In addition to proportions, functionality, wood selection,
grain direction, joinery selection and finish, there's another
unmeasurable, unquantifiable "dimension" that can enter
into the design considerations - chatoyancy.
HUH?
You know - that thing that stones like tiger eye and star
saphires have - a built in dynamism that changes as the
stone moves or as you move around and over it. In wood,
you think of tiger, flame and quilted maple - nature's
holograms. A nice flat board appears to be the surface of
slow boiling maple syrup or wavy like sand dunes. Dark
areas turn light as you move around the board while light
areas turn dark.
And Mother Nature didn't limit this chatoyancy
thing to just maple - it turns up in all kinds of wood.
But sometimes the effect only works when viewed a
certain way And that's where things can get tricky.
Orient the wood the wrong way or place it too high
or too low and only very tall or very short people
will notice. While it's laying flat on the bench,
with a light diresctly overhead, a board may look
amazing Get it oriented the way it'll be in the actual
piece and at the height it will ultimately be at and
that really interesting piece of wood ...
Case in point - the visible sides of the side by side
LP albums cabinet my son and I are working on
(third image on this page)
http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/ChasCab/ChasCab3.html
Intersting yes? Put them vertical on the floor and
all that interest just about disappears. I'm suggesting
he get some bean bag chairs so seated guests will
notice the wonders of this stuff. After all, Studio
Furniture sometimes requires that the viewer be
controlled by The Piece : ).
This could explain why James Krenov puts his
wonderful little cabinets up on tall spindly legs.
Now if I can talk Chas into putting legs on these things
and forget his original design objectives ...
Just another thing to think about when working
with active wood.
charlie b
Jay Windley wrote:
> |
> | ...into the design considerations - chatoyancy.
>
> Is *that* what you call it? Fantastic! Now I have word for that quality
> I've been trying like mad to achieve with combinations of wood and finish.
>
> It's ironic. I've been playing around with various woods and finishes
> trying to see what would produce and preserve the three-dimensional dynamic
> texture of the surface. No luck, until recently.
>
SNIP
I
> dumped random combinations of TransTint dyes into a running jar of alcohol
> and then sprayed each one with a couple of coats of Deft lacquer from the
> can. Basically as fast and as cheap a finish as I could manage.
>
> Lo and behold, some of these caps made from the Mystery Mahogany started to
> shimmer and move under the lights in fantastic and beautiful ways. And of
> course I got lots of kudos for my "superior" workmanship on them. I guess
> it shows I need to spend more time experimenting and less time trying to get
> all cerebral about it.
>
> --Jay
Here's how the chatoyancy thing works in wood. Imagine you've got
straws
oriented as shown in the ASCII diagram below. Stains, penetrating oils
and other finishes can get sucked into the ends of the straws but can
only
thinly coat the sides of the straws. The more the depth of stain, oil or
other finish you're looking into the darker it appears.
In the example below, as your eye travels left to right you see the side
of the straw with little if any stain or finish on it. When you get to
the
right leaning grain it appears a little darker than the "side of the
straw" grain. Looking straight down into the straws things get even
darker as does the left leaning grain. Then it's back to the side of
the
straw grain which appears very light next to the darker left leaning
grain. So going left to right you see Light, Dark, Darker, Darkest,
Light.
When your eye travels right to left, what was the darkest is now just
dark and what was just dark is now the darkest.
--> 1 2 3 4 1 1 4 3 2
1 <---
-----////||||\\\\----- ----////||||\\\\-----
----/////|||| \\\\----- ----/////|||| \\\\-----
The fun and games with finding a finish that shows off the figure is
keeping track of what worked. Going at it willy nilly may get you
something really striking. But duplicating the results later on
similar parts can be an exercise in frustration.
When you have a repeatable formula for the finish you really
liked - how about posting it here?
This woodworking thing is always interesting and often fun.
charlie b
charlie b
On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:53:54 -0500, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:
>"patriarch wrote in message
>
>> who believes that there is a reason most college bookshelves built using
>> concrete blocks....
>
>Forgot about that aspect of college/early married life until I was moving my
>youngest daughter into her college dorm a couple of weeks back.
>
>Fathers, mainly, were carrying concrete blocks up stairs and into elevators
>by the hundreds as if the building itself was suddenly a magnet for all the
>concrete blocks in every direction, or they were some sort of odd
>sacrificial offerings to the dorm gods ... makes you wonder if the designer
>of the building took that static loading into account.
A great bit of prose, Swingman. Thanks.
"patriarch wrote in message
> who believes that there is a reason most college bookshelves built using
> concrete blocks....
Forgot about that aspect of college/early married life until I was moving my
youngest daughter into her college dorm a couple of weeks back.
Fathers, mainly, were carrying concrete blocks up stairs and into elevators
by the hundreds as if the building itself was suddenly a magnet for all the
concrete blocks in every direction, or they were some sort of odd
sacrificial offerings to the dorm gods ... makes you wonder if the designer
of the building took that static loading into account.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04
"patriarch wrote in message
> who believes that there is a reason most college bookshelves built using
> concrete blocks....
Forgot about that aspect of college/early married life until I was moving my
youngest daughter into her college dorm a couple of weeks back.
Fathers, mainly, were carrying concrete blocks up stairs and into elevators
by the hundreds as if the building itself was suddenly a magnet for all the
concrete blocks in every direction, or they were some sort of odd
sacrificial offerings to the dorm gods ... makes you wonder if the designer
of the building took that static loading into account.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04
charlie b <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
<snip>
>
> Intersting yes? Put them vertical on the floor and
> all that interest just about disappears.
I thought he WANTED the cabinet to just sort of disappear. Or was it that
he wanted the largest possible figured maple puzzle box?
The combination that boggles me is "studio furniture" + "male college
student" + "shared apartment".
The other consideration is that (spindly legs) + (a significant LP
collection) + (large puzzle cabinet) is going to likely have a welding
machine somewhere in the solution, ;-) And still not be seismically
stable.
Keep this dialog going, please. I enjoy the view from here.
Patriarch,
who believes that there is a reason most college bookshelves built using
concrete blocks....
"Jay Windley" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
<snip>
> Lo and behold, some of these caps made from the Mystery Mahogany
> started to shimmer and move under the lights in fantastic and
> beautiful ways. And of course I got lots of kudos for my "superior"
> workmanship on them. I guess it shows I need to spend more time
> experimenting and less time trying to get all cerebral about it.
>
> --Jay
I think potentially therein lies a lesson for us all...
Patriarch
"charlie b" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| ...into the design considerations - chatoyancy.
Is *that* what you call it? Fantastic! Now I have word for that quality
I've been trying like mad to achieve with combinations of wood and finish.
It's ironic. I've been playing around with various woods and finishes
trying to see what would produce and preserve the three-dimensional dynamic
texture of the surface. No luck, until recently.
I am associated with a professional theater in town where I live, and in a
production of 1776 I discovered that the director wanted all the men to
carry walking sticks, only the theater did not have enough to go round. Not
only that, renting and borrowing from other theaters didn't satisfy the
demand. So with the director's permission, down to the shop I went.
I eventually turned about twenty individual 18th century walking stick caps
which I placed on standard dowels that I had tapered. Not the best work, of
course, but props are props. The key to making props is not to spend too
much time or money on them. They only have to look good and stand up to a
certain amount of abuse. They don't have to be works of art.
I had a stack of framing members from a pipe organ console -- three inches
or so square in cross section -- of some mahogany-like wood. I didn't
really pay attention to the species. But it turns out these pieces made
wonderful turning stock for small walking sticks. That plus an abundance of
various oak species filled out the set. To make them more individual, I
dumped random combinations of TransTint dyes into a running jar of alcohol
and then sprayed each one with a couple of coats of Deft lacquer from the
can. Basically as fast and as cheap a finish as I could manage.
Lo and behold, some of these caps made from the Mystery Mahogany started to
shimmer and move under the lights in fantastic and beautiful ways. And of
course I got lots of kudos for my "superior" workmanship on them. I guess
it shows I need to spend more time experimenting and less time trying to get
all cerebral about it.
--Jay
On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 00:19:20 -0700, charlie b <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Jay Windley wrote:
>
>> |
>> | ...into the design considerations - chatoyancy.
mmm - sounds a little like my latest efforts to finish a pedestal.
Made of maple laminate on MDF. Tried a 1.5 - 2 pound garnet shellac
with yellowish brown and reddish brown mixed. Tinting strength very
high. Results abysmal!!
James
[email protected]
"charlie b" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> In addition to proportions, functionality, wood selection,
> grain direction, joinery selection and finish, there's another
> unmeasurable, unquantifiable "dimension" that can enter
> into the design considerations - chatoyancy.
>
So there's a wholistic approach to design once must master before becoming a
master.
Guess that means its a lifelong learning process.
But this starts more of a "is it furniture or is it art?" debate in my mind.
With Art, I have some/more control over the display context that I don't
think I have with furniture. Even furniture tailored for a certain room
decor, illumination can be moved.