to the question posed and something, someone might find useful.

The math reflects the variables you describe. If you want to take thicker shavings, or if you change the frog angle, the height of the camber arc will change. So as you say, it depends on what you want to do. But you have an answer that links all the possibilities.

Peter

Well written but didn't you get the math backwards? Didn't you give us the depth of the cut "f" as .001" and the question was what would "c" or the height of the camber be?

Then by simple algebra: C (height of camber) = F (depth of cut) divided by the sin of the angle.

I think the point you want to make is that you have to have a greater camber on a bevel down plane than a bevel up plane for the same depth of cut. I stumbled when your math example seemed to show that you got a thicker slice with a bench plane than block plane with the same camber.

Peter

The radial arm saw was the first bench saw I purchased in the early 70's Now that I have an equally old table saw I find that I use the table saw to rip boards and the radial arm saw to make cross cuts.

I think it is undeniable that that it is safer to cross cut on a radial arm saw and rip on a table saw. Use the right tool for the purpose. It has always struck me as ungainly and difficult to build huge cross cut boxes to accurately cross cut with a table saw.

I built extension tables to either side that allowed me to flop down long boards and handle them easily and safely. It's a lot easier to cross cut a long board on the radial arm saw held flat on the table than it is to cut a long board into small lengths on a table saw. Probably a lot safer too.

Clearing trees with explosives is one thing. Using the wood latter might be another.

A friend who works on the railroads said one rail company bought a large number of ties made from the trees dropped by Mt. St. Helen eruption. They found that the ties quickly crumbled from internal defects and didn't order more. Hard to imagine that trees miles from the peak could have been damaged so thoroughly and look so good.

Seemed like these guys were just playing and making a mess, than doing something useful. But it's Texas, and despite the highway signs, it's really hard to mess up Texas more than it is.

Very nice, sort of a stacking up of pure geometric shapes. I Love the tapered legs, arms and seats. I surprised by the placing of the back on the arms which are on top of the rear legs. It is almost as if you set the back there as an afterthought and said why not. Still, all in all, something to be proud of having accomplished.

Peter

The chairs are interesting, the craftsmanship impressive but could you explain a bit about the background of the form with a small attached foot stool. Do these have higher than normal seats where even if you don't need a running board to get in you need support for your feet when you get in?

Peter

Congratulations. I like this quite a bit and it is not just another hall table, four legs and a stretcher. It is good to see something painted. I had a teacher who said the first project he gave students was to make a painted toy. Paint is a nice finish he said. You've proved his point that even when it's a shade lighter than black, it can be wonderful. One wonders how this would look with stronger more vivid colors. I think it would stand up well and still look like the southwest.

Peter

It is a beautiful bench. But why is the stretcher not centered making a continuation of the lovely curved end boards. It seems like a natural thing to do that could strengthen an interesting design?

Peter

I find this to be a quite wonderful. It is, I think a folly, built knowing the rules and playing with them. How else can it be that you have notched the top at the point structurally that heft is most needed to carry a load except to play games. The curve and splay of the legs is very nice holding up the artfully shaped top. So congratulations on a lovely piece that goes way out on a limb to realize.

Peter

This is quite wonderful. Well maybe a few less dots on the sides, but altogether fun. Nice job.

It might just be the thing to push me over the edge and actually try to make a chair. It could be fun.

In the end each of us has some skill and we depend upon each other. You just can't know everything. And what seems simple to one person is impossible for another. We forget that we are part of a whole. We need each other. And down this road we come to embrace some of the ideas of socialism and communism. The underlying ideas that led to those two "isms," aren't dead, but lies slumbering in old magazines and ancestral countries waiting for a new label. Hand work, real craft has a value. It should be rewarded.

Ranking work has a long history and is deeply ingrained. I was amused to learn that notion of "Fine Art" started as a way to raise the social status of a group of artisans. Fine Art (unlike what you do) they said, serves no useful purpose and springs from the mind. Poetry was at the pinnacle and painting and sculpture right behind. The mind is pure. The hand is dirty. And with the help of some philosophers they managed to firmly fix the idea in our conscious. Isn't that basic idea, the ranking of the worth of trade skills that the article is tilting at?

Mostly I find it humbling that after years of book learning and more than 30 years practicing a craft how little I seem to know. We need each other.

Peter

Very curious. Nice too. The pictures of the bench from the side make the top seem dark but the pictures of the top make it seem light. It looks like it might be a tad unstable, sort of like it would fold up if you sat on it too hard or tip over or up. How stable is it? Anyway it's fun. Congratulation.

The chairs are interesting and perhaps deserve more interest than the table. I'm taken with the back slats that reflect the gap in the table top. I almost wish they continued below the seat to a lower rail between the back legs, sort of woven into a conventional chair frame. But the set is quite nice as it is.

Buy a chisel and then what? It will be a long time before most may actually find a use for that chisel. It will be and even longer time before they find the inclination or earn the money for the grinders, stones and jigs to properly sharpen one. What you mean it wasn't sharp when I bought it?

People usually start through a more direct approach to woodworking using simpler tools to cut 2 x 4s, plywood and drill holes in a wall. As we discover the limitation of the tools and materials at hand we come to explore the possibilities of something better. But it is a long jump from there to needing a 16" cast iron band saw to get started in woodworking.

I think it is humbling to discover how limited were the tools used by our ancestors and skilled craftsmen to get amazing results.

Peter

Really quite a handsome, well made piece. Congratulations. I bet it has quite a presence in a room.

Åsa,

The dominate furniture style of the 20th century will probably be labeled just "Modern," of which Danish modern is an offshoot. It may also become called industrial or post industrial. The modern furniture design people will be interested in laying out in a history will be the work of Bill Stump"s (sp?) for Knoll, the Eames bent plywood chairs, Erro Saarinen's pedistal chairs etc. All of these are investigations of ergonomics, industrial fabrication and use of new materials. For people interested in fine woodworking, this work has little to offer. Which is why you perhaps have looked to Danish Modern, and its skillful incorporation of wood. But Danish Modern is a branch, not the core of modern furniture movement. It sure can be beautiful though as one looks around and starts to notice examples.

Design has always seemed to be a reaction to the previous style. Wandering through the Milwaukee art museum my wife pointed to some Biedermeier furniture. "Look how modern it looks," she said. It did, almost like something out of the streamline design of Art Deco. It was done sometime around 1810 as the Germans (Austrian?) designer stripped away the frills and decoration of popular French furniture in disgust.

We tend to forget history, or more likely can't possibly know everything. Design has always been built upon what came before. It should not be a surprise that Malouf's work looks like similar to what someone else made at a similar time. We borrow, make reference, steal and combine. Occasionally it appears fresh and new. But years ago my pottery teacher, reminded me, laughed and said "... there's nothing new under the sun."

Danish Modern, I think is but one part of a long movement carried through the arts and crafts, influenced by the Bauhaus reaction to World War I, the folk traditions of Scandinavia and carried on today. I was surprised by how far back the roots go. Before Biedermeier , I'm sure there was some one else. Going forward someone will combine things in an interesting way and someone will say: looks like its based a Saarinen, a Castle, a Krenof, or van der Rohe. And they will be mostly right. But something will be fresh and new. As were, are the way materials, function and form are combined in Danish Modern.

David,

Maybe the original question should not be is Danish Modern the style of our time, but rather is Danish Modern about to become very popular again. I used to quote that we love what our grandfathers made and hate what our fathers did. There is is something romantic about a style and age not remembered clearly. Back before my fathers time was a golden age. Perhaps that is why craftsman furniture is having such a revival. But as today's children get older they seem to be looking at the period of their grandfathers....which might explain why hairpin legs and sliding peg board doors are gathering attention.

There are many elements beside proportion. Palladio is famous for designing buildings based on pure ratios (like music), rooms set 2:3, 3:5 with even the ceiling heights of each room clearly worked into simple whole number ratios. Except with foreshorting and oblique views we never really experience or can perceive the ratios we are looking at. It gave Palladio a reason,the rules of the game for what he put down. But is it really perceptually better than a gothic church where many of proportions are controlled by a square and it's diagonal or 1:1.414...... I'm not sure you could make the case. In either case the pursuit of proportion results in repetition and similarity which go a long way to hold something together. In short I don't think there are any magic solutions or rules for design. Sometimes it works. Sometime it sings Sometimes its an ugly, but useful folly.

It will be interesting to see what people do in pushing the bounds of Danish Modern, to make it fresh for people today. But in some ways I feel that It has been pushed to its limits, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous already. We'll see.

Peter

Design is filled with one liners that sail across a profession for a while. They come to define a fashion ..."architecture (or good design) is but frozen music..."and are useful in explaining a style but are silly when attempted to be applied as an ultimate standard.

Remember Mies van der Rohe proclaimed "less is more," which sounds like a more concise formulation of the Erickson quote. But does it work? Think for a minute of the modern black filled canvas in an art museum (the ultimate less) compared to Hieronymus Bosch's somewhat chaotic "Garden of Earthly Delights" Sometimes in design more is better and less is less. That's the problem. There are no universals.

Even the much vaunted notion of the golden section and proportion rests on a a false belief that eye works like the ear and see ratios like the ear can pick out pure mathematical ratios of sound waves. Unfortunately we rarely see furniture or buildings in pure elevations where the ratios are constructed. We can't see "frozen music."

Explaining why we like something over something else is difficult. Be wary of editors who proclaim only three elements can be contained in a piece of furniture or a food critic who thinks that sometimes the most exciting cooking can't come from home cooking. In the end I think out of basements can come some extraordinary wood working projects, from people with limited skills who just didn't know better, smiled and said "why not."

Peter

I just like the design. I almost wish the curved back was just a whim, like the tuning head or a musical line. It has a grace that would hold an ordinary flat blacked guitar equally elegantly. Nice job.

It's fun, I like the spirit and craftsmanship. As I looked at the moose on the top, I wished the legs at the rear of the table mirrored the gate of the moose legs instead of being splayed like a moose on ice. I know, it's always easier to think these things long after the fact... Just looking for a tie between the figure and the table.

I generally like it, but I question how the thrust of the legs intersects with the cloud-lift members under the table top. I think that the legs should hit the fattest part of the cloudlift perhaps stretching the width of fat transition from low to high so that it appears on each side of the legs. Well it's a suggestion. Maybe each of us has our own sense of how the parts should relate.

I like sketch-up for its ability to allow me to design; create a series of variations of a piece of furniture to try out various options. I often end up with models that are a long string of furniture that gradually transform from one form to another. It allows you to see what it would look like if the piece was higher, lower, fatter wider, doors one way other.

I'm not particularly interested in working out or showing complicated joints. I'm interested in what it will look like before committing the time and money to construct the project.

What I find interesting is that even with all the capabilities of the program to see everything, building with your hands brings surprises,. Opportunities arrive from picking up pieces and reacting to wood in hand that just can't be seen on a computer screen.

But isn't that what the Bauhaus was all about...to train designers who learned from being craftsmen and craftsmen who could do better if they learned how to design?

They look very nice from the rear. How about posting a picture with each chair rotated 90 degrees from the previous so that we could see how well they looked from the side and front.

Dovetails always seem to be made as you've drawn w/ a half pin at the top and bottom. But why. If the drawer face is left exposed it makes a not particularly pleasing pattern of different sized bars on the face that manages not to make a mark at the corner.

By accident I laid out the tails starting with a tail at top and bottom that grew in width as it moved toward the face. It would be as if you took your tails and flipped them front to back. Then I laid out a series of thin tails that make fat pins. The end pattern on the face is of a series of evenly spaced squares that start and stop at the corners.

I would attach a pdf file or a sketch model, but there seems to be no way to include them

Your skill with the program is far beyond mine, but I find sketch most useful as a tool to consider alternatives, slight variations and to convince myself that the project will be worth the effort to make it real. And even then, things change in the basement.