Tag Archives: re-purpose
March 25, 2014 Item 72: Now Playing CD 2
I know I know who listens to CDs anymore? Well me and besides they are the new retro item after LPs! And making these stands is strangely addictive. In this case the third element of the resting pins has been deleted by arranging the legs such that they also do the job of supporting the CD for display of cover art and always knowing where the cover is. ITEM 72 is formed from a chunk of hardwood found washed up on the beach and a piece of ply that looked like it came off a yacht judging from the type of varnish it retained. I sanded and varnished one face of the block retaining the other 5 surfaces as found and cut slots for the legs I cut out of the ply scrap. And voila, ITEM 72.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, cd display, design, driftwood, flotsam, LP, music, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, repurposed, timber, timber restored
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March 24, 2014 NOTE 1
So no ITEM produced here, just sharing some of the SALT AND WOOD experience! In this case a kind of ‘day in the life’ picture summary of the strange and interesting things one encounters when hunting about for materials for a next project.
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man less, but nature more”.
Rochdale ^18 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto 4, stanza178.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, driftwood, flotsam, lamp, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, recycle, repurposed, Storm Rider, timber, timber restored
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February 2, 2014 Item 73: Cargo Lamp 2
Compiled from street found lamp fittings, a retro Australian made (*439 DÉCOR Australia) orange plastic flowerpot and flotsam washed up around Sydney Harbour. The blue parts look like they might have been some sort of packing palette, the legs and edge trim look like they are probably fittings broken from a yacht. The rudder (I couldn’t resist) was cut from a ply panel again most likely off a yacht or cruiser. Angled legs and curved corners and it all culminated in this fun little sculpture/ complimentary colour lamp/ phone and wallet spot!
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, driftwood, flotsam, lamp, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, repurposed, timber, timber restored
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- Posted under Item, Wood
February 2, 2014 Item 15: Cargo Lamp
This very dense block of hardwood (maybe Eucalyptus?) was discovered hiding deep inside the rocks of a wave break wall. After a month or so of drying in the sun I cut away the top surface and one end to reveal the grain. The whole unit was split long ways from the base so a series of timber pegs were employed to cross dowel the block. To enhance the sense of the maritime, a simple long slot was cut along the front and back face. Something like the Plimsoll Line of a ships hull (http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-33-a-cheer-for-samuel-plimsoll/). The area below the line sanded and painted. The areas above the line left as the day they were found. A router was used to cut simple slots in the base into which rail legs were fitted. The legs were restored from timber salvaged from discarded garden furniture. The lampshade was found on the streets of Newtown and a shower rod end was used to mount it in the deck. The red cord was purchased in Copenhagen a year ago and the plug end is new. Add some light fittings (street recovered) and voila the Cargo Lamp.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, driftwood, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, repurposed, timber, timber restored
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- Posted under Item, Wood
January 30, 2014 Item 71: CD Robot
This small simple sculpture is a continuation from Item 61: Now Playing LP. A combination of some street found fine brass rod and a cube of character packed timber and remnants of a Chinese shrine washed up on a Sydney beach. The cube was brushed all round and sanded on 2 sides with only the face being finally sealed to bring out the peculiar end grain. The beauty of it for me is the not knowing what construction project this little cube is a bi product of or where in the world it floated here from or even what species of tree it is derived from.
THIS ITEM HAS SOLD
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe furniture, design, driftwood, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, repurposed, timber, timber restored
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January 8, 2014 Item 64: The Dino Crocetti
I found this discarded unit not far from my house. Judging by the style and crafting my guess is that some time in the 1960s some geezer picked up a couple of Maple planks and set out to grace the entertainment corner with a cheeky budget cocktail shelf! Remember this was a time before IKEA and the concept of DIY because… well… unless you were ‘well to do’ pretty much everything was DIY!
It was looking past the point of salvage but it is amazing what turning something upside down can do to hide 50 years of drink stains! The maple proved to have plenty of life left in it revealing a charismatic colour and grain when sanded and varnished. The remnant white paint and black oxidized nail holes all added more character and interest. The holes and some removed rot where filled with orange wax and or wood putty. Legs were restored and added from another discarded table. And the locking lip of a piano lid was restored, cut and fitted as a rear barrier detail to the top edge. You can see the brass lock plate still in place. A two-part backing was cobbled together from scrap with the top inside edge painted orange to carry the wax detailing.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, cafe display, cafe furniture, conversation piece, modernist, re-purpose, street found, street found timber, talking point, timber restoration
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- Posted under Item, Wood
December 22, 2013 ITEM 70: Ten Drawer
This wholly horrible thing was cast onto the footpath at the end of our street. But the size was good and the structure sound. What was most attractive was the standing height top surface above the reach of children. Adorned in a fashion best described as post Romanesque nostalgic and sporting drawer handles that would make a Belgian proud as fittings in his secret basement dungeon. All I did was cut the top back to expose a bit of wood grain, removed the handles and drilled out finger holes and painted everything else white. And voila.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, design, modernist, re-purpose, recycled sculpture, street found timber, streetwood, timber restored
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- Posted under Item, Wood
December 22, 2013 ITEM 62: Pagoda
A section of eucalyptus flooring became the mid shelf with various bits of a discarded wardrobe utilized to make a hidden base drawer. And angled legs cut from a little plank recovered at the beach. Probably the most interesting feature is the pattern created by some type of wood worm on the inside face. I spray painted this blue then sanded it back to highlight this alien language. Another original feature was the use of Perspex as a backing panel. Cut from a broken sheet I found on my street it introduces a fantastic light quality to the unit. In addition to this light play is the mid shelf being deliberately off set from the rear of the unit to allow light to be evenly spread over the inner rear face. Note also the integration of the restored old school wooden ruler as the back edge to the mid shelf. And the restored/ reshaped corner of the old drawer face. Some old boy had resin bogged a rough corner on years ago and I was able to sand and polish this resin to reform a perfect little corner with all the detail of the resin and previous paint.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, design, driftwood, flotsam, key cabine, modernist, re purposed timber, re-purpose, recycle, recycled sculpture, street found, talking point, timber restoration
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- Posted under HQ Cabinet, Item, Wood
November 17, 2013 Boat 38 Tailbone
A simple well-balanced boat employing a sand and water filled bottle as ballast and hull. A wind rudder (the white foam) is situated over the bow area to assist in pushing her straight. Apart from this there was a wide plywood deck and some bits of a paddle ski (or something?) that gave her some interesting ‘skimming’ qualities as she moved over the water.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, design, driftwood, Flotsam boats, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, recycled sculpture, sea craft
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- Posted under Boat, Salt
March 29, 2013 ITEM 16: PHAT JOEL
Who can say where this wedge washed over board or for how long it floated around in the ocean. Sometimes it takes very little to generate something beautiful. Simply trimming the nose square and drilling and doweling a couple of timber pins to compensate for the big centre split (pin striping). The sides and rear retain the character of its travels while the top and bottom were sanded and varnished revealing great character and a beautiful rich golden timber that I have not identified. It also sports an interesting little rebate in one side from some past purpose. It was probably a door jam on a boat. It could be a door jam again or maybe just a sculptural talking piece. Phat Joel because I made it as a request piece for a guy named Joel who is Phat but not fat.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, driftwood, flotsam, re purposed drift wood, re-purpose, recycled, sculpture, timber recycling, timber restored
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- Posted under Item, Wood
March 21, 2013 ITEM 27: Salt Shelf
Bower (A donated materials and objects enterprise on Addison Road) recovered timber mantle cut and varnished. Bay found flotsam has been doweled to main shelf to create legs.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, driftwood, flotsam, modernist, re purposed timber, re-purpose, street found timber, style, talking point, timber recycling, timber restored
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- Posted under Item, Wood
December 5, 2012 Item 30: Tiki Lounge Key Cabin.
This was a commissioned piece for a surfer, thus the theme of the detailing. Two old drawers (face timber type unknown) and handles restored and doweled together to generate better shelf depth. And a variety of other street and beach found components have been restored and incorporated. From the coloured rope to the airoplane wing legs (note the grain in this unknown timber) to the islander detail trim from the edge of a little abandoned table to the shelves and horizontal rod hangers. The internal sides and back panel were spray painted blue in keeping with the ocean theme. The back of the drawer faces (now the ceiling) has been left as found to incorporate a bit of the history of the components. The shelf ledges are timber doweled to the sides of the unit generating these tidy little circle details on the outside faces as a counterpoint to the already interesting pine grain formations. This is also the first time I have finally incorporated some of the electric detail that has been a long time evolving in the SALTANDWOOD sketchbooks. With the components picked up from a Jaycar electronics shop. The retro switch was a purchase not a find. But I am on the lookout for some switches to re purpose! So this is AA battery powered (mounted behind the shelf ledge) and the little night access light can be turned on independently for the upper or lower shelf.
The top shelf is designed with a smooth top edge to aloe wallets and phones to slide easily in and out. The bottom shelf has the upturn to allow a build up of secondary items and bits and pieces/ coins etc without spilling out. The bottom shelf also has a newly developed feature in the ‘double entry lip’ that provides a spot for say a pen or zip stick not getting lost in the tray. This particular commission also came with a request for a place to hang a hat at the end of the day and you can see here the protruding disc that facilitates this. It is made (as was the switch mounting) from the second drawer backing that was removed and some found pine rod that can be popped out left or right if the unit goes up against a wall on one side. I also added some beautiful molded hooks that I coincidentally found in an abandoned cupboard (circa 1930s?) a few day before and restored well in a jewelry cleaning solution.
You can see the rear of the unit was finished of in a particular way for a bit of fun and colour and is slid in and held with a removable dowel peg if need be.
Tags: key cabine, re-purpose, timber restored
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- Posted under HQ Cabinet, Item, Salt, Wood
October 19, 2012 ITEM 20: Met the Jetsons
This piece of ply with cedar (?) spine was found among the rocks along Botany Bay. It seems like it was some type of storage box cover off a boat. The sea had honed it to a clichéd modernist trapezoid shape. I lightly sanded the underside to remove lose flakes but retain the paint history then stamped and varnished it. The top side ply was not that attractive after cutting and varnishing so it was attacked with the bright gloss orange paint to great effect. The legs were rescued from a table thrown on the street near Enmore road and simply sanded back and oiled. With the internal corner mounting brackets also rescued and reemployed into this item. The timber bracing is cut from two pieces of restored beach found timber. Also likely off a boat given the strong and light nature of this timber (?). The timber bracing was chiseled into the legs. And the little spine cut into the bracing. The odd height proportion is a comfortable standing use table. Say for drinks at a party.
Tags: Beach house sculpture, modernist, re-purpose, recycle
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- Posted under Item, Wood
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