CWB Portfolio Awards

Sometimes we enter design competitions, sometimes we dont. This year though, I felt The Duck Bed was one of our all time good ones, so, off it went to the Custom Woodworking Business Magazine Design Portfolio Awards contest, where we were happy to receive an honorable mention. Loyal readers may have seen the original posts for the bed back in April of this year, but, if you missed it then, its worth a look. The bed was a technically demanding and rewarding project on many different levels. The clients were old friends (that alchoices helps), and everyone in the shop was involved in the project. Will did the turning, carving, and finishing; Sam did the mini sculpting and patinas; Trevor did the cnc work on the inlay pockets and walnut inset, and Jim was there as alchoices to help you do whatever you needed help with at the time .. fun project.
Click the photos to enlarge them ...
Our neighbor and sometime collaborator, Steve Holman, (see The Big Tables") also won an honorable mention for the piece he did for the Bennington Museum Show State of Craft ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont that took place earlier this year ...
The overall winner in our category, Residential Furniture was Parnian Design of Scottsdale, Arizona. They nudged us out with a project that took Parnians craftsmen 8 months to build and
was two years in the making by designer Abdolhay Parnian. ... nice commission ...
Weve had luck in CWB Portfolio Awards in the past and so has Steve ... Honorable Mentions before for Harveys Sideboard, once for Nancys Screen and just two years ago for Elliots Poker Table.
In 2005, we were the overall winner in the Specialty Products division for our mahogany,curly maple and walnut traditional style pool table ...
Below are few photos from my earlier duck bed posts describing the process of building the bed ... This post is the last one I wrote and has links to all the previous ones so this is the place to go for a start to finish tour of the project ... Feel free to comment or email if you have questions on our techniques or execution ...
First rough mockup on site ...
Will, adjusting his music before carving the posts ...
Headboard template test fit with inlay designs still in progress ...

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A Classic Parsons Table

Google Parsons Table and you get dozens, no thousands of images of flat toppped, four legged tables. And in Wikipedia we find ... "While the form is generally credited to Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, according to an article in The New York Times that referred to archives at the Parsons School, the table developed out of a course taught at the schools Paris branch by the French designer Jean-Michel Frank in the 1930s.

As the article states, "Frank challenged students to design a table so basic that it would retain its integrity whether sheathed in gold leaf, mica, parchment, split straw or painted burlap, or even left robustly unvarnished. What grew out of Franks sketches and the students participation was initially called the T-square table ... " The first example, as recalled by Parsons instructor Stanley Barrows, was constructed by the schools janitor and displayed at a student show.

Well, simple to design for sure. Kind of like a little kids drawing ... Think about making one that will have a smooth glossy fancy finish and the problems multiply. No Seams ! was the instruction from the designer we are working with. No Seasonal Movement ! is what I heard when she said that. We chose 1" veneer core maple plywood for stability and had at it ... Click the photos to enlarge them ,,, First we made the hollow legs, mitered them to a point and cut off the unmitered corner with the chop saw...

A little glue and some spacer blocks at the bottom and we had our two short ends below
We used dominos in the joints of the short ends but they caused more trouble than they were worth when it came to clamping up the long sides so we just made two pieces of mdf below, clamped the short ends to them and fitted the long rails while they were clamped up ... Theory is theory, reality is reality ...
This was definitely the choice to go ...
It all worked out fine ... a little sanding tomorrow and out the door to New York for the special finish ... I hope to see a photo when theyre done ... Looks easier than it was ...
Ready to roll 11/18/2010 .... 2.75" square legs and aprons, 15 x 66 x 36 high ... dimensions by Elizabeth Bauer Interiors ...

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