I haven’t been on the site for about a month. Been busy at work with repairing artifacts damaged by Hurricane Florence. Then at the end of October I spent a week with a furniture conservator and woodworker in Winston Salem. It was a very well spent week learning new techniques, skills and materials that I can use at my lab at Tryon Palace, as well as some new woodworking techniques for hobby time. Now its November and we’re getting ready for Candlelight programming so that has kept me busy. I’ve also been busy with my new hobby of landscape painting.
This weekend I’m starting my 2018-2019 big project. It will be the first real project I’ve done that isn’t something for my woodworking shop or for storing tools. It will be a pleasure project that will allow me to tinker with one of my newfound obsessions.
I’ve recently started exploring the world of puzzles. It started during our evacuation from Hurricane Florence when I was watching videos on MrPuzzle’s YouTube channel. That led to purchasing puzzle boxes. I’ve also been drawn to the cabinetry of Silas Kopf both his sequential secret cabinets as well as his skills with marquetry. While I was with the conservator in Winston Salem I studied the work of both Kopf and his inspiration – the Roentgen family.
So, my next project will be a sequential secret cabinet based on an apothecary that I saw at the Luray Heritage Museum in Luray, VA earlier this year. I wasn’t able to take a photo of it, so I sketched what I saw later in my hotel room. It is from that drawing that I am making this piece. Measurements are what I have deemed based on the needs I have. The apothecary featured two locked cabinets on either side with an open area in the center and a small shelf above. The center area had books as on a bookshelf and mine will as well. There was a top, but it didn’t seem deep enough to have a well. Mine will be deep enough for a well. I’ve already decided on the sequence of the cabinet and how many secret compartments it will have and other tricks. I may make an attempt at marquetry for one component. If not, I will do a small painting instead. In the end the cabinet will hold the puzzle boxes that I have bought and some of them will be involved in the opening of the cabinet. Several of the trick/secret mechanisms I have already built onto other pieces and some will be brand new to me. So, there will be both challenge and fun in this project which I look forward to creating. In a way it is a puzzle in itself with all the plans that I have made so far as well as the execution of the process.
This weekend I’m starting my 2018-2019 big project. It will be the first real project I’ve done that isn’t something for my woodworking shop or for storing tools. It will be a pleasure project that will allow me to tinker with one of my newfound obsessions.
I’ve recently started exploring the world of puzzles. It started during our evacuation from Hurricane Florence when I was watching videos on MrPuzzle’s YouTube channel. That led to purchasing puzzle boxes. I’ve also been drawn to the cabinetry of Silas Kopf both his sequential secret cabinets as well as his skills with marquetry. While I was with the conservator in Winston Salem I studied the work of both Kopf and his inspiration – the Roentgen family.
So, my next project will be a sequential secret cabinet based on an apothecary that I saw at the Luray Heritage Museum in Luray, VA earlier this year. I wasn’t able to take a photo of it, so I sketched what I saw later in my hotel room. It is from that drawing that I am making this piece. Measurements are what I have deemed based on the needs I have. The apothecary featured two locked cabinets on either side with an open area in the center and a small shelf above. The center area had books as on a bookshelf and mine will as well. There was a top, but it didn’t seem deep enough to have a well. Mine will be deep enough for a well. I’ve already decided on the sequence of the cabinet and how many secret compartments it will have and other tricks. I may make an attempt at marquetry for one component. If not, I will do a small painting instead. In the end the cabinet will hold the puzzle boxes that I have bought and some of them will be involved in the opening of the cabinet. Several of the trick/secret mechanisms I have already built onto other pieces and some will be brand new to me. So, there will be both challenge and fun in this project which I look forward to creating. In a way it is a puzzle in itself with all the plans that I have made so far as well as the execution of the process.
