South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

I started laying the spines onto the drawing having to hold in place using blocks.  I wanted the white Wandoo to be the meeting point in the sculpture, having to taper the edge, by using tungsten carbide round burrs and a small barrel sander. 

South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

I chose to make the middle veneer from Wandoo for two reasons: one, I wanted a contrast timber to give the piece more focus and two, Wandoo is rarely used and certainly not in this context.  I had concerns with using Wandoo as it is extremely dense, tough, hard and was unsure if I could bend around such a tight curve. It surprised me. 

South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

Once out of the vacuum I squared off one face which would have worked out OK if I could have squared off the right face. BUT I couldn't do that, because of the way I'd drawn the sculpture was the wrong way around. If that makes sense. So I had the face I wanted to square up, up and not down........then had to make a jig to put over the jointer. 

I did some initial carving and in hindsight I may not have needed to do as much, having more room to move later with this piece would have made life easier. 

As you can see some delimitation which didn't concern me as these areas where to be carved away.

South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

For the veneers I used 4 x 1.2 mm thick Jarrah with a 1 x 1.2mm thick  of Wandoo in the centre, there being 5 veneers per spine  by 12 spines at varying lengths from 400mm to 1.8m. I used epoxy glue for these veneers especially  on the tight curves. There was certainly some challenges with this piece. I had to get the veneers pre-bent by bending them around 1/4" pipe making sure they were all at right angles.

South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

The formers finished ready for the veneers.
Tension straps where attached to put pressure around the curve and also I needed to protect the veneer from marking. I made a pine chock to slip underneath the end of tension strap. Not sure that worked well as it gave me a point of low pressure once in the vacuum bag and consequently a small point where the veneers did not come together as would have liked.

South West Showcase Sculpture (un-named)

I made the templates out of mdf and then refined them, making sure the curves where exactly how I wanted them. These were the template for the formers. I made sure that when I fettled the very tight curve  it was at right angles to the rest. When I made all the formers I had to make sure that everything was correct, that everything was at right angles so that when I  went to put them all together because I couldn't see the bottom of the sculpture, if they weren't  all right I would have big gaps. This wouldn't then have come together properly

South West Showcase Sculpture (un - named)

The initial idea was for a hall table design. My lecturer at The Australian School of Wood in Dwellingup was quite taken with the design because it was very unusual. I thought about using the design as a free standing form, which has changed to make more sculptural. This is not suppose to be a functional piece it's a piece of art. 

I incorporated stainless steel to expand on not just wood oriented, I like to introduce other elements. By shaping this stainless steel rod it certainly has given definition to this sculptural piece. I was going to use another piece of stainless steel in close to help hold the whole piece together but when my lecturer suggested I try and get all the spines to meet together in the centre, I thought this would be a better option.

I started by drawing a full scale drawing of the sculpture, using a french curve template to make sure the curve was how I wanted them. As there is 12 veins and they will meet at the one centre point these needed to be perfect.