Verbintenis

Verbintenis is a cabinet of the credenza type, a low and wide, rectangularly shaped item that generally is used for storage purposes. The carcass of the cabinet is made out of salvaged maple and its parts are joined with an experimental combination of elements of the dovetail and box joints. Furthermore, the elements (the tails and the teeth) are irregularly placed and have irregular dimensions, giving the joint a highly atypical, asymmetric appearance. Though maple is generally a blank wood with subtle grain, the one used for this cabinet was specifically chosen for its distinctive figure on its surface, resembling the head of a giraffe.

The carcass is divided into three parts with the use of two dividers that are symmetrically position. The dividers fit into the carcass with sliding dovetail joints. The back of the cabinet is composed of panels made out of poplar with equally distinctive figures. The panels fit into the carcass through tongue-and-groove joints. The cabinet rests on solid, pyramidically shaped feet, joined with blind mortise-and-tenon joints.

On the front side, we have three doors made out of salvaged elm. Because the doors are cut from a single piece of elm, the wood grain of the elm flows uninterruptedly in the entire width of the cabinet, from the left door to the right. To add further aesthetic effect, the doors are shaped to have shallowly serrated surfaces and are chamferred along their edges.

Verbintenis was entirely crafted by hand. All the joinery in this cabinet was created fully with traditional hand tools, including dovetail saws and chisels. The milling/dimensioning of stock was done through a combination of machining and hand work. The cabinet was finished with a linseed oil base and two further coats of hardwax oil.