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salt and wood

Re use it or lose it

Tag Archives: re purposed drift wood

 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.

 

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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.

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 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.

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An LP record stand to show off the cover art, protect it from the daily hazards and always know where you left it! This single hardwood plank (species unknown) was surprisingly dense and though looked to have been in the sea for a year was still fairly sound over all. For some reason one face had eroded in a more furrowed way than the other. I kept the smoother bleached out side exactly as found (became rear face of stand) and worked the furrowed face.

 The process

-Trim the ends

-Scrub down with a brush

-Paint base coat to the furrowed side

-Sky blue spray paint coat to furrowed side

-Sand back newly painted face leaving the paint to seal the cracks and some timber grain is revealed

-Section plank into three equal lengths, two for the face and one to be dissected origami style to generate legs, rear shelf and lift grip (refer sketch diagram)

-I crafted a joining biscuit from a bit of scrap 3 ply and routed a groove to fix the two face sections and then screwed the leg supports to flatten and secure the face.

-Drill and place brass rod supports (found a length of this in the street).

-Add SALTANDWOOD stamp and varnish select surfaces to generate contrast to preserve as found faces.

THIS ITEM HAS SOLD

 

 

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This is the end scrap of a laminated timber post that I pulled out of a skip bin. It already embodied loads of character with pre pencil rounded edges, laminated striping and zig zag joins. I applied some simple cross cut ideas to yet another CD stand. Utilising no other elements but the post itself to generate the functioning sculptural body. The rest was finishing the timber to bring out the colour and texture. It has an ink stamp on the side and a pressure stamp added to the base. The separate bits were glued and then I dropped a few long countersunk screws up through the base to ensure a 1000 year shelf life.

 

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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.

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

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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!

 

 

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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.

 

 

 

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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

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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.

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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.

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Yes that’s correct, there are 2 ITEM 14s. But there is no ITEM 13. 2CBBB (TWO COFFEE BANANA BREAD BOOK) or ‘Seaman’s Table’ was created for my cousins courtyard (by request). Symmetric left and right but having deliberate front and rear face to place up to a wall. This unit is created out of restored driftwood collected along the Sydney coast. I am not sure how many individual trees contributed to the final product but I estimate there are at least 10 different species of timber incorporated. Other materials include rope and coloured plywood sheet salvaged from the beach, adjustable screw leg bases recovered from a thrown out kitchen table (picture 4) and coloured wax used to seal the fixing heads. The thinner battens across the top surface are salvaged from a thrown out futon base. The rope is woven through base structure and tied under high tension binding the fixing points together. There is also an old section of picture frame fixed under the top surface to hold a pencil for those epiphany moments during a morning coffee session.

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