NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1983, No. 43, $3.50 Making ... - Wood Tools

Ripe to hold jewelry or trinkets, this drawered apple of
yew and ebony, one of a limited series, is the work of
William Childe, 42.,. senior lecturer of furniture design at
Edinburgh College of Art. The boxes are built in layers,
each layer segmented to avoid visible end-grain. After
glue-up, the outside is shaped not on the lathe, but with
sanding disc, rasp and file, to yield a more naturally irregular
shape. Then the 12 drawers are laminated to a curve
that fits the inside of the box, and each bank of drawers is
mounted to pivot smoothly on a vertical steel pin. This
apple, 1O� in. high, was priced at $1200.
What drew me to this 72-in. high sycamore-maple and ash
cabinet by Robert Williams, 41, of Pearl Dot in London, is the
woven ash doors-they offer such a pleasing alternative to the
usual flat smoothness of showpiece woodworking. Close up, I
could see that the wood was all sensitively handled: The sycamore
is a subtle bird's-eye, set off, as is the ash base, by mahogany
stringing whose width iterates the width of the spaces
around the door. The legs present their quartersawn surface
front, reserving the wilder flatsawn ash to be seen from the side.
The only fearure of the cabinet that disturbed me is rhe little
square brackets that trouble the neat three-way miter between
legs and skirt. I could do without them.
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