There are so many interesting cultures all over the world and it's always fun to see how each one of them is so different, yet interesting in its own way. Japanese furniture is most often made with a lot of attention to detail. Everywhere you look, you'll see how perfectly and refined it's made. In African cultures however, a lot of furniture is very pure, made of raw materials and comes across as very monumental or inspired by the nature the people see around them. For this product I got inspired by African culture and used some beautiful African Mahogany Sipo wood for it, hence the name of the project.
At the start of the year I got a commission for a TV cabinet. The only demands were some rough measurements, for the rest I could basically do anything I wanted and see if the customers liked it. I relatively quickly came to a design we all liked and I couldn't wait to start making it. However, I don't have a lot of machines yet that are somewhat necessary for a build like this, so I had to go back and forth between some places quite a lot to actually realize this project.
I made the mahogany panels at Herso in Loosbroek. This was really easy to do there because they have access to a panel saw, a huge industrial wide belt sander and a hydraulic panel clamping system that wouldn't even fit in the house I live in. Later I sawed some joinery on the Altendorf at Maarten Baas. I want to thank both these companies a lot, because they made everything much easier for me. Even though there's always another way to do the same thing, it doesn't hurt to have access to expensive machines that are very fast and accurate.
I couldn't resist making some wood joinery again like the half lap joints with dowels to add some extra strength and detail, but this time I didn't want to make it too complex. I think this way it still represents the African culture I was inspired by quite well, while fancy castle joints and half-blind mitered dovetails could possible distract from that.
You can take a look at the process on my instagram as a highlight.
