Shadrach's Lamps

[Shadrach]

Seasoned and correctly stored hardwoods are incredibly expensive these days. Most construction timber even hardwoods have been artificially dried through one process or another. Many years ago wood the great furniture makers used to pick the trees have the tree cut and the wood planked at various thinnesses and carefully dried for a couple of years.
As examples, common red oak board prices are usually around $40 for a 24" x 3" x 1" strip.
It's quite difficult to find any seasoned hardwoods at a maximum thickness above 3".
The thicker the piece of wood, the more expensive it is.
If you are constructing something that requires more thickness then you need to join thicknesses of board together.
Almost all my lamps are above 3" thick and of course, the wood isn't correctly seasoned so the wood has splits and cracks in most pieces.
This poses some constraints on what I make. In general I try to make use of the serious cracks in the design. Provided I can cut out down to the bottom of the V in a crack the wood stays stable.
On the lamp Sail in one of the posts above, the inserts have replaced cracked portion of wood and the slate paste design at the back is filling in natural cracks made when drying.
I was interested in getting a 6" x 6" x 14" chunk of seasoned Alzina Surera a few years ago. I got quoted 130 Euros!!! and I would have to wait over a year for it.
The lamp in the pictures below came from a piece of Alzina Surera 14" x 8" x 5". But of course it is not carefully seasoned wood and this piece has every fault known it seems. Some of the faults are from how it grew and would have made it a reject for fine furniture making and others are through being tossed on a pile of fire wood and left in the sun to dry out.
The price of the wood is something that most do not factor into the cost of the lamps I make. As I pointed out to one potential customer, just because you found an ingot of gold and it's got dents in it, doesn't make it worth any less. Wood, like all commodities has a price per unit of volume.
Now, if I had a lovely bit of seasoned Alzina Surera I wouldn't be tearing my hair out dealing with things like this!
This will be the base. It has patches were the wood has turned to a hard cork like consistency. The corky stuff has to be dug out. In the worst cases over time these little pockets just fall out! They also weaken the structure so need to be replaced with something stronger. The slate paste works well for this.

This is the top of the lamp. These cracks need to be cleaned out and filled.

The black spots on the lower right have been dug out and filled.

Going through the wood at another angle the defects present themselves as cracks.

Progress is slow. I did mention this was going to be a mission.

 

[bruceha2000]

Many years ago wood the great furniture makers used to pick the trees have the tree cut and the wood planked at various thinnesses and carefully dried for a couple of years.

Yep. Some years ago (late 1670's actually) one of my ancestors designed "The Old Ship Church" meeting house in Hingham, MA. All the wood was cut but he didn't live to see it built, the beams had to dry for years. My understanding is it takes a year per inch of thickness for a beam or tree to dry naturally. Got yourself a 12" tree? 12 years to dry.

Progress is slow. I did mention this was going to be a mission.

You do have a masochistic streak don't you

 

[Shadrach]

Yep. Some years ago (late 1670's actually) one of my ancestors designed "The Old Ship Church" meeting house in Hingham, MA. All the wood was cut but he didn't live to see it built, the beams had to dry for years. My understanding is it takes a year per inch of thickness for a beam or tree to dry naturally. Got yourself a 12" tree? 12 years to dry.


You do have a masochistic streak don't you

I had to have a look. Now there's some craftsmanship in that construction.
Years ago in the UK there was quite a strict definition of woodworkers, the top of the tree being a master cabinet maker. The skill of these people was to me incredible and they would have been involved in projects such as The Old Ship Church.
Maybe you've inherited your interest in woodwork from your ancestors.

 

[bruceha2000]

Yes I did though I'm not that skilled and surely couldn't do the hand work you do!

That same ancestor designed and built the first state house in Boston. He was banished to Hingham because he thought people who didn't own land (which he did) should be able to vote.
First Boston state house

 

[Shadrach]

Yes I did though I'm not that skilled and surely couldn't do the hand work you do!

That same ancestor designed and built the first state house in Boston. He was banished to Hingham because he thought people who didn't own land (which he did) should be able to vote.
First Boston state house

Thanks for the link. It's an incredible building.

 

[Shadrach]

It's getting there. Still got a few problems though that need to be sorted out if I can before the finishing waxes and polishes.
Top and bottom corners of the innermost black line are not flush to the wood surface; not quite enough slate paste in.
The base of the lamp body isn't flat enough. Trying to get the mating surfaces in end grain flush is a nightmare.

This side is pretty good.

There are still places in the back, particularly in the crevices that need cleaning out.

The hole in the top just wont take the slate paste. The cork type wood that fills such holes is compacted dust essentially and the paste will not stick to it well enough to sand back.

I may have to live with this.

The top edge needs tidying up.

After the above niggles are done it's sand with 400 grit, polish and sand back again until the worked surfaces are smooth. Last is fit the electrics.

 

[Shadrach]

This lamp is called Glass Cutter.
The true colour is somewhere between the outside pictures and the inside pictures.

 

[Shadrach]

You may have noticed in the background of some the pictures of lamps I've taken inside the house, the piece below.
I've been asked if I could do some proper art and make a sculpture. I got a couple of pointers then was asked if the piece below they had seen loitering in the background was spoken for. It wasn't, but it is now.
This person liked two distinct styles, but what they did mention was they wanted something they could touch more than just look at. So, I've set about trying to make something based more around how it feels rather than how it looks. I'm after lots of surfaces that blend together. I'm also after an object that can be easily gripped from as many angles as possible.

When I first started with this piece it was a mess, but the shape was in there somewhere. I've had various ideas as to what to do with it, but nothing that fired up enough conviction to actually get on with the job until now. I've got a plan. I don't know if it's going to work, but after a few hours working on it it's slowly coming together.
This is it after a couple of hours cleaning up. If you look back in the thread you can find pictures of this showing lots of slate paste on it.
I've roughly sanded what I'll call the inside (first and second picture) and got the basic shape sanded.

It's not easy to see but this is a couple of hours later. More sanding on the inside and some chisel work done on the back, cutting in an extra surface.

 

[Shadrach]

I was sitting at the table with Moon on my lap last night as I gave her a mite check looking at the sculpture.
"it's clumpy isn't it Moon?" I said.
"Yep, it's clumpy" she replied.
"not sure what I should do about it" I said.
Moon mentioned that she couldn't really see what the fuss was about. After all, it's not as if it's edible!
I went into some detail explaining that through various intermediaries I could exchange the piece of wood for walnuts.
Needless to mention I had Moons full attention and she was bursting with ideas, but mostly seemed interested in how many walnuts I could get if I exchanged it right now. Once the prospect of immediate walnuts was dashed, we decided what it needed was style. It has loads of colour in the wood. In some places it's almost red. The camera is sucking the life out of everything again.
Having got Moon back to the coop and on a perch where she is no doubt broadcasting the immennt arrival of more walnuts to everyone else I filled one side where the cracks are with slate paste and thought about what I needed to do to give the thing style.

At the various fairs I've been to I've seen a lot of artists who work with stone. The big stone with a hole in it is almost ubiquitous at such events. While I appreciate the work that has gone into such pieces often they are a little short on imagination and consequently style.
I want something a step or two up from that.
Four hours later the next morning and I've got some style. It's such a shame the pictures suck the life and colour out. Daylight shots help but it's pissing down with rain.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I was sitting at the table with Moon on my lap last night as I gave her a mite check looking at the sculpture.
"it's clumpy isn't it Moon?" I said.
"Yep, it's clumpy" she replied.
"not sure what I should do about it" I said.
Moon mentioned that she couldn't really see what the fuss was about. After all, it's not as if it's edible!
I went into some detail explaining that through various intermediaries I could exchange the piece of wood for walnuts.
Needless to mention I had Moons full attention and she was bursting with ideas, but mostly seemed interested in how many walnuts I could get if I exchanged it right now. Once the prospect of immediate walnuts was dashed, we decided what it needed was style. It has loads of colour in the wood. In some places it's almost red. The camera is sucking the life out of everything again.
Having got Moon back to the coop and on a perch where she is no doubt broadcasting the immennt arrival of more walnuts to everyone else I filled one side where the cracks are with slate paste and thought about what I needed to do to give the thing style.

At the various fairs I've been to I've seen a lot of artists who work with stone. The big stone with a hole in it is almost ubiquitous at such events. While I appreciate the work that has gone into such pieces often they are a little short on imagination and consequently style.
I want something a step or two up from that.
Four hours later the next morning and I've got some style. It's such a shame the pictures suck the life and colour out. Daylight shots help but it's pissing down with rain.
View attachment 2230816View attachment 2230817View attachment 2230818View attachment 2230819View attachment 2230820View attachment 2230821View attachment 2230822

It looks different from every angle. You would never guess from photo to photo that it was the same piece of wood!