Open Writing

I once owned a workshop. When I sold the big house to move to a smaller one, I gave all the tools and machines away. However, I retained the pliers, the shifting spanner and a few screwdrivers, the basics for home repairs.

For about a decade previous to the sale I had helped and used an elderly colleague's complete workshop in Cape road. He had amassed the workshop over the previous couple of decades and most of the tools were pre-war and included a Millers Falls wood lathe with 2ft4" bed and throw of about 4". This lathe had hardly been used. I had done some wood and metal turning during my Matric years on my schools' little South Bend screw cutting lathe. Eventually, under guidance from my old friend, I learnt the art of that little lathe, even adapting and turning 24" standing lamp bases. I had found a delightful, dusty, forte.

Shortly into my new-found workshop fun, I was commissioned to make a white oak corner whatnot by another colleague of mine. He was a collector of antiques and in his earlier years had been a draughtsman. I asked him to draw on graph paper the shape he desired. I studied photographs of whatnots but could not find what I was looking for. My workshop owner friend had an excellent library of workshop and furniture books including Mr Pane's inspiring wood turning bible, at least, I regarded it as such.

I set about designing an original corner whatnot. I said to myself that an average man who is six foot tall must at six foot distance from the whatnot, be able to see all items on display on the shelves. This resulted in a design where, the distance between shelves decreased from the base shelf towards the top shelf. Each successive shelf became proportionally smaller from bottom to top. Thus, when viewed from the side the leading edges of the quarter quadrant shelves formed a parabolic continuation. The whatnot had five shelves.

Finding the wood was no problem in those days as I was well known to the timber merchants. I bought inch and a half square stock of which some eight feet had a beautiful plum coloured styration running through the middle of the piece. It would be excellent for the near eye level spacer legs to be. One by eighteen inch boards completed the timber requirement. As far as the gate control was concerned they were offcuts at One Rand for the lot! That for Japanese oak, nogal.

I thought this delightful would take a month of evenings and full week-ends to finish, but 'lo and behold by the sixth evening it was standing unglued erected on a perfectly flat level cast iron work plate on top of the bench. This cast iron work plate was in fact an old coal stove top which was part of a wire lampshade frame making kit, but thats another story.

My old friend and his wife had gone to the movies that Saturday night and returned at 10.30pm in his grey MG Magnette. He pulled into the workshop and did not say a word. He and his wife disappeared into the house. He returned a few minutes later bearing, on a silver tray, Scotch ice and water. He poured two stiff drinks. The toast was, "To Beauty".

The finish was to sanding sealer as the new owner would, while he lived, Turtle Wax the piece once a week.
I charged him 25 Rand for the commission and I have heard recently that his surviving wife has received offers high up in the thousands for the piece. It is now part of her family in more ways than one. She refuses to sell.