Table Lamp

This is just one of the pieces I’m working on this winter.

Triadic

I walked into my studio this morning and was struck by the colors that seem to have infiltrated it.

Whoaa what happened here? I’m really not a big fan of these pastels, much less this triadic scheme. But there they were.

The boat was something I bought a year ago. I bought it because I have some questions about that particular design. It’s called a Car Topper. It was designed by the innovative and somewhat eccentric boat design Phil Bolger. “Dynamite” Harold Payson has written about building them and sells the plans. This boat was built by the father of a friend of mine. I had been thinking of building it myself but the price was right for this one so I bought it. It needs restoring and I have yet to get around to that.

Anyway, my friend’s father painted that boat those colors. I suppose he may have been thinking of tropical pastels or something. Something  like the way houses are painted through out the Caribbean. I don’t know. The odd thing is that my friend is an artist, a pretty well known artist who has many public art commissions in his portfolio and is known for his use of colors in his sculptures.

The surfboard is in for repairs. It’s a Robert August design and was shaped for the surfer I eventually bought it off of. Same color scheme as the boat! What is it about those colors?

Take a look at a color wheel. It’s set up based on the three primary colors arranged equidistant around a circle. That’s 120 degrees apart, which is what is meant by triadic colors, they are 120 degrees apart on the color wheel. Using triads creates a high energy kind of buzz of a color scheme. Adding white tones that down somewhat and shifts the scheme towards a pastel look but it still cries out for attention to me. Hey mahn, look ‘a me mahn, I’m over he-ah. Or something.

I’ve been thinking a long time about getting into boat building professionally. I’ve built a few boats in the past for fun or as the need arose, but now I’m looking to build boats for others. It’s a very daunting prospect. I realized a while ago that I needed to learn a lot more about boats and boat building before attempting this. I’ll be posting more on all this in coming posts. One of the reasons I bought the Car Topper was to do some initial tests on the water and to get my hands on a boat about that size. I’ve moved into a very different direction since buying it and am going to build a very traditional design, lapstrake boat but I still plan to restore this boat and use it for odd jobs around the water.

The surfboard is being repaired where an earlier repair, done before I got the board, failed a few days ago. I was out on some pretty decent sized waves, the first waves of any size for a long time around here. It’s been a very flat summer. About an hour and a half into the session, as I was paddling out and ducking into an oncoming wave as it broke over me I had my hand on the rail and could feel it flex and as it did I felt a crack open up. Not good.

I took the board into the studio a couple of days later (luckily I have another board that I used or the clean up session the next day, which BTW was awesome!) and inspected the damage. An old plug of pink builder’s foam had worked loose and created the crack. I had to grind down quite a lot of the rail, fill with epoxy and micro balloons and have just layered in some fiber glass cloth and resin. It should be ready in a couple of days.

I’m still working through a lot of material on boat building but hope to be starting a boat in a week or so.  The surf season is starting here so I’ll be quite busy for some time. I’ve got a new coffee table design I’ll be showing here as soon as I get it rendered the way I want and I’ve been commissioned to build another coffee table to be shipped down to Florida. Did I say I was going to be busy?

Mirror frame completed

The mirror frame was finished in an ebonized finish and is ready for my clients to inspect.

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It is too bad that I don’t have the mirror that will go into the frame.

The frame was designed by Deep River Partners for a client of theirs.

Now I have to finish cleaning my shop and get ready for the next commission.

…and winter winters on

This is four days after the last storm I posted about. This is what’s in front of our house. We’ve had several inches since then with more expected today.

Meanwhile I’m completing the the art nouveau style mirror frame. The last ribbon of wood, fret as I call it, is just about finished.

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This is how it lies into the back of the mirror frame.

Two other frets, completed and ready to be glued in with the fret patterns.

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As I was milling the tenons on my router set up as an end mill, for some reason the site of this graceful arc of wood clamped to this machine inspired me to take out my camera and shoot today’s shop series.

The tenons, or end tabs, are initially milled by this end mill.

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I have to finish the joint by hand though. This is because the face being trimmed will have to mate against the inside curved surface of the mirror frame.

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After I have the joints completed I shape the cross section into a gentle, flowing curve. I start by carving bevels that are eventually refined into the final curved section.

This flowing bevel or chamfer reminds me of the path a down hill skier might take or even a surfer flowing across the face of a wave. It’s been a very long time since I did any down hill skiing and from the looks of the snow and ice it will be a while before I do any surfing. Winter!

new web site up

I’ve finally got the new web site up and most of the kinks worked out. I’ve still got to get the “client pages” completed but that can wait a little while, at least until I have a client interested in keeping tabs on their project through my site. Here’s a post I did about that page.

I designed the site by first assessing what my goals were in having a web site. Initially, my first three sites were focused on simply putting up on the web a limited portfolio of my work so that people that had already heard about me in some way could easily see what sort of work I do. This time around my goals are a little more.

I want this site to attract new customers, tell people exactly what it is I offer and answer the question why they should chose me to make furniture for them.

I started by surveying past clients and asking them what they would have liked to have seen on my earlier site. Most of them said they found the site by accident and were not exactly sure what it was that I did when they first saw the site. They had a felt need to find someone who would make a piece of furniture for them and even though that is exactly what I do my earlier site did not clearly communicate that. I decided that I would try and communicate to anyone seeing my home page that it was a very easy and simple process to have me design and make their furniture and that I would take personal care to make sure that they received exactly what they were looking for. Their need was met, they found me.

The rest of the site would be dedicated to showing that I had the experience and skills to accomplish the work they wanted done, that they would be very happy with the results and that they could trust me. The portfolio shows the breadth of my experience and the depth of my skills. It wasn’t easy to do because I really do not find it easy to “sell” myself (really!) but, since I think the best way to tell people about the experience of having me build furniture for them is to include testimonials from past clients, I added a page of testimonials. You may notice that the final home page differs from the image above by the added link to a testimonials page.

To build trust I decided to tell my story which is what this blog is all about, so I added a link to this blog. I also added a pretty basic faq page so that some of the initial questions can be answered for people upfront. On the portfolio page I’ve included sections for some of the art I’ve done as well as pieces in my current designs collection. These pieces are priced to sell on a made to order basis and I hope will generate some sales but if nothing else will give an idea of what my charges are like.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about the new site I did the design work for the site by mocking up pages using Paint Shop Pro and I had someone else, Nate Kroll, do the actual coding. We worked together with Nate telling me what could be done and what couldn’t and me getting back him with new ideas to work around initial problems. Nate needs to insert a credit for his work on the site and I keep reminding him to do so. He’ll get to it sooner or later, but I’d like to pass on any new jobs for web site building I can to him. I’ll be adding much more to the portfolio as time allows as I have images of many more projects and I’ll be digitizing my slide collection as well. Before I add too many new items though we have a slight technical glitch I’d like to resolve. The slider bar on the left side of the portfolio page resets when you click on related items thumbs and once the list gets much longer that may be disconcerting for people. I will add new art work though in the mean time.

Surf Board Table III -iii

The legs are cut to fit up against the center arc at a 30 degree angle and mortises or slots are cut on that beveled face to receive the tenons that fit through the arc. I use the arc pattern to locate the slots in the arc.

After cutting those I do the final shaping on the arc. The convex curve is shaped on the belt sander table.

And the concave curve is shaped by hand using a spoke shave.

A test assembly of two of the legs to the arc reveals an interesting form.

I often take a little time to consider the forms created by accident when assembling furniture elements. To some degree there is not that much “accident” involved as I intentionally created the parts with the goal of creating an interesting or compelling shape.

I use to whip out an old Polaroid camera and take a few shots. Then I’d pin them to my office wall. I still study them for ideas.

Now I use one of digital cameras and my hard drive has become the studio wall. I actually like the studio wall better.

Adding the second set of legs makes it easier to see how this could turn into a coffee table.

Next I’ll shape the top, add some cross pieces and I can glue up the base.

Next post is here.

The Design Process: A Table, part 2

The dialog with my clients generated an interest in two of the sketched designs I had created, sketch #3 and sketch #4.

Sketch #4 was derived from an earlier table I had made and shown in my portfolio. Jackie had wanted to be sure and have the table legs as far out towards the edge of the table top as possible to maximize leg room under the table. Both of these designs accomplish that as part of the design motif.

Since these designs were quick ideas drawn to look for a direction to move in to accomplish a final design I felt that they needed some refining. I discussed this with Jackie and Peter and got their impressions. From those discussions I created two designs, one of each table.

At this point I’ve started looking at the joinery as well as other technical considerations so that I don’t present a design that would be too expensive to accomplish. Here is design #3.

I had also modeled the site, the clients kitchen, in my 3D cad program and was able to place the table within that model to give my clients an idea of the scale of the table and how it would look in their space.

 

I did the same process for design #4.

 

I’ll show another view of the rendered model here. I provided Jackie and Peter with several views of each.

 

 

 

For both designs I also created line drawings with dimensions. Here is the line drawing for table #4. Click to get a larger view.

 

Now it was up to Peter and Jackie to decide which of the two they liked the best or whether they would like to think about another approach. Their house had several elements that were of the Prairie/ Arts and Crafts genre. One of the elements of Arts and Crafts style is the use of exposed joinery and table #4 has more explicit exposed joinery. They eventually decided on #4.

After they made their decision I worked out a bid price for them and we signed a Commission Agreement detailing the design, materials, price, completion date and delivery details. I then created shop drawings, selected the lumber and built the table.

Here is a detail of the completed table showing the exposed joinery.

The cherry will darken with age and exposure to light. The kitchen it went into had plenty of light exposure and that is why I rendered the models in dark cherry as the finished table would soon darken.

Jackie and Peter were quite happy with the table. As a matter of fact they wrote this testimonial for me:

Todd Fillingham is the best kept secret of a craftsperson in Milwaukee. He has a beautiful portfolio of lovely, creative and usable furniture. I have known Todd for 25 years but it was only when I heard his name sponsoring an NPR show did I think- “he is the one to design a perfect table for our newly remodeled kitchen.” And I was right. He looked at the site, he listened to my ideas, he did an array of drawings, he made a few alterations after discussions and he used both his sense of design and what I wanted with his skill and computer savvy to do a picture of a table that is exactly what he then produced in beautiful cherry wood. We thought the price was reasonable for this utilitarian piece of art.

Jackie Boynton

 

 

The Design Process: A Table, part 1

I’ve been meaning put up a post that describes the process I go through in designing a simple project such as dining table. This project was completed this fall.

The client contacted me about a dining table for a new kitchen they had recently added. The client, Jackie Boynton, and I discussed the general requirements and set an appointment or me to visit her house so that I could get a sense of the space and other furniture they had.

The table would need to regularly seat 3 and occasionally seat 4. Once I got to the site it appeared that an oval shape top would be appropriate. The new kitchen was contemporary enough, with large windows and clean woodwork for an oval to work, the space was somewhat small for a rectangle and we did not want to constrict the traffic flow of a busy kitchen, used for cooking, homework, family gathering and many other activities.

I eventually established a comfortable table size by taking measurements of the site, modeling the site in my 3D cad program and by using my “ergo man” model. This is a model I’ve created to allow me to assure enough room for table settings as well as many other ergonomic design concerns in many projects. Here’s a screen shot of this model:

Here’s an image I took while on site of the area the table would eventually occupy.

You can see the old table, obviously too small.

I manipulated this image in my photo editing application and added a rendering of an early sketch idea for a table to get a sense of the style direction I should be going towards.

This process of manipulating the image in a photo editing program is awkward and doesn’t allow me to measure the clearance around the table and to get a good idea of how the table will look so I modeled the space in the 3D cad program and was able to drop in various rough ideas for table designs.

To get a dialog going betwenn Jackie and myself about the table design I created a series of 3D sketches and quickly rendered them and was able to email them to her and her husband, Peter. They were able to discuss them and get back to me. Here’s a link to my Flickr set showing several of these sketches:

I think that these designs have a lot of potential and look forward to interesting another client into having me finish one or more of them.

In part 2 I’ll show the two finalists that Jackie and Peter chose, the eventual final choice and the completed table.

collage and chair design

Here’s a closer look at the collage I created for the “client pages” page I’ve been working on.

I created it to communicate a little about the typical process of designing a piece for a client. In this case the piece was to be a chair in the Biedermeier  style to accompany the desk, armoir, bed and two night stands I had already designed and built. I worked with an interior designer hired by the client whom I had been working with for some time and she gave me the basic criteria and some ideas about the design concerns.

I found several images from various sources and created some quick sketches based on these historical examples. We had a meeting, the interior designer and I with the client and I was able to narrow down what the client wanted. Based on this discussion I drew a set of scaled, hard line drawings and eventually a color rendering using colored pencils, ink and water colors.  The client was happy with this design and I was able to proceed to doing the final shop drawings and fabrication.

I’ve been using a computer 3D modeling program for some time, Rhinoceros, and  a rendering program called Flamingo to generate the rendered images, however at the time I designed this chair I was not familiar with the program enough to be  able to quickly sketch out the ideas I had from my research so I relied on my earlier skills with pencil and ink. The important thing is to communicate as clearly as possible to a client what you are thinking and to be able to listen very closely to their response. I feel that it is very important to put as much care and attention into this phase of a project as I try and do with the fabrication and finishing. I hope that this collage will help communicate this to prospective clients.

web site progress

I’ve been working on the mock-up for my “client pages” landing page. The plan is to allow clients that want one to have a web page on my site on which I will post design images, details and related links to their project. They will then be able to post feedback to me any time they want and they will be able to share this page with friends and family to get their feedback. The whole point is to improve and sharpen the communication between my clients and myself particularly during the early stages of the design process.

I also want to develop a way to engage the secondary customer, the spouse, close friend or other person that my primary customer will likely seek approval from for their investment.

I am also creating a database of my work with associated images, bid spread sheets, product name, product ID number related thumbnail images, etc. I’ve looked at a lot of options for applications to help and have decided to stick with Excel to create a spreadsheet/ database and use Windows Explorer to add key words, i.e. product ID numbers, to the image files. This means that I have to save all the images that will be uploaded to my new web site as jpeg files. I use Paint Shop Pro to edit the images and optimize them to a resolution of 29 pixels/inch as well as to minimize the colors used. I cannot use PSP to add key words though because if I do it wipes out the key words Windows had as well as  the key words Picasa, another image sorting application I use, uses.

It became tiresome entering all of the file paths and file names into the spread sheet as Windows Explorer only allows you to copy the path, then to separately copy the file name. I decided to nose around a little on the web and I found this cool utility that adds an option to copy the path (with file name) onto the clipboard when you right click a file in Windows Explorer. It’s called ClipboardPath.  It saves a lot of time and aggravation.

Bid process

I’m working on a bid and design for a small project today. A client called and asked about toy storage and book cases. After a site visit to discuss the project, get dimensions and take a few pictures I generated a quick study in the form of block studies of the proposed pieces. I want to be sure that the client and I are thinking of the same thing before I start working out the details and a bid price.

Here’s one of the views .

I use Rhinocerous nurbs modeling for Windows to create the models and Flamingo for rendering.

I understand that the budget will be tight for this project so I’m thinking of building the cases out of baltic birch plywood. You can simply round over the edges and sand them smooth with out having to add solid edging. This not only is nice looking but saves time.

Here’s a stand up desk I recently made with a top that was made from baltic birch plywood. The edge detail isn’t really clear. but you can get an idea of what I’m talking about from this shot.