About a decade ago my friend Vanessels gave me a table. It had been made by her Grandfather as a kitchen table for his family. It had been passed down in the family and had been gathering dust underneath someone’s house by the time it came into my possession. The poor table was in dire need of restoration, it needed the right amount of love and geometry to preserve its heirloom status.
There are only fifteen different types of polygon that will tile a flat surface. Rolf Stein, a German mathematician discovered ‘type 14’ in 1985. I think tiling pentagons are cool, so I cut forty-two ‘type 14’ pentagons out of plywood and used them to make a new parquetry top for this heirloom table.
For colour, I went with three inspired by the German flag. Mostly because it’s what I had leftover in the workshop, and this project was about trying to use up scrap materials. Plus, a big part of this project was aspiring toward German levels of precision and cutting angles like 69.32 degrees is currently beyond my skill level. Not to mention Rolf Stein was German.
Media:
2018 Heirloom table, acrylic paint and screws on plywood.
Dimensions:
906x1523x765
Comments:
You can join the conversation on Twitter or Instagram
Become a Patreon to get early and behind-the-scenes access along with email notifications for each new post.
Hi! Subconsciously you already know this, but let's make it obvious. Hopefully this article was helpful. You might also find yourself following a link to Amazon to learn more about parts or equipment. If you end up placing an order, I make a couple of dollarydoos. We aren't talking a rapper lifestyle of supercars and yachts, but it does help pay for the stuff you see here. So to everyone that supports this place - thank you.