Description:

This piece marked an incredibly transformative period of my life. I started my first job, and became part of the Mission Community Woodshop in San Francisco. This piece was the first serious project I built in that space. What started out as a simple design exercise to get back into the flow of creation quickly turned into one of the most technically challenging projects that I’ve ever undertaken. After dedicating evenings and weekends to this project over the past 6 months, I’m proud to present my spice cabinet. 

 

I like my woodworking to be functional. I enjoy cooking and wanted a way to store my spices in an efficient and organized manner; the need for the spice cabinet was apparent. At the same time, I felt compelled to make a piece that allowed me to explore curvature, sculpture, movement, and through-joinery in novel ways. I wanted to make a piece that commanded attention with its striking looks and an imposing stature, though without being garish. Finally, I wanted to make something that would radiate light from within and for the design to allow for the wood grain and shape of the pieces to play together harmoniously. 

 

The cabinet is made from bubinga and maple and can hold up to 20 spice jars. It features hand-cut sculpted through-tenons, shiplap joinery, and coopered doors with inlaid knife hinges. The cabinet also has custom-made brass hardware: a pair of matching pulls turned by eye and a hard-stop at the top of the cabinet. The wood is finished with 15 hand-rubbed coats of polymerized tung oil and polished to 4000 grit to impart a lustrous mirror-like sheen. Such a sheen allows for light to interact beautifully with the cabinet. 

 

Working with bubinga, a wood nearly 3 times as hard as cherry, posed unique challenges. It was fairly stubborn to work with hand tools and refused to compress. Patience and much sharpening was required. Beyond the challenges of the wood, this build pushed the boundaries of my technical knowledge and ability to execute. Special thank you to those who helped me along the way such as Dan M, Ben K, and Tom G who had key advice on cabinet-making, knife hinge operation, and gluing up coopered doors. Thank you to Eric Edwards, who generously photographed this cabinet and did an amazing job. Finally, thank you to Viv N, who helped me tremendously with the hands-on aspects of the project and pushed the bounds of my attention to detail. They were an incredible help for everything this project demanded from me, from talking through mistakes to late night glue-ups. 

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