I met Paul Case at the Decorex exhibitors’ launch where I was speaking on behalf of Maggie’s, who was their charity partner this year. He has just launched his first range of furniture, having previously specialised in making one-off bespoke furniture for individual clients. I am delighted to be able to share with you the process of how it all happened.
When creating bespoke furniture, Paul was creating something new for every brief, making each item for the first time every time. Whilst very satisfying, it isn’t very economical, so he decided to create a range of furniture. The process worked in much the same way as for his bespoke work, except this time he was the client.
He started sketching and quickly came up with about 15 workable designs, but the sketch for the Sypder dining table above really stood out. Paul said: “It’s so simple to look at. The lines flow from one end to another. You run your finger along an edge and every line flows all the way through to the end of the table.” Having settled on the design, and sketched out some chairs to match, he set about calculating the angles that would be involved.
After many many pieces of paper like this one, he decided to “just make it and work it out.” He found that each angle was dictated by the piece it was being fixed to, so it was much easier to make a prototype and then take the angles from that.
This is that prototype and now Paul’s family dining table. What’s striking it how similar it looks to the original sketch. It had corner braces, because at this stage Paul had not fully worked out the joints. He took the prototype to the Celebration of Craftsmanship show in Cheltenham and got some good feedback from John Makepeace, Godfather of British furniture design, who later described it as “a form and structure that expresses the functional, structural and the visual role of a table”.
Once Paul was happy with the prototype (and had measured all those angles!) he was able to start making in his workshop. The first step is to prepare the timber and make the tapered shapes. Paul uses jigs for speed and consistency in getting the angles right.
The aesthetic is very much driven structural requirements. For example in the table, the structure can be very lightweight because the forces are channelled through the angled legs and balanced out in the stretcher. The rails under the table top form a ‘tie ring’ which works with the stretcher to give rigidity to the legs. Even the tapers in the legs are structural because the width of the leg reduces as the twist forces also reduce. The rails and the top surface are fully bonded together to give more stiffness which means that the top achieves a slender look considering the span it achieves.
Everything is finished by hand in this case by Paul… et voila!
Paul has also kindly allowed me to share this film with you, which documents the making process of one of his bespoke pieces of furniture. It’s absolutely beautiful and really demonstrates the craftsmanship that goes into everyone of this products.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- the art of bespoke :: paul case furniture
- here’s one I made earlier :: elasticated chair
- here’s one I made earlier ::X3 at super brands london
- here’s one I made earlier :: input
