CHAPTER V
Fine Contraptions
for
Special Tasks
OVERVIEW
The pieces pictured on these pages were made for a specific task, often for arts and crafts workshops and studios. Many have a mechanical, geewhiz aspect. Most are designed and built by combining bits of several other pieces of furniture, and embellished with odd bits from a variety of sources. One piece incorporates angle-iron rails from the Lawrence weapons labs in Berkeley, California, while another uses bearings out of old VW bugs in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. One uses lodgepole pine from Lapine, Oregon; bamboo from Buckingham mountain, Pennsylvania; maple salvaged from the High Street in Oxford, England; buckeye out of an Upper East Side renovation in New York City; and a figured walnut RCA cabinet from the Mission District in San Francisco.
The massive dragon table is built around an old angle-iron lab table.
The legs are trunks of lodgeple pine trees.
An old RCA radio cabinet is central to the
Sussex sculpting cabinet. A green granite worktable turns on
a copper-clad top. Drawers for storing tools fill the place of the old speaker and amp .
Basically, the Buckingham easel has a bit of everything:
an old aluminum extension ladder section, pulleys that turn on old VW Bug throwout
bearings to raise and lower the work ledge, timbers from an old carriage house at the small
college in Bucks County where I used to teach, bits of legs from an old Philadelphia chair
workshop, and topped with a brass door knob. For starters.
Furniture---VOL I : Complete Works
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The organ pipe hammer rack was designed to stand
behind the workbench and may just be the ultimate way of keeping these things
within easy reach, which is where a hammer is always need.
The Edison cart. Carved legs from that old
Philadelphia chair workshop, Oak molding, formica work surfaces, and of course, castors.
The Kensington hoover cabinet is intended to correct the
industry-wide deficiency in the design of the shop vacuum (hoover). And it does just that
with a bit of glory to boot.
Tiburon tool caddy.
An old oak drawer, bamboo, top part of a walking cane, stained, finished with oil and wax.
The central portion of the physics-of-light sculpture stand
was originally used in a Berkeley lecture hall to hold demonstration equipment. It is old-growth
hemlock with additions of clear fir, brass, castors and a granite top turntable.
The Magnovox carving cabinet has a slate top, tool drawers
set into an old Mahogany hi-fi cabinet, Walnut handled, and rides on cast iron wheels.
Chapter V : OVERVIEW --- continued
Furniture---VOL I : Complete Works
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