Glimpses of the process of getting components straight, flat, and square with a hand plane.

A new week, a new commissioned project. First things first: creating components out of a rough cherry board. Lots of sawing to do!

Vlammen is a one-piece solid wood serving board with natural edges and a striking grain figure. It was entirely crafted by hand out of Honey Locust salvaged from our very own city, Amsterdam. It is already sold, but may serve as a model for a custom serving board specially made for you. For more info view Vlammen in our shop and click ‘customize’.

Strepen Eén was not only the very first in the Strepen series, but the very first serving board we’ve made to begin with. It holds a rather special place in our heart. 

Now that the joinery part is done, it is time to do some shaping: rounding the peaks of the leg components.

Vrede is a double bed frame made out of salvaged honey locust and sugar maple from our very own city Amsterdam. It was specially made for a client as part of our bespoke service and is thus not available for purchase, but may serve as a model for a bespoke piece specially for you. For more info and photos see Vrede in our webshop.

Now that both the reclaimed mahogany parts and the salvaged black locust parts are ready, it was time to try things out.  Tryouts allow for changes if the original idea doesn’t work as intended or may even trigger altogether new ideas. After all, in artisanal woodworking design is not something that is limited to the drawing board (or the computer nowadays) prior to the making process, but an intricate part of the making process itself.

In addition to the reclaimed mahogany, we will use salvaged black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), also known as Robinia or False Acacia. The tree is native to North America, but has been planted and naturalized in Europe too.  This particular board was from a tree that once stood in our very own city, Amsterdam. Thanks to the efforts of the foundation Stadshout, the wood was saved from the shredder when the tree was cut (reasons unknown).

For our current project we work with wood reclaimed from the building we reside in. This particular block used to be part of a window frame, which had to make place for a new entrance to the building. It appeared that it was not some cheap softwood, but a hardwood, most likely mahogany (probably not the genuine kind, but one of its look-a-likes).

Plant life is thriving in the atelier 🙂

Having fun while cutting halflap joints 🙂