Actually, it's more of a divan than a sofa, and the first time I've built a sofa in all my years of woodworking.
Long ago I had a memorable art teacher in San Antonio and her daughter asked me if I could build a sofa for her new futon mattress. This was to be low budget, but I reckon I had a debt of gratitude and friendliness to take into account so I scoured the shop for parts from old projects, left over materials, and other bits and pieces. The design intent was to be "Moroccan" but it seems to have migrated toward Greece and Rome.
I used coved maple parts left over from a production run of a toy made for Try Out Toys , a left over sheet of purpleheart veneer, escutcheons from antique furniture, Jatoba scraps and so on. As with most one-off work there are a number of things I'd change if i had an opportunity to make another one Anyway, here are the photos:
The CAD drawing:
This is designed to have a lot of storage under the mattress. I'd like to do a legged version and make the ends more like columns rather than a stretched out field of coves. Weird base molding, but it came out nice.
The lathe! I love the lathe, except everything turns out round. You have to warm up to it if you haven't used it in a while. These are end caps for the sofa cylinders, made of Jatoba.
Parts, and a lot of sanding, a lot.
Mara is using shellac as a stain/sealer. Some of the maple went to a dark burnt umber, the only other stain was the amber shellac.
The top coat is shot, now to check for defects and shoot another.
The only color to be left is the sofa covering.
That long maple board between the columns has a giant cove. Originally I was going to apply some left over appliques from the credenza job and some beaded tassles coming out of the jatoba discs, but it was not to be. The actual mattress is about twice the thickness in this photo below.
Oh, and friends, look who gets to lounge on this, my art teachers grandaughter
August 3, 2013
I LOVE it! Congatulations on a fantastic piece.
August 4, 2013
Thanks Bill! I’d love to develop this further.
December 9, 2013
Howdy! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and
tell you I truly enjoy reading your posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that go over
the same subjects? Appreciate it!
December 10, 2013
Menuiserie, there are a lot of blogs from custom makers online in the US and I'm sure elsewhere too. Here are a few of my favorite local makers: http://www.macekfurniture.com/index.html
http://louisfryfurniture.com/
http://www.michaelcolca.com/
August 26, 2015
November 21, 2009This is an great table with those Ebony inlays. I was woinrendg though how you did the inlays. I don’t have a plunge base for my router yet, is it even possible to do inlays with out that set up for your router? If there is i would like to know the process. And even the process for doing inlays with the plunge base. Beings I will be getting one soon. I hope.
August 26, 2015
Carlos, the black edgings are wood stained with India Ink and they weren’t inlaid, they were merely applied and the blond wood was fitted between the black framing. So, no router was used.