The Trove- an introduction
Hi..my name is Alexander Varghese. Trove the store has been conceptualized by me and my wife Anu.The Trove is located on NH220, Kanjirapally, in the state of Kerala,India.The store has a fine collection of Furniture and Artifacts for sale. All products for sale are Ethnic in nature and the fine collection of artifacts are from different states of India. Most of the items are hand crafted.The furniture collection for the store comes from our own carpentry section. Please log on to www.trovein.com for more details on the store.
The carpentry or the wood working section is the most interesting part of this venture. I spend most of my time at the carpentry which is now 6 months old. The wood being turned into beautiful pieces of art are a feast for the eyes. I write this blog to share with you the happenings at the carpentry and whatever experience and insight I gain from it.
From my little experience I find three things vital to any piece of work on wood, say furniture for instance, namely quality of wood ,design and techniques employed. Let us discuss in detail these three vital aspects in wood working.
Wood:-In Kerala, in the earlier days furniture used to be made in Rosewood and Teak. Lesser known species like Mahogany were not used to make furniture.Rosewood being scarce and expensive these days, Teak and Mahogany are the other good options to make furniture. There are a lot of other lesser known species too, but availability of such species is a major issue.If the wood is good, you can say you have won half the battle. Selection of timber needs experience and expertise,other ways one can get cheated very easily. There are many effective traditional methods for assessing the age and quality of timber.
We buy timber from sales depots who sell locally available species and imported wood from countries like Burma and Malaysia. We use local teak,mahogany and teak from Burma for making furniture and other items. Mahogany is a good option for making small pieces of furniture like magazine holders,shoe racks etc. Great care should be taken while selecting the timber, since age and maturity of mahogany can decide the life of furniture. Mahogany can be sawn even to half inch thickness and can be stained with different colors to suit one's home interior.
Design:-When it comes to design, both ergonomics and aesthetics matter. The height of a chair can take away the beauty of it, if it is not comfortable to sit. If the seat height of a chair is 18 inches or 45cm, it will be very comfortable to sit, whereas if it is higher your feet will not touch the floor fully and if low, it will affect your posture. If you are doing any upholstery work on a chair the height of the seat need to be adjusted according to the height of the foam used. If the foam height is going to be 3 inches then the frame height (seat) of the chair should be 15 inches.Even the height of a standard cot (frame height)should not be more than 14 inches to be used with a 5 inch thick mattress. The standard height of a writing desk or table should not be more than 75cms, which means the difference in height of a table and a chair should be 30cms (from seat to the table top).
Carpentry an art:-Carpentry is an art which needs dexterity and techniques. The wood working techniques of a carpenter define his skill level. That's why a carpenter is often called an artisan in many parts of the world. Most of the techniques are passed on to traditional artisans through generations.Techniques used can vary from person to person. If we keenly observe two different artisans, for the same work, both might be employing two different techniques.
Timber sales depot:-This is a typical scene at a timber depot. The story of a piece of furniture starts here.When you go to a timber depot you will see many species of timber.But how to select,what to buy and how much to buy. Here you need to do your home work really well. You have to first decide what all you want to make and with the help of a carpenter assess the quantity of wood that would be needed for making each item in cubic feet/meter. Then decide on which species you wish to make the piece of furniture. Based on the quantity needed, you have to look at the wastage at the time sawing the timber, add that with the total quantity required and calculate the total cubic feet of timber to be bought.If you are buying a whole tree like in the picture, the timber will be cut into logs and the cut logs will be placed on a Band saw machine for sawing.
Band-saw:-This is a Band-saw machine.Placed on the machine are mahogany logs for sawing. A band-saw machine does the initial sawing by cutting logs into heavy sections. Care has to be taken while placing the log on a band-saw because the initial sawing is very critical in giving maximum output from the log. The output from local teak can be as low as 50% of the total timber, balance will be sapwood and outer layer which cannot be used. Whereas in Mahogany if you are lucky, hard wood can go up to 70% of the total volume.Burmese teak can also give 70% of hard wood if the timber is of good quality. The sawed sections are then loaded on to a Re-saw machine for final sawing into small sections.
Re-saw:-This is a Re-saw machine which is used for sawing heavy sections into small sections.An experienced and trained person should over look the process, so that nothing is wasted here. All discarded pieces can be cut into small sections with sapwood removed.It can be put to good use at the time of conversion to furniture. A re-saw can cut the sections into planks with thickness of 1/2 inch or less depending on the skill of the operator.A carefully prepared list of sections at the time of sawing, can lead to lesser wastage of wood and maximize the output from timber.
Seasoning of wood:-
Now the question is, can this wood be immediately used for making furniture.Answer is a big no.Wood needs seasoning. The water content in the wood should come down to a certain level for conversion of wood into furniture.Timber taken from the depot will have a water content of 70% or more and this level should come down to 20% or less as per industry standards, which is not achievable through natural seasoning. To achieve such levels there are wood seasoning kilns.A kiln is a drying chamber or a closed humidity controlled room which is manually controlled or computer controlled.Basic theory is to dry the wood in a humidity controlled chamber with inlet, outlet fans and heating coils running on electricity or hot water generated from a hot water generator. Each species has varying levels of temperature and humidity (RH factor) controls to be applied and the whole process need expertise and guidance.In a kiln 12 to 15 days of seasoning can make the water content come down to a level of 20% or less.In a general environment only natural seasoning of wood is possible which will take a month or more depending on the atmospheric conditions. For effective natural seasoning spread out the sections in a roofed space and never out in the open. If the wood is stacked, keep some space in between sections with equal size spacers and never give the chance for bending of wood sections.
The wood is now ready for conversion. Let's now move to the carpentry section.
Surface Planner:- This is the first and preliminary stage of carpentry - surface planing. To make anything in wood all the four sides of the particular section of wood should be in right angles. In a surface planer corresponding two sides of the sections are surfaced to make it into right angles.
Thickness Planner:- Next stage is thickness planner. The other two corresponding sides with the reference taken from the surface planer is being cut with the help of a thickness planner. The thickness of the sections are made uniform as per requirement here. Now all four sides of the section is in right angles irrespective of the size of the section.
Circular saw:-Next stage is cutting the sections length wise and width wise as required with the help of a circular saw blade. With the reference gained from planing and thicknessing of the sections the sections are cut here as per requirement.
Now we will see how we make each piece of furniture stage by stage..
We will first have a look at the joinery techniques that we apply at the carpentry. Joinery is the vital part of the furniture since it determines the strength and durability of each piece of furniture that we make. There are several type of joinery techniques from very simple ones to complicated ones. The selection of joinery for a particular work is based on the experience and expertise of the artisan at work.
We will now see few joinery techniques:-
This is a typical joinery for joining legs to rails be it a table or a chair. This is a tenon and mortise joint.
Hi..my name is Alexander Varghese. Trove the store has been conceptualized by me and my wife Anu.The Trove is located on NH220, Kanjirapally, in the state of Kerala,India.The store has a fine collection of Furniture and Artifacts for sale. All products for sale are Ethnic in nature and the fine collection of artifacts are from different states of India. Most of the items are hand crafted.The furniture collection for the store comes from our own carpentry section. Please log on to www.trovein.com for more details on the store.
The carpentry or the wood working section is the most interesting part of this venture. I spend most of my time at the carpentry which is now 6 months old. The wood being turned into beautiful pieces of art are a feast for the eyes. I write this blog to share with you the happenings at the carpentry and whatever experience and insight I gain from it.
From my little experience I find three things vital to any piece of work on wood, say furniture for instance, namely quality of wood ,design and techniques employed. Let us discuss in detail these three vital aspects in wood working.
Wood:-In Kerala, in the earlier days furniture used to be made in Rosewood and Teak. Lesser known species like Mahogany were not used to make furniture.Rosewood being scarce and expensive these days, Teak and Mahogany are the other good options to make furniture. There are a lot of other lesser known species too, but availability of such species is a major issue.If the wood is good, you can say you have won half the battle. Selection of timber needs experience and expertise,other ways one can get cheated very easily. There are many effective traditional methods for assessing the age and quality of timber.
We buy timber from sales depots who sell locally available species and imported wood from countries like Burma and Malaysia. We use local teak,mahogany and teak from Burma for making furniture and other items. Mahogany is a good option for making small pieces of furniture like magazine holders,shoe racks etc. Great care should be taken while selecting the timber, since age and maturity of mahogany can decide the life of furniture. Mahogany can be sawn even to half inch thickness and can be stained with different colors to suit one's home interior.
Design:-When it comes to design, both ergonomics and aesthetics matter. The height of a chair can take away the beauty of it, if it is not comfortable to sit. If the seat height of a chair is 18 inches or 45cm, it will be very comfortable to sit, whereas if it is higher your feet will not touch the floor fully and if low, it will affect your posture. If you are doing any upholstery work on a chair the height of the seat need to be adjusted according to the height of the foam used. If the foam height is going to be 3 inches then the frame height (seat) of the chair should be 15 inches.Even the height of a standard cot (frame height)should not be more than 14 inches to be used with a 5 inch thick mattress. The standard height of a writing desk or table should not be more than 75cms, which means the difference in height of a table and a chair should be 30cms (from seat to the table top).
Carpentry an art:-Carpentry is an art which needs dexterity and techniques. The wood working techniques of a carpenter define his skill level. That's why a carpenter is often called an artisan in many parts of the world. Most of the techniques are passed on to traditional artisans through generations.Techniques used can vary from person to person. If we keenly observe two different artisans, for the same work, both might be employing two different techniques.
Seasoning of wood:-
Now the question is, can this wood be immediately used for making furniture.Answer is a big no.Wood needs seasoning. The water content in the wood should come down to a certain level for conversion of wood into furniture.Timber taken from the depot will have a water content of 70% or more and this level should come down to 20% or less as per industry standards, which is not achievable through natural seasoning. To achieve such levels there are wood seasoning kilns.A kiln is a drying chamber or a closed humidity controlled room which is manually controlled or computer controlled.Basic theory is to dry the wood in a humidity controlled chamber with inlet, outlet fans and heating coils running on electricity or hot water generated from a hot water generator. Each species has varying levels of temperature and humidity (RH factor) controls to be applied and the whole process need expertise and guidance.In a kiln 12 to 15 days of seasoning can make the water content come down to a level of 20% or less.In a general environment only natural seasoning of wood is possible which will take a month or more depending on the atmospheric conditions. For effective natural seasoning spread out the sections in a roofed space and never out in the open. If the wood is stacked, keep some space in between sections with equal size spacers and never give the chance for bending of wood sections.
The wood is now ready for conversion. Let's now move to the carpentry section.
Surface Planner:- This is the first and preliminary stage of carpentry - surface planing. To make anything in wood all the four sides of the particular section of wood should be in right angles. In a surface planer corresponding two sides of the sections are surfaced to make it into right angles.
Thickness Planner:- Next stage is thickness planner. The other two corresponding sides with the reference taken from the surface planer is being cut with the help of a thickness planner. The thickness of the sections are made uniform as per requirement here. Now all four sides of the section is in right angles irrespective of the size of the section.
Circular saw:-Next stage is cutting the sections length wise and width wise as required with the help of a circular saw blade. With the reference gained from planing and thicknessing of the sections the sections are cut here as per requirement.
Now we will see how we make each piece of furniture stage by stage..
We will first have a look at the joinery techniques that we apply at the carpentry. Joinery is the vital part of the furniture since it determines the strength and durability of each piece of furniture that we make. There are several type of joinery techniques from very simple ones to complicated ones. The selection of joinery for a particular work is based on the experience and expertise of the artisan at work.
We will now see few joinery techniques:-
This is a typical joinery for joining legs to rails be it a table or a chair. This is a tenon and mortise joint.
