March 1, 2015 ITEM 91 300 YEAR OLD BENCH
I wrestled these two hardwood beams from a skip bin not too far from my house and carted them home on the roof of the trusty Subaru. A note here that if you ever decide to dabble in the high art of scavenging recyclable materials, I highly recommend acquiring a clapped out Subaru wagon with Rhino roof racks. There is not much I have not been able to easily shift around with this.
These beams were deceptively and enormously heavy and old by Aussi building standards. Coming from a renno of a big old Newtown terrace. I could guess that this is Eucalyptus that was hundreds of years old when it was cut and that was probably around 140 years ago. So lets say the tree this timber is from was a germinating seed around 300 years ago!!!!
Once home I determined the choice cuts to chop the beams down to more manageable size. The scraps made exceptional firewood for the BBQ. Then there was all the knocking off of trimming timber, sanding, de-nailing and so on just to get down to the great colour and character of this timber. The legs were cut out of the beam and the rest of the process of becoming a bench is apparent in the pictures. Basically I embarked on a bit of rebating and used a found broom handle to do the doweling to pin all the bits together. Another broom handle forms the red bracing detail under the seat. And a scrap bit of timber was used to fill a rebate on the surface where it is stamped.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, repurposed, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restoration, timber restored
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February 21, 2015 ITEM 56 LVL bookends
These laminated beam off cuts were pulled out of a skip bin over a year ago. I trimmed them to size sanded them, stamped them, gave them multiple coats of varnish and spray-painted one side and then waited a long time to find some metal plate in the street. Then was ready to cut the base plates with a grinder to this aeroplane tail shape and add some paint detail. I used a router to countersink the plates for a flush base and screw fixed them from underneath. This is a great example of the importance of the ingredient of time in the Salt and Wood manufacturing process. And the need to have a little storage space to hold odd bits until the parts become unified.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, book ends, design, laminated beam, modernist, re-purpose, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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February 11, 2015 ITEM 96 LP CTR Weight
As a result of becoming a Master Bangle Engineer (MBE) I was left with a plethora of wooden centre discs. I gathered the densest of these and glued them onto each other and after much fiddly sanding, putty filling (some of the planks had grooves under them as they were floorboards, putty filling these created great fluid forms on the discs side), spray painting, stamping and varnishing I ended up with this selection of LP record weights. An LP centre weight is a much-touted item amongst audiophile types that is purported to flatten out warps in the LP, minimize vibration and even add to tonal qualities. All I know is that these ones look cool going round and round!
Tags: audiophile vinyl, Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, LP, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored, vinyl records
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December 8, 2014 ITEM 80 LP OAK LEG
A friend donated 4 old Oak table legs from a cache that had been lingering under his mum’s house. You can see the great colour that was revealed from sanding the surfaces of this one leg back. Followed by some trimming of the ends to set the standing angle and sliding of a segment forward to form the rest ledge. I glued the main body pieces then drilled a big hole up from the base and hammered a big dowel pinning the whole thing together vertically. The LP record impression in the upper face was done with various drill bits. And the finger lift hole in the upper rear was core drilled and a stamped disc inserted. Some street found quarter dowel and bits of ply finished off the base platform and rear brush screen.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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December 5, 2014 ITEM 95 Rectangles 3
Recycled timber bangles. This third run (refer ITEM 92 and 94) was a commission and differs from the previous efforts in that they are cut out of a single thick plank of extremely dense and heavy hardwood that I found outside a warehouse in Newtown.
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December 5, 2014 ITEM 94 Rectangles 2
Recycled timber bangles. This second run (refer ITEM 92) was as above but managed to incorporate some more contrasting timbers. And varnished the end product instead of oil.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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December 5, 2014 ITEM 92 Rectangles
Recycled timber bangles. Inspired by a wooden bangle gift that my wife received (not from me) I couldn’t resist seeing what variations of this idea I could produce from found timber scraps. Basically I gathered various planks like bits of maple and plywood and then glued them on top of each other to thicken the medium. Then using 2 differing core drill bits simply cut out the outer circle then the hole. Then went a bit crazy with a belt sander and some spray paints. You can see I also pressure stamped them ‘SW’ and then rubbed olive oil into the finished pieces to bring out the grain.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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December 4, 2014 ITEM 88 PHAT JAM
Yet another door wedge found washed up on the beach after serving its time on a boat somewhere. You can see here I simply sanded it back to life, varnished it, added some colour and stamped it.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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November 22, 2014 ITEM 78 SEA D SUN
Yet another CD stand. This cheery little guy is honed from a laminated beam off cut I found washed up at the beach. Simply restored selective surfaces and sliced it to form the projecting stand element. It is stamped and embossed. I used a felt tip pen to ink the ITEM No. embossing before varnishing.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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November 21, 2014 ITEM 77 SEA CHUNK
Literally a chunk of timber broken away from a boat or jetty structure or something similar. It was found with some sort of heavy canvas material affixed to its face and painted and nailed on! ‘Heavy duty.’
This found object had lashings of character. I simply sanded and sealed the top surface to bring out the original timber colour. Added an ITEM 77 pressure stamp. Freshened the white face paint and added a dash of safety yellow. Then drilled out the holes for the support dowels and the rear stand dowel (all street finds). And voila a curious oddity is born.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re purposed timber, re-purpose, recycled sculpture, repurposed, street found, streetwood, timber recycling, timber restored
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October 26, 2014 ITEM 89 NEW Blue Groove
Essentially a ‘redo’ of ITEM 57 Blue Groove (look in ITEMs pull down),
“An LP record stand to show off the covers, protect them from the daily hazards and always know where you left it!”
This time a 3 board assembly instead of two as the found plank (at the beach) was thinner. The stand pipes are fatter this time though and filled with timber dowels. All components street or water found! The corners are more rounded and instead of the finger lip on the back to assist lifting this one was bored out and embossed with the ITEM number.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re purposed timber, re-purpose, recycled sculpture, repurposed, street found, streetwood, timber recycling, timber restored
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October 26, 2014 ITEM 75 JEEVES
Not quite Lars and the real girl but this is as close as I have come to building my own help! The Jeeves was inspired by the valet stands of days gone by. A prototype it may be but this has proven stunningly useful and accommodating. I adapted the features to suit my lifestyle and thus did not need to incorporate the traditional suit coat rack or wallet tray as I have built accoutrement cabinets separately! But as a quick stop half way alternative to either leaving clothes willy nilly of having to put them away this is the business.
All the components are found elements:
-restored base drawer
-base deck was flotsam from a boat
-green rope from the beach
-hardwood timber frame from a bed
-the pine top board (that I cut, shaped and painted white)
-the second tier cross pole
There are multiple places to hang clothes on the go or that are getting a second go before the wash and also not having to bend down to access things. The cladding panel on the face of the base drawer is a restored plank of driftwood that has been embossed with the Salt and Wood letters. The base drawer is great for thongs or running socks or other little odds.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re purposed timber, re-purpose, recycled sculpture, repurposed, street found, streetwood, timber recycling, timber restored
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August 17, 2014 ITEM 79 Hale bop
A mysterious object landing on a beach at the edge of the vast Pacific Ocean after traveling who knows where on what ship and then how long drifting at sea. It looks like it had some sort of lines running over it and cutting into it where it had been nailed down and was also possibly cut into a door wedge for its next duty at sea? Either way it had a lot of character by the time I chanced across it. Knocked the nails out, filled the holes with colored wax and sanded it all then added a little yellow sports stripe. Just because I could. The wax ended up making this ‘hot rod flaming comet.’ And so combined with the objects journey to create the name ‘Hale Bop’ (if you remember the comet from the 1990s).
A curious objet d’art or a door jam with stories to tell.
‘Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) was perhaps the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale%E2%80%93Bopp
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, carpentry, design, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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August 17, 2014 ITEM 85 TOO SUNNY
I found this little unit in the back streets of some terraces in Ultimo, an older suburb of inner city Sydney. It is more of a restoration and tart up than a creation but still a satisfying result. One drawer face needed repair and then the unit was sanded and repainted with the inside of the drawers done in a sunny yellow. The original porcelain handles with floral emblem were cleaned and put back on. It has already been claimed as a bedside unit.
Tags: beach house furniture, Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, recycled sculpture, repurposed, street found, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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August 17, 2014 ITEM 55 ReKea Stool
An old IKEA stool found in the street, the seat top was rotten and thus discarded and the legs delaminated in spots with surface wear. I simply removed the legs and screws and sanded them all back, re glued and clamped the ply lamination and then varnished and spray painted the legs as seen here. The new top was crafted from a section of hardwood plank found on the streets of Newtown.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, Inter War Deco, modernist, re-purpose, recycled, street found timber, timber restoration
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