As I approach retirement, I plan to transition from being a physician to being an artist. I spent my summers while in junior and senior high school working in a boat yard helping mechanics, painters, and wood workers. I have always enjoyed using these skills to build furniture, but it wasn't until the last few years that I branched out and started to create what I call architectural art. Visitors to the house have seen a progression of projects over the years
"The Journey" A coffee table done with walnut, carbon fiber, aluminum, pewter, and Gemstones
The top is two slabs of walnut that were glued together. A computer driven router was used to level the surface and to create the "river." The course of the river was painstakingly created by hand, following the details of the wood grain. This pattern was transferred to Adobe Illustrator and a computer driven router was used to actually cut the shape.
The support frame was made from aluminum pieces that were cut with a water jet CNC machine using garnet dust and water under high pressure. The pieces were then TIG welded together. It took awhile to get the aluminum Tig welding down. Everything must be stupidly clean and without any type of grease, dirt or metal contaminant.
The legs were cut from plywood using a computer driven router. Sculpting was done using epoxy/clay then covered with carbon fiber using a technique I developed to allow carbon fiber to adhere to complex curves without wrinkling.
The pewter was melted, hand poured, and scraped.
The stones are a mix of hand crushed Kingman Mine Turquoise, Chrysachola, and Malachite
The finish is marine varnish that I mixed with additional resins to create a "short oil" mixture that would cure hard enough to buff out
The surface was created by sequential sanding down to 5,000 grit and then an electric polisher was used apply rubbing and polishing compound.
