Ash and ice – FineWoodworking

Synopsis: Begin with some huge blocks of ice. Watch them soften. Then create your furnishings design. A take a look at the work of Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen.

For those who intend to construct furnishings impressed by the types and options of melting ice, one approach to proceed is to acquire large blocks of ice from a close-by fish warehouse, put them in an iron basin you construct in your woodshop, and watch them flip to water. Mette Bentzen and Lasse Kristensen, life and work companions in Elsinore, Denmark, who met constructing Hans Wegner chairs on the storied PP Mobler store in Copenhagen, did simply that. They watched, drew, and photographed, studying all they may because the blocks shrank, after which started constructing a sequence of stack-laminated tables and stools in Danish ash, choosing inventory that had been steamed to offer it a ghostly whiteness. Relying on the scale and form, a few of their items are monolithic, others hole. All are formed first with angle grinders and energy sanders, chisels, rasps, and information, earlier than being extensively hand-sanded utilizing an array of personalized sanding blocks. The hand-sanding, Kristensen says, absorbs 70% of the time in each bit, and is important to realize the silky surfaces and clarified contours they search in these homages to Nordic winter in a warming world.

—Jonathan Binzen

From Superb Woodworking #296