This Is Actually A Sculpture

at what point do you give up on a project hopefully never but the reality is sometimes we bite off more than we can chew in an effort to be unique my mission in this video is to turn an ordinary piece of furniture into a sculpted piece of art it needs to be fully functional accomplish every request on my client's brief and be a one-of-a-kind piece the problem is my clients absolutely love this model but in real life wood can't naturally do this and I have no idea how I'm going to make it let's face it Furniture these days can be kind of boring in a world full of knockdown disposable Furniture we tend to be limited by a simple repetitive style but thanks to talented furniture makers from all around the world we're getting to see people coming up with more and more unique ideas and with the ever growing popularity of Woodworking and its potential to go from Hobby to Career trying to find a unique voice is becoming harder and harder which is why whenever I get the opportunity to create a unique piece for a client I go all in because I know that this is an opportunity to create something unusual that can potentially bring in more work in fact the clients for this desk are two of my favorite clients who bought this piece a few years ago the wood I'm using for this desk is Walnut and a big thank you to Britain Timbers for supplying this wood I'll leave a link to their website below if you want more information on different Timber species you'll see throughout this video just how incredible this grain looks now Walnut was one of the things on my client's brief but let's chat about some of the other key points now my clients want a minimal desk design but one that also has a unique sculptural element to it so these are two very different things that need to be combined together which isn't really an easy task now they are currently using a temporary desk in their office and they absolutely love the size of this desk so that measures 1,500 mm by 750 mm and then they want a custom height which is 750 mm high now this desk is only going to have a computer sitting on top of it so that's going to tie in with the whole minimalist look but they also want a place to be able to store important documents so this desk will need a drawer but keep in mind the clients do have other Storage Solutions in their office speaking of which the office layout plays an important role in the overall design of this desk as the desk will be placed in this position and the entrance to the office is here so you can see that this corner is the leading corner of the desk and that's where I'm going to have to create the sculptural feature and the other requirements is just to have a dark brown wood in a finish that's in between a matte and a satin finish so with all this information I created a few different designs some easy and some difficult and my clients settled on this one which is so difficult that I had to make a model of it in order to translate the ideas so I guess now I have to try and make this thing now as I mentioned in the intro I have no idea how I'm going to recreate this model because making those intense curves creates a number of issues particularly when it comes to the overall strength of the rails and legs not knowing how to make it may sound irresponsible seeing that the clients have paid their deposit but let me just clarify I do have a strategy for three different potential options to make this desk but I don't know which if any I can use until the main structure is built because on a Unique Piece like this a scale model or 3D rendering isn't going to encapsulate the correct feel or proportions until it's in front of me at full scale thankfully each option uses roughly the same amount of wood which means I could order all of the material and start building I'll get into the different options a little later but first let me show you one of the many tricks I have up my sleeve for this [Music] piece [Music] what do you do when your material isn't thick enough the issue I'm facing here is my leg stock once miled is 70 mm thick but this leg needs to be 80 by 80 mm thick at the top you can see the leg design here the design is actually a key element to this desk as it is somewhat of a common style leg it's got a nice taper to it and later on I'll add in a large roundover but the key to this leg is the fact that it's not out of the ordinary this leg as well as the top and some of the Rails are what makes this piece look like a normal desk in fact you could make this desk with four of these legs and it's done still a great looking piece of furniture but not what the client is after which is a normal looking and functional desk but with a sculptural element now the width of the leg is fine cuz I was able to cut it out of a wide board but I need to sort something out to thicken up this piece of wood without making it look too obvious this is where the first trick comes in I've made my leg stock longer than the leg itself then by simply cutting off the excess and rotating it I've now doubled the thickness while also completely hiding the join as the material is all coming from the same area next I'm going to shape the leg using using another trick that I've actually never done [Music] [Music] before one of the most annoying things about making templates for something like a leg is that you need a guide Block in order for the leg to sit in the right position this is annoying because on a leg design like this you need a left and a right template so one template for one face and another template for the other face which means you either need to make two templates which is timec consuming and uses more materials or you need to route one side on each leg then flip the template over and reposition your guides which may be inaccurate and it's also time consuming but this idea makes things way easier I made my leg template to the exact profile I want of course making the template oversized to give somewhere for the router base to sit on and a place to position the guides then using my drill press and fence I drilled holes through the template these holes represent the outer edge of my leg and by placing Dows into the holes you can easily make a right and left template by simply hammering the Dows to one side of the template the only thing you want to ensure here is that your holes are drilled square and that your Dows are a tight enough fit so they don't wobble or fall out you'll see me flip the template over [Music] shortly I'm sure you've heard of the term tricks of the trade before these are Nifty little tricks that professionals use to help either make life easier or make the final outcome better and a lot of the time you can only learn these tricks when you're in the industry which is a shame I enjoy sharing these tricks with all of you but unfortunately there's just too much information to share in a 30 minute YouTube video as YouTube videos need to be concise and to the point which means you miss out on a lot of information which is why I put up tips and tricks as well as behind the scenes videos as the build is happening over on my patreon I've also uploaded a five-part video series of this desk totaling 2 hours of footage it's a slower paced build that shows more detail with no voice over or music just shop sounds I'm Blown Away by the amount of people that have joined since my last video and as always a big thank you to each and every one of you now you don't need to hear me mention patreon every time there's a video related to what I'm talking about so for the rest of this video I'm just going to add this icon here there will be a link to each video in the description which shows a preview of what to expect now with the legs almost done it's time to figure out which option to take with the curved sections of the [Music] desk we are now at the point where the desk is no longer a model which is exactly where I want to be to start considering the next order of operations I mentioned I had three different ideas to accomplish these curved rails which I'll now get into while you watch me cut out the curved leg the first was gluing thin strips of wood together using a method called bent lamination and vacuum pressing a technique I used in this bench but after seeing this desk in full scale I feel like I want the rails to have big round overs on the edges which means I'll end up cutting into the thin laminations exposing all of the glue joints meaning you won't see much wood grain which is a shame because this Walnut grain needs to be shown off a way around this is to use a similar laminated process except I could use thicker wood and steam bend them into place this would kind of solve the issue of seeing a bunch of laminated joins but the problem after seeing the desk at full scale is just how sharp the curve on the short rail needs to be something that's probably not going to bend well through Steam bending not to mention the fact that I would have to spend a lot of time building a form to clamp the wood to after steaming so that leaves me with my final option but let's take it over to Workshop Nick to discuss that so now that I've got the curved leg roughly in place as well as roughly cut to the shape I'm looking for the next step from here is working out the curved rail system and this is where things get a little bit complicated now because of the size of these curved rails as well as the angle that they're placed at we're going to have to work out a careful way of ensuring that the grain is running in the correct direction in order to gain the most amount of strength so that's going to require a few different joins throughout the rail system and in order to hide those joins as best as possible I want to ensure a good color match as well as trying to match the grain as best as I can so let's go over to the piece of wood that I'm going to use and I'll show you how I'm going to try and do that now the entire rail system is going to be made out of this chunky piece of Walnut here which is approximately 3 in thick and the length is going to allow me to do the entire rail system now in order to achieve the most amount of strength I'm going to have to add a bunch of joins and reorientate the grain Direction so the way I'm going to do this is break down this board into smaller sections then work on them individually and then join them back together the trick here is to ensure that I mark up each board so then that way when they get joined back together they're going back in the same place that they were cut out of this original board what that is going to do is match the color and the grain as well these joints aren't going to be invisible but doing it this way will at least give you the best chance at hiding that join as best as possible now that's a lot of words and understand a little bit confusing but as the build progresses this should all make [Music] sense now this method of joining large pieces together means from this point on I'll be working on the sculpture in a reductive manner so I'll be removing material to expose the shape inside which is an exciting Pro process but one that takes practice I sometimes get the feeling that people look at these processes and feel somewhat disheartened as it looks too complicated but like every skill in life you have to start somewhere and even though you may be a beginner at something doesn't mean that your knowledge is any less valuable you can learn something from anyone whether you're a beginner or an expert just because I've been woodworking for most of my life doesn't mean I can't learn something from someone who has just started their Journey because you don't know who their teacher is or the information they've been taught I started my apprenticeship back when I was 18 years old by this stage my grandfather had already been teaching me his tricks of the trade for 10 years so needless to say I had some knowledge behind me at that point but when I started my apprenticeship no one would take me seriously and this was frustrating thankfully I worked with a couple of Tradesmen that took me under their wing and treated me like a peer while also teaching me their tricks of the trade which gave me the confidence to keep going in my apprenticeship the reason why I bring this up is because even though I'm confident in my woodworking abilities that's only going to take me so far now that I'm producing more videos for YouTube and patreon making videos is still a skill set that I'm learning which is why I love watching woodworking videos on YouTube whether it's an instructional video by Paul cers or a perfectly crafted Story by make it with Miles I find these videos full of information and inspiration and my algorithm these days seems to be full of new or upcoming channels or channels that have been around for a while and have a small but dedicated fan base and I'd love to see more so if you make woodworking videos or any videos to do with your creative Endeavors then write I make stuff in the comments below from your channel account I'd love to see what you do plus this could be a great way for others to scroll through the comments and discover new channels now you've just watched me cut in two different angles on my table saw but I'm not done yet I need to introduce another angle but I'm going to have to do this in a less conventional [Music] way [Music] [Music] [Music] after shaping the main structure of the Rails it's now time to build up the blank in order to start carving away you can see that I've positioned the cut up boards back into place referencing the markings I made earlier these boards do have to overlap one another in order to join them together as well well as create the curvature I'm after which you'll see soon understandably I'm not going to get a perfect grain transition but by carefully reading the grain once carved they should flow well together once again it won't be perfect but it will still look appealing and [Music] intentional now this is the exciting part of the build for me because this is where the ordinary Furniture begins to evolve into a sculpture it's the creative decisions that I make now that will affect the final outcome needless to say this is where everything could go wrong as there's no going back when you create something in a reductive manner one bad decision or slip of your carving tool could mean that you have to reluctantly change the direction of the shape you're after because once the material is gone you can't get it back but if done correctly the reward is a one-of-a-kind piece that you can truly be proud of that's actually one of the greatest things about turning nothing into something the fact that it started out as your own idea that's now a tangible piece means that there's only one of them in the entire world I mean think about it this planet is billions of years old with a surface area of 510 million square km that holds nearly 200 countries and 8 billion people and to think that one individual can design and make something that is one of one there's not a single copy of it anywhere on this giant Planet that's pretty incredible now granted there are people out there that steal other people's ideas making that one of one not so special but that's a topic for another video now you may notice that I have a third piece of wood that I'm joining to the first two and that piece is purely just to thicken up the long rail the good part about it is you won't see this piece once everything has been carved so I didn't need to grain match although it has come from an offcut with a similar color if you haven't seen me glue up like this before I'm simply using a toughen glass panel to ensure a flat gluing surface that way I can get each piece to sit perfectly on its flat side I've also used a small amount of salt on the joins to stop the pieces from sliding around so we're now getting closer to the fun part which is the power carving and you're going to notice that this is just the beginning of the carving stage as there is a lot of back and forth using power tools and hand tools ensuring the desk looks good from all angles and if you watch my rubo workbench video then this is where you'll finally get to see it in action in fact I use it quite a bit from this point on and this is actually the first project I've built with the rubo and in all honesty I can't believe I've gone this long in my career without it every clamp works as intended and I'm surprised just how much I'm enjoying using the hold bar and yes there are a few dings and scratches on it but I'm totally fine about it no seriously I'm fine it's fine I'm fine yeah right you believe this guy Jerry I'm fine it's also getting to that time where I need to join the long Rail and the short Rail and the leg together that's three joins in one and I already know that some of you aren't going to like how I do [Music] [Applause] [Music] this [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so now I'm at the point where I want to start doing all the joinery for where where the leg meets the rails and the perfect tool for this is going to be my Domino jointer now even though this is a little bit complex with the correct planning and the right procedure this is actually going to be really simple and even though a lot of people tend to think that using a domino is cheating this is going to be a perfect example of just how creative you can get by using a machine like this now I know that there's a lot of controversy about this tool but if you're running a professional shop then in my opinion this tool is a must in fact I think it's one of the greatest inventions to happen to Modern woodworking but if you're not running a professional shop it's not a necessity it is very expensive but if you are someone that's annoyed with me using this machine to complete the joinery for this desk then let me just say you're going to be even more annoyed because I'm also going to be using my other Domino to complete the joinery of this desk now let me show you the process in how I'm going to achieve this joinery so let's take a look at these joins first now you may notice that we have two flat spots on each rail The Wider one is where one rail meets the other Rail and the other flat surface will meet with the flat surface of the leg now it's important to note that these two flat faces are actually a right angle so in order to achieve the joinery on the large flat face where one rail meets the other we're actually going to use the face that will join to the leg as a guide for the Domino fence to sit on so let's do that now and then we'll get into where the leg meets the rails later now I don't really need to use both Domino machines in order to achieve this joinery although the larger version is the necessary one in this case as it allows me to add a lower than usual mortise the reason why I'm using both is because it will allow me to create both rows of mortises without having to reset a single machine now as I mentioned earlier the two two flat faces of the Rails being at a right angle to one another is very important because this allows me to use the small flat face as a guide for the Domino machine which creates the joinery for the rails then by simply rotating the rail I can use the wide flat face to create the joinery for the leg this turns an otherwise complicated and confusing process into an easy one and having both machines to do this is a luxury I know but like I said this is a professional shop and good tools are an necessity for my productivity making quick work of this allows me to focus my attention onto other important details one of which is coming up and had to be the best part about this entire build the placement of The Dominoes in the leg isn't as straightforward as the rails but with an off cut the same thickness as the leg this process was simple enough with a bit of back and forth while I got the right Domino placement anyone that's planned out a project knows just how satisfying it is when you start seeing it all come together it's always rewarding to know that your time and energy has paid off now if you watch my rubo workbench video then you may know the time I put into the Mox and vice which you'll finally get to see it in action in the exact way it was intended for speaking of plan projects there's something I've been planning for nearly a year now it's a piece that's by far going to be my best yet and it's finally going to come to life in the next few months so if you want to get notified of it be sure to [Applause] [Music] subscribe it's probably a good thing that the best part of this build comes towards the end I'm not sure about you but I do tend to get over a piece if it doesn't have multiple exciting Parts throughout it but this is where all the fine-tuning begins to take place where the true sculpture comes to life I mean there is a downside of leaving the fun part to the end as it could all turn to and all the hard work up until now could be a waste but this is a slow refinement process one that takes time and Care in order to not push it too far but before I discuss that in more detail let's go back to the tapered leg from the start of this video and take it over to my Mox and vice that was carefully constructed to clamp legs exactly like this [Music] one [Music] [Music] the refinement stage is a slow but necessary one it's essential to place the sculpted piece in the position that it will be seen the most so for a desk that's obviously on the floor and not on a workbench this allows me to walk around it view it from all angles and make any adjustments to ensure it looks right from all angles you see due to all the Angles and curves of this design the sculpture actually changes shape as you walk around it what looks great from one angle may look terrible from another it's a balancing act that could make or break the final outcome of the piece so it's a matter of marking up The Unwanted areas taking it back to the bench to carve them then repeating bringing it closer and closer to the final [Music] outcome trying to find a balance with artistic Furniture isn't an easy task I find that usually it goes too far in either direction not enough artistic flare or too much to a point that it's over the top personally I feel like my furniture can be a little over the top sometimes which does have an acquired taste but if you want to see a perfect balance then I would suggest checking out Australian Furniture designer and maker Nathan day whose creative ideas turn beautifully designed Furniture into pieces of art that is subtle and Incredibly effective his furniture not only looks amazing but his processes in achieving the end result is always fascinating to me I'll leave a link to his Instagram below if you want to check out more of his [Music] work [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] I asked at the very beginning of the video at what point do you give up on a project it's quite easy to question yourself and your abilities when you're trying to build something difficult to feel over helmed or defeated I'd be lying if I said I hadn't given up on personal projects in the past but one thing I've learned over the years is that uncomfortable feeling of entering the unknown is one that needs to be embraced as that feeling is a sign of learning something new I have no problem admitting that even after all this time I still question myself but these days it brings a smile to my face cuz deep down I know that I'm about to create something I've never done before [Music] Libra see you [Music] never [Music] see [Music]

Channel: Pedulla Studio

Views: 552,831

Keywords: wooden, cabinetry, carved, custom made, festool, woodworking, handmade, Furniture, wood, how to make, how to build, DIY, maker, woodwork, artisan, interior design, bespoke, build, timber, custom design, handmade furniture, hand made, custom, Furniture maker, cabinet maker, builder, woodworking projects, woodworking ideas, custom made furniture, woodworkers bench, traditional woodworking, custom desk, furniture maker, walnut, walnut desk, sculpture, carving, carved furniture, carving furniture

Id: jzeKqLJqTNQ

Length: 31min 25sec (1885 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2024