Daniel Lacey, Sunburst table and chairs (FURNITURE 2025)

Photos:

Euan Adamson

Country

United Kingdom (Great Britain)

I work almost entirely with local storm-downed trees, milling and drying the timber, cutting my own veneers, as sole designer and maker in my small ethical business. The brief for ‘Sunburst’: a 6 seat round pedestal type table (with chairs) in local white ash with pedestal reminiscent of a tree trunk. Early on it was decided to translate the open structure of my ‘Blagr’ (Black Grouse) chairs across to the table. This informed most of the major design decisions. The 6 wide sawn veneer panels are cut from the top of each chair seat and book matched end to end with the tabletop. The end grain visible on the front legs of the chairs is echoed in the through tenoned table legs in the 6 wider veneer panels. No CAD or CNC were used at any stage of this project. Info for the techies:- To keep the table under-structure open necessitated a structural and therefore veneered plywood tabletop imparting great stability. Additionally allowing for the theme of 6 to keep repeating in the 6 wide sawn veneer panels, (same width as the chair seats, interspersed with 6 narrower veneer panel). The table top is laminated from layers of birch plywood with inserts of solid ash where the through tenons are located. After tapering the thickness this was then covered in a 2mm layer of sawn ash veneer to lock everything together. The ash lipping’s have a full length loose tongue. The top was flattened by hand before veneering with carefully selected sunburst pattern of sawn veneer on both faces. The mortise locations were hand cut and the legs and ribs shaped from solid ash before drying down to below 6% moisture and their final fitting. The chair seats are a three-ply construction from solid ash, the thinness of the lower lamination is carefully selected to balance the top lamination after it has had the seat shape sculpted out by hand. The tapered leg joints are carefully sized to make a rigid joint with a strong but flexible leg to reduce the stress that a more rigid leg would create. The back panels are laminated from 4 layers of sawn ash veneer with a full length loose tongue joining to the legs. All final fitting is by hand. Natural oil finishes were used.

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