The Chemical Elements as Wood Tiles

And now for something a little bit out there, a little bit geeky, a little bit fun, and a little bit of a word game.

Chemical elements as wood tiles! Put together in such a way as to spell out your name! Or spell out a word! Or spell out anything you can think of that fits the criteria!

This was an idea from a customer of mine who wanted wood tiles to embed into a bar top with random chemical elements on them. I took it one further and wanted to make them NOT random, i.e., why not spell something out?

I did a little googling and there's a guy out there that listed every word in the English dictionary that can be spelled using the symbols of chemical elements. There were something like 50,000 words in his list. Wow.

I could do words, I could do names, I could do names plus words. Or I could do a tile or tiles simply because you have a special attachment to a certain element.

Tiles are $12 each.

These are 7 1/2 inches square and are made from 1/2 inch thick birch plywood. The symbol is hand routed and hand painted black. The atomic number, atomic weight and element name are toner transferred and inked in black. The tiles are then coated in a water based poly.

What words/names can you spell with the elements? That's up to you to figure out. I'll provide a list below with all the symbols to help you out. 

Email me (craigwoodworks at gmail dot com) and indicate the quantity of tiles you'd like, which symbols you'd like, and allow one week for construction.

Ac Actinium
Ag Silver
Al Aluminium (Aluminum)
Am Americium
Ar Argon
As Arsenic
At Astatine
Au Gold
B Boron
Ba Barium
Be Beryllium
Bh Bohrium
Bi Bismuth
Bk Berkelium
Br Bromine
C Carbon
Ca Calcium
Cd Cadmium
Ce Cerium
Cf Californium
Cl Chlorine
Cm Curium
Cn Copernicium
Co Cobalt
Cr Chromium
Cs Caesium (Cesium)
Cu Copper
Db Dubnium
Ds Darmstadtium
Dy Dysprosium
Er Erbium
Es Einsteinium
Eu Europium
F Fluorine
Fe Iron
Fm Fermium
Fr Francium
Ga Gallium
Gd Gadolinium
Ge Germanium
H Hydrogen
He Helium
Hf Hafnium
Hg Mercury
Ho Holmium
Hs Hassium
I Iodine
In Indium
Ir Iridium
K Potassium (Kalium)
Kr Krypton
La Lanthanum
Li Lithium
Lr Lawrencium
Lu Lutetium
Md Mendelevium
Mg Magnesium
Mn Manganese
Mo Molybdenum
Mt Meitnerium
N Nitrogen
Na Sodium
Nb Niobium
Nd Neodymium
Ne Neon
Ni Nickel
No Nobelium
Np Neptunium
O Oxygen
Os Osmium
P Phosphorus
Pa Protactinium
Pb Lead
Pd Palladium
Pm Promethium
Po Polonium
Pr Praseodymium
Pt Platinum
Pu Plutonium
Ra Radium
Rb Rubidium
Re Rhenium
Rf Rutherfordium
Rg Roentgenium
Rh Rhodium
Rn Radon
Ru Ruthenium
S Sulfur (Sulphur)
Sb Antimony
Sc Scandium
Se Selenium
Sg Seaborgium
Si Silicon
Sm Samarium
Sn Tin
Sr Strontium
Ta Tantalum
Tb Terbium
Tc Technetium
Te Tellurium
Th Thorium
Ti Titanium
Tl Thallium
Tm Thulium
U Uranium
Uuh Ununhexium
Uuo Ununoctium
Uup Ununpentium
Uuq Ununquadium
Uus Ununseptium
Uut Ununtrium
V Vanadium
W Tungsten
Xe Xenon
Y Yttrium
Yb Ytterbium
Zn Zinc
Zr Zirconium

Shipping is $5 for the first tile, plus $1 for each additional tile.

If perchance you are a crazy periodic table person who wants ALL 118 of the elements as wood tiles, that'll be $1,180. A savings of $2 per tile. Please allow one month for creation of these 118 tiles. Send an email for details. craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

The Chair Room at SFMOMA

We were in SF a few weeks ago and stopped by the sfmoma (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The lobby itself was art, as is the case with lots of museums around the world. You don't actually have to go and see the exhibits to have an architecturally good time.

Similarly, the first time I went to the Getty in LA (the one on the hill, not the one on the water), I spent the whole day outside looking at the buildings, never once venturing inside to look at the art. And further similarly, at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris I tended to ignore the art inside (OK, not really), but instead kept saying to myself, hey this used to be a train station!

So here at sfmoma, I said, hey that's a cool information desk!

And whoa, look up!

And alongside the left wall of the lobby was a bench! This bench:

Anyway, into the museum!

One of the first things encountered was The Chair Room. A room of 11 chairs arranged in circle. A room of 11 pieces of wood art that serve the additional purpose of supporting your behind. A room of 11 modern chairs from modern designers from around the world from the 1930's to the present. Here they are:

Gerrit Rietveld, Zig-zag chair, 1934

Alvar Aalto, Armchair, model 31, 1931-32

Charles and Ray Eames, LCW, 1945

Nathan Lerner, Chair in a Box chair, 1947

Ray Komai, Chair, model 939, 1949

J.B. Blunk, Invisible Presence, 1962

Marc Newsom, Wood chair, 1988

Fernando and Humberto Campana, Favela chair, 1991

Frank Gehry, Cross-check armchair, 1992

Mark Naden, Topos chair, 2003

Maarten Baas, Zig-zag chair (Rietveld), from Where There's Smoke, 2004

It's fascinating that the collection of chairs comes full circle (literally, with the arrangement of chairs on a circular platform), with the Rietveld chair sitting next to the Baas chair. They're almost exactly alike, only with Baas putting his burnt signature on his (again literally, a burned cherrywood chair).

Yeah, I could've come away from this being all inspired to do chairs. Particularly chairs as an homage to these, like some sort of plywood curvy piece in the style of that fabulous Topos chair, or even a melange of scraps type of chair like the Favela. But I ended up coming away from this thinking, I'm gonna make the bench in the lobby.

Yup, the third picture above. It turned out they had dozens (if not hundreds) of these benches throughout the facility, mostly for use while resting in front of a large painting/sculpture/installation.

And I said to myself, I'm gonna go home and make one of those. Right away. It's now in progress. Lots of gluing of lots of parts in multiple steps 'cause I have a finite number of clamps in the shop. A post detailing the finished bench will be posted soon. Since it's a pseudo-slatted bench, it'll be part of my ongoing Nelson series of benches.

So the moral of the story: the next time you're in your favorite museum, ignore the art. Check out the other stuff that's in the building. Oh yeah, and if this museum happens to be the sfmoma, check out the chair room.

The Secretary Desk

Finally, pics of the finished product. The customer took delivery in December and somehow I forgot to take pictures of it both when it was finished in the shop and when it was sitting in its final resting place in the living room. Over this past weekend, I went back to have a visit and snapped these photos:

In the lid closed and everything tucked away position.

Cuts were made from long horizontal boards so the grain matches on adjoining drawer fronts. The large drawer on the lower left contains a vertical file hanging system.

Dovetailed fronts.

Drawers (again).

Dropdown hardware. These pieces from Rockler have an adjustable brake control to reign in the speed of the dropdown action. This way it won't just slam down when you open it. Also, a magnetic catch secures the desk in the upright position.

The lived-in look. While a laptop is currently being used in this space, the opening is large enough to accommodate an iMac if the customer so desires in the future. The intention here is to pull out the laptop onto the desk portion when in use. Note also the cubbyhole shelving on the right - these are sized to fit standard 8.5x11 sheets of paper.

Drawer hardware detail.

And finally, the desk paired with a cool chair. Hiding in the back is a Nelson bench!

Construction notes: Solid cherry case and drawers. Plywood exceptions: drawer bottoms, case back, upper shelves. Dropdown hardware from Rockler. Brushed nickel drawer pulls. Dimensions? Approx 4' tall, 3' wide, 2' deep.

Price: Sold.

To discuss ideas for your own secretary desk, please send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com.

Spoons!

Over the course of a few months I've been experimenting with turning spoons. Every now and again I'd find a random piece of maple or cherry, turn the handle on the lathe, and rough out a spoon shape using a variety of techniques: straight chiseling, spoon chiseling, routing, dremeling, flapwheel grinding, scraping, etc. I'm not quite sure which method works best, but that's part of the figuring out process and that's why I ended up with about a dozen spoons in varying styles.

So for xmas, I sanded these prototypes down, finished 'em with mineral oil (plus beeswax and carauba wax), put a pretty ribbon on 'em, attached some care/feeding instructions, and gave 'em away. In the true spirit of xmas, the best present is the type that actually can be crafted in Santa's workshop and not something that can be bought at Wal-Mart.

Each spoon had a different handle/spoon shape and was personalized with the iron/toner transfer technique that I use on lots of my other projects.

Once I figure out a streamlined modus operandi, I'll start selling these too.

Again, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Yes, there is furniture here

No, it's not just Scrabble related stuff that I do. Somehow the tile thing caught on and blossomed into something that's not retro or modern or furniture, but it's still wood.

A current project in its final stages:

A full report on this custom secretary desk is coming. Perhaps the first week of December after I deliver it.

The Headboard

The latest addition to the Nelson series, Project Mike: The Headboard.

This was inspired by a customer's request about eight months ago who wanted a slatted headboard. I ended up not making one for that customer, but went ahead and built one for our brand spanking new kingsize bed.

I often wondered if a mattress really did matter when it comes to sleeping comfort. After all, it's just a thing to lay on, right? And I can fall asleep anywhere -- the couch, the floor, the car, the bus, hard surface, soft surface, whatever. So when it came time to replace our 10 year old queen mattress, the woman suggested we go big. Real big. As in King.

Of course this meant scrapping the queen frame too. Now we've got a king (and a split boxspring) that's planted on the floor, sans bedframe.

And to answer my question about whether a mattress has anything to do with sleepability, I have to conclude with a resounding yes indeedy. Now I sleep completely uninterrupted without waking constantly in the middle of the night -- why I thought waking up constantly was normal, I don't know. Now we frequently have trouble getting up in the morning 'cause this new mattress is just so darn enveloping and soft and warm and cozy and squishy and joyful.

Anyway, to the headboard! Slats, all cherry wood, a couple of coats of tung oil (with lots more finishing to do later), and no frame yet. Due to various other projects piling up on my to-do list (a secretary desk, tons of giant scrabble tiles, various turned pieces, and a custom quadruple size scrabble board (to be played with 400 standard scrabble tiles)), I'll have to wait a while before attempting to make a frame. More details on the secretary desk and the ginormous scrabble board are forthcoming.

Dimensions are as follows:

Length: 80"

Height: 42"

Price: not for sale

Cherry wood. Preliminarily finished in tung oil.

To arrange commission of your own slatted headboard, send an email to craigwoodworks at gmail dot com

The Eames House

Yes, I like Eames furniture. And yes, I admit I had no idea their house was in Pacific Palisades until a few months ago. And yes, I further admit that two years ago I was as ignorant as they come regarding anything that the Eames' ever did regarding furniture, architecture, film, style, life, etc.

In my former life I was a high end audio/video installation professional. In other words, I played with rich peoples' expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys. 'Cause he who dies with the most expensive blinky lighted (with buttons and switches) toys wins. And he who has the biggest plasma screen hung on a wall can definitely compensate for shortcomings in other areas. I'm referring to a certain loud-mouthed former NFL wide receiver who will not be named, who just had to own a monstrous 103" behemoth. But I digress.

Anyway, there was a home theater installation I worked on a while back where the guy (not the aforementioned NFL player, but another rich guy with lots of toys) had a cool projector, a bigass screen, and a gagillion watts of speaker amplification in a dedicated theater space on top of the garage. For seating in this home theater, he had a fleet of Eames Lounge Chairs with Ottomans. By 'fleet' I mean at least a dozen of each.

Of course back then I didn't know what I was resting my grubby shoes on, and thought they were just nifty looking matching comfy ottomans with nifty looking matching comfy chairs. They were probably newer repros, but who knows? This guy was oozing overflowingly with wealth that he probably could have gone out and procured a dozen rosewood originals.

The point is that I just didn't know what I was experiencing when basking in the glory of that fleet of fabulous furniture.

Fast forward a few years and after my wife has educated me significantly in the lexicon of MCM, and here we are at the Eames House. Yup, right there on Chautauqua, just a few hundred yards up from PCH. I must've driven up that street dozens of times during my career as an installer, never knowing that right out the truck window there were four (count 'em four) case study houses: Eames, Entenza, West (Walker), and a Neutra.

A few months ago we were watching the second disc of the Eames films collection, the piece entitled House. And then I said, hey I'll google that and see what happens. And yes indeed, this is what I found: http://www.eamesfoundation.org/index.html and it's available for visitation. And we took a visit, just three weeks ago. The only catch is you can't take pictures of the inside.

What was interesting was the little conversation we had with the friendly docent at the door who was somewhat surprised that we're local and from LA. She told us that the majority of the visitors come from out of country and it's rare when a local comes by. Hmm, a comment on the not-so-enthusiastic state of architectural/historical interest among Los Angeles residents?

And during a leisurely stroll through the vast open space in front of the house, we came across some Tonka trucks, seemingly frozen in time. They probably had not been moved since forever as the rust indicated. You could just picture the Eames children (like in the House movie), running around the grounds, then moving some dirt with the Tonka trucks.