“Blind Ambition”
Tom Cooper, TC Timberworks
Most cabinet makers will tell you that when you design and make high-quality, bespoke furniture you will encounter some ‘interesting‘ clients from time to time. There are those who are interesting in the sense of being rather eccentric and sometimes rather awkward, and then there are those clients who are genuinely very interesting, very enthusiastic about your work, and a real pleasure to work with. I had the fortune of being contacted by clients of the latter disposition last year, after getting to know them through their guide dog ‘Justin’. My mother-in-law would look after Justin when John and Barbara would go away on holiday. I got talking to them as they would walk past my workshop every so often. However John and Barbara were by no means your usual clients.John is blind and Barbara is in a wheel chair, but they don’t let this get in the way of living life to the full. They have a real appreciation for finely hand-crafted furniture, and have visited the Scottish Furniture Makers annual exhibition for the last four years. As a result they had always wanted to replace their old sideboard with a new one with a display cabinet, which would be hand-made from solid Scottish hardwood and designed exactly the way they wanted, from a local craftsman. They had always admired my designs and level of craftsmanship, so asked if I would like the job. How could I refuse?
I did say they would have to wait a while as my order book was quite full at the time, and with only one pair of hands. However, the problem for me was how do design a bespoke piece of furniture for someone who is blind? I started by establishing a rough idea of what they wanted the cabinet to look like with a few key phrases like ‘modern’, ‘organic curves’, and ‘exposed joint details’, also how they wanted it to function, with a drinks cabinet, the number of drawers and a rough size of the piece. After having sketched a few design ideas, I showed them to Barbara, which we then tried explaining to John which turned out a bit like a game of charades!I think he got the gist of it, but to be sure I then prepared a Braille technical drawing. This involved taking a regular line drawing and going over the lines with PVA glue, then sprinkling fine saw dust over the drawing, leaving to set, which left a raised surface, which John could then trace his fingers along.
Following a few amendments to the design I prepared a final scaled technical drawing from which I produced an exact 1:5 scale model, with working doors and drawers, and even made it using the timber that the final full size piece would be made in.
This was another issue that proved rather challenging, deciding the colour and type of timber to be used, but I don’t think John was particularly concerned for obvious reasons, so Barbara made most of the decisions at this point, but we did try an explain to John the colours and grain pattern.
They were quite adamant on a local Scottish hardwood. Something with quite a bit of character and interesting grain pattern, but reddish to mid brown in colour. We finally settled upon Scottish cherry, a beautiful timber with plenty of character and a good range of brown and red colours.Once John and Barbara were happy with everything I started by producing full size technical drawings and the formers for the bow fronted components. They wanted the entire piece of furniture constructed from solid timber, no veneered MDF compromises, and also the use of traditional construction methods such as mortise and tenon and dovetail joints, which meant the piece took 3 months and over 400 hours to complete. Everything had to be meticulously constructed, sanded and finished with Danish oil, as any small imperfection that would normally be over looked by the naked eye would be identified by John’s astute sense of touch. Not that I normally approach the making of my furniture with a ‘that’ll do’ attitude, this time everything had to be checked and double checked.
Throughout the construction process, John and Barbara visited the workshop to view the progress, where John would run his hands over the different components at various stages, enabling him to get a better understanding of the proportions and the details. We were then able to tweak some of these details, further developing the design as construction progressed.
This was great to have real hands on customers, as they had as much involvement in the design as I did, making the piece of furniture very individual to themselves. Most people will find it very difficult to visualise a commissioned piece of furniture before it’s been built, even more so if you’re blind. So it was also necessary for me to spend a lot of time and be patient through every process of the design and construction. They were very pleased with the final outcome, as I was myself.
It was a real joy to work with John and Barbara on this project as they are such wonderful people, who I also greatly admire for how they have overcome their difficulties in life, not letting the lack of what most of us take for granted hold them back. Many thanks to John and Barbara Howie for presenting me with such a challenging project, for being fantastic customers, and the chance to produce such a beautiful piece of furniture.Some thoughts on being a furniture maker
John Johnston
Every day is a challenge, wither it be waiting on the sound of the postman dropping the lid on my letter box (as I work alone, he is sometimes the only contact I have with the outside world, and often drag him in to try out a new chair design, for comforts sake of course. always good to get a second opinion) or trying to manoeuvre a solid oak door from one area of my workshop to another, without breaking a light tube, or bashing the oak of course. Ironically (because John spent 15 years working in agriculture without ever being on the programme, -- ed.), I once appeared on the “Landward” television programme, which is farming related mainly, talking about 'My Love of Scottish Hardwood' while stroking an elm table I had just made.My funniest/strangest request to build something was to make a 'Weft Winding Machine' (bit of a mouthful for a start) for a student in textiles. I did not even know what weft was or meant, but she produced a drawing, on my request, and I pondered and sometimes I would sit and think; sometimes I would just sit! And during one of my sitting, thinking periods I had a thought, just to go back to sitting! Anyway I ended up making the Weft Winding Machine, in Scottish beech and it was a laugh and great fun. It had a variable speed motor to drive it, gears and pulleys, sort of like a combine harverster has (John drove these for a living for over a decade, -- ed.). I remember spending nights in the workshop after dark playing with it, I think weft winding is meant to be done at the slower speeds, but it was immensely exciting watching my lovely smooth beech frame whip round on the fastest setting. Thankfully I never broke it, the student was happy and got a good grade, as it was part of her course work.
The only other strange thing I have made, well it was not that strange, was once asked to make a prayer stool from a clients sketch, which I did, but once I had made it, I could not work out which way one was meant to sit/kneal on it! But thankfully someone showed me before the client came to collect it, in fact it may well have been the postman!
Some of the strangest requests made to our members
asked to build a coffee table that was to balance on 2 triangular legs with the points of the triangles pointing down, no less. The customer just couldn't understand why this would fall over;“I’ld like a side table, like the one in the Argos catalogue, but cheaper?” it cost £17 from Argos;
asked if he made coffee tables, the maker said of course and asked whether the client could give him an idea of the style they preferred. “Red” was the answer;
from an undecided customer: “I’m looking for a console table for my hall or, maybe, a bookcase or a cupboard”;
one astronomically challenged client had a stained glass window installed in an internal dividing wall but found that she preferred one side to the other. The attractive side, unfortunately, was in the dark corridor not in the good public room. When it was pointed out that it was the natural sunlight filtering through the glass from the public room that made the window look good in the hallway, not that the window had a good side and a bad side, she nevertheless asked to have the window taken out and turned around;
asked to make “something” from the remains of a beloved piano;
a regular request is for some form of storage, perhaps with a few shelves, perhaps some drawers and, maybe, some open space if possible to take a laundry basket and hoover, all to be squeezed into a space you couldn’t fit a dustpan and brush; this is called the Tardis syndrome.