Made from a single board of brown Oak from a tree felled on Dartmoor, and a small amount of plain oak lining the drawer this piece form is heavily inspired by a piece designed and made by the late James Krenov. It is a simple right handed writing desk with a long and shallow end drawer. A curved front extends leftwards allowing for the twist that one has whilst writing, making the top not only aesthetically attractive but ergonomically comfortable. Curves are also present in the taper of the legs and the left end of the top, if you look at most of my work you will usually see a curve where there could be a straight, this is something that I believe has come from a foundation of boatbuilding and suites my subjective eye.
The top is quarter cut giving it structural stability and the wonderful visual of medullary rays which are in my opinion the hidden treasure in oak which only appear when the timber is cut correctly. Wood always has of course the direction of grain, medullary rays are one of the rare features that cut across perpendicular to the grain, and have a dense and shimmering quality. The edges of this piece are finished with cutting tools, mostly a spokeshave, each edge is shaped to more or less of a degree depending on where it is on a feature, this control is only possible by real hand finishing and is one of those processes that may not be obviously recognized but without doing so a piece would not look “right”.
All joints are mitred mortice and tenons and hand cut dovetails. The top joins to the apron with hand made brass expansion washers. The whole piece is finished with Liberon finishing oil followed by polishing with Liberon black bison wax. This finish is an open grain finish which retains the natural texture of the timber, the grain, the rays and the very subtle cuts of my tooling on the details can be seen and felt.