This table I have made as a test for my exam piece. I wanted to trye a couple of new things before my finals that I hadn’t tryed before. The slath was an experiment wich I hadn’t done before. The wood is european Oak and the design is by myself.

After the saw bench I decided to make a Rietveld chair, the Steltman chair to be precise. This chair is origionally designed by Rietveld for the jewlery Steltman in The Hague. I realy like the design wich is still quite modern I think. The wood is european Oak and origionally it’s painted white, but I won’t do that.

This is a sawbench that I’ve made in my second year. It was actually a workpiece that I wanted to make to get the feeling for it again after summer holliday. THis year I only have to do my final exams so I can make whatever I want until than. The wood of this sawbench is Padoek, an african hardwood that’s known for it’s red color. It’s a verry wear-proof bench of a lucurious kind of wood.The wood turns eventually brown by the influence of light so I treated it with a UV-oil. That enhanced the red color.

This stool was part of the second test for the machinery. It’s almoast entirely made in the macinery. I’ve used Maple. Only the assembly was done by hand.

This is a cupboard for next to my bed. The task was to make something that could be disassembled. I have followed the standard drawing but added a drawer with halve covered dovetails. The handle of the drawer is made of eight layers veneer, bend in a press and the buds of the doors I have made on the lathe. It was pritty hard to make two identical buds. The kins of wood that I’ve used are Maple and American Nut veneer.

This is a box of 3500 years old wood! It is Swamp Kauri from New Zealand that has been laying in the swamp for all those years. The Kauritree is protected. It is a box for pencils. This peace of Swamp Kauri is from the root area of the tree and has a beautifull pattern because of that. On one of the corners there’s still a peace of bark wich hase grown into the tree. The hige and snapper are made in Canada. The hinge stops at 95 degrees. Again I have finished this workpiece with hardwax oil that makes it water and ware proof.

This is the table that I’ve made. It is made of American Cherry wich was originally 4 cm thick. Thereof  remained a slath of 3 cm. The design is made by me. I wanted a square ‘cube-legged’  table, and one that could be dissasembled. If you dissasemble the siderules and the slath you end up with 5 pieces that make up this table. The mesurements are also adjusted to me and my home. It is 77 cm high and 160 cm in lenght by 90 cm width. I have finished it if with two layers of hardwax oil to harness it against stains and moist.

The next theme was a briefcase. The new thing in this task was the making of dovetails. There has to be an inlay in the lid veneer as well. I have made the body of the briefcase of American Nut and the lid and bottom of steamed Beach veneer on plywood. I have made the handle of twenty layers of veneer on a model under the vacuumpress. The making of the dovetails was not as hard as I thought it would be. It is precise work but if you’re carefull it’s not hard. My inlay of veneer in the lid is a little cube. I have finished the briefcase off with hardwax oil. 

For this box I’ve used two kinds of wood: American Cherry for the body and Amerrican Nut veneer for the lid, the bottom and the laths that hold the lid in place. The embedding of the hinges apeared to be the hardest part of making this box. It’s something that has to be done verry precisely, otherwise the lid wil go slanting. The lock was not as hard as the hinges.

This sawplank we again had to make largely by hand (without machines). The plank exists of two parts and the touches are glued into the plank. It can be used by boath left and righthanded people because it has two different touches. The wood is Syccamore/Maple, a verry white kind of wood. The white color comes from the dind of wood that this tree is: Maple is a sap-wood tree, with soft white wood.

After the slats we got an instruction lesson in the machinery. There we could prepare the wood for our hammer. The head of the hammer is made of Stonebeech, a kind of wood that splinters little. The handle is Ash wood that is springy. The head of the hammer is made out of three slabs of wood glued together, with dowels through the head for extra strength. I have covered the dowels with Wengé wood that has a nice contrasting color with the white Beech hammerhead. The hammerhead sits loose on the handle so you can easily take it apart and put it away.

The next task was to make a set of similar slats wich (covered with fabric) can be used to support your workpiece. The moast dificult part was to make to identical slats while the wood could be quite quirky. The wood for these slats was european Oak. When they where finished I have yoked them with a thick fabrick to guard my workpieces.

The first task was to make a round bar out of a balk of steamed Beachwood. The balk first had to be made exactly square before you could start with plaining it round. Making it round was done by taking the corners of until it was almoast round. Than finally you went from left to right (crosswards) over the bar to finalize the round shape.