Manipulation

By: Cole Hartke

During a furniture project I had the opportunity to experience the manipulation of materials in the design. From metal to wood I create a link between the two. The requirements for the project are that we are to construct a table that was fifty-four inches long by twenty-two inches wide by fourteen inches tall. The table must have a digital fabrication aspect and a recycled element.

            The design first started out with the decision of my recycled material. In this case it was to be an old piece of rustic tin. The tin was acquired at my grandmother’s house off of an old barn she had. While pulling the tin off of the barn I had to get up higher to get it. I stood on a pile of old board all covered in dirt and grime that I never would have taken a second look at to use for construction. I picked them up anyway in hopes to make use of them.

            The old boards that I found in the barn were leftover barn siding that they used to cover the barn itself. After paining them down I actually got to seeming I could use, and keeping the old look seemed to work well with the tin so the design kept its base around the recycled tin piece.

             Something interesting happened while working with the wood, I came across a board that looked like all the rest but when all the dirt was cleared it had a rich red color and a nice smell to it. This board turned out to be a piece of aroma red cedar. This rich red color played perfectly into the color scheme of the rusted tin with the red color.

            With the woods color working nice into the design of the table I needed the shape of the table to mimic that of the tin. With a simple cutout in the tabletop for the tin to sit in it created a curved inlet matching the shape of the curve in the tin. But that didn’t capture the almost playfulness of the tins structure. With some rater unique methods.

             The legs of the table were thin cut strips of oak that I wanted to curve in the playful shape of the tin to match its characteristics. To do this many things were needed to make it work. For one I had to construct a steam box so that I could put planks of wood in them to be able to bend them.

            To get the shape I wanted I had to make a form for the set wood after it came out of the steam box wet. Keeping it in this form for a period of time let the wood dry to keep the form I had created.

            With the construction of the legs and all of there curvy nature, I needed something to tie them together. I decided to use more of the red cedar that I used in the tabletop. This accent wood pulled the top and the bottom of the table together

             With all of these methods in place and all of the materials I have selected, the table was finished. The manipulation of the wood mixed with the selection of the color creates a strong link from the metal to the wood.