John Webster

Heretic's Candlestand

I designed this Candlestand based on a picture of a Bartley Collection piece. The spindle, legs and top started out as hand sketches that were measured and transferred to Google Sketchup. The legs and spindle are Cherry and the top is Wavy Cherry (not quite Curly). The finish is General Finishes Antique Walnut gel stain followed by Extra Dark Walnut Spray Toner from Woodcraft.

The “Heretic” part….. I think SAPFM really is about building period furniture with a heavy emphasis on traditional methods and hand tools. Tools like table saws, routers, lathes and planers sneak in because they shorten the time from idea to reality. The heretic part comes in when you eschew hand methods almost completely and use computers and computer controlled equipment…. This candlestand started as an “I need someplace to put my coffee” hand sketch but that was quickly converted to Google Sketchup 3D CAD files and then imported to Vectric’s Vcarve software to create CNC cutting files. The legs, spindle and top were cut on a Scienci Labs Longmill CNC router using two sided machining and a rotary axis. The dovetail attachment for the legs to the spindle was created using a Shaper Origin handhelp CNC router and workstation. Pictures of some of these setups are on the next page. I completely understand this modern approach to woodworking may be considered “cheating” and not worthy of inclusion in the Maker’s Challenge- but for me, the bottom line is that I now have a place to put my coffee while I sit in my wingback chair and read the morning news on my IPAD.