98 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking September 2019 http://www.getwoodworking.comFEATURE End-grain
I
’ve just made loads of furniture. All in
the last half hour. And wooden furniture
at that (to stretch a point). Furniture: noun:
the movable articles that are used to make
a room or building suitable for living or working
in, such as tables, chairs, or desks (Google) and
boxes (me). I’m on the move, and I need boxes.
Cardboard boxes are like hardcore. If you don’t
need them, they get in the way. If you need
them and don’t have them, you’re stuffed (either
way you’re immobilised). It seems wrong that
the very same article can be a complete nuisance
one minute, and an utter necessity the next.
(Now that would be a good use of technology:
a website for the free trafficking of hardcore –
though you might have to call it something else).
I bought flat-packed cardboard boxes
from a supermarket. Faced with an unfamiliar
constructional challenge, I had a tingle of
apprehension (surely we’ve all had bad IKEA
moments?). Then as I folded and unfolded this
and that according to instructions, and got the
hang of it, I saw how neat it was. How effective!
How the handle directly carries the weight of the
floor. All from a flap of cardboard stamped out by
the mother and father of pastry cutters. Industrial
origami. A real act of creation. Floppy stuff in two
dimensions made rigid in three (the essence of
corrugation – for the cardboard itself is little more
than shapely paper). Something out of next-to-
nothing, and with wit! Cardboard design is very
clever. I’d like to meet the people who do it. There
must be lots of Aha! moments as the creative
spark hits home. I’d like to think that there’s lots
of laughter. Somebody prototypes a bottle crate
that a check-out operative can flip open with one
hand: how could you not laugh? Quieter triumphs
as components are packed safely and separately
in a box by folded shelving. I wonder too how
many sighs show disappointment that by and
large such brilliance is taken for granted. Not
even noticed. Thrown away.My biggest box
My 28 cardboard boxes are easily sturdy enough.
This is reassuring. A collapsing box is a miserable
affair. This was in my mind as I assembled the
biggest cardboard box of my career. A box that © Edward Hopkins 2019under no immediate circumstances must collapse.
A cardboard coffin. Patrick didn’t want to make
a fuss. He knew he’d be gone before long and he
didn’t want to disturb his wife, so he asked me
(I am a furniture maker after all) if I’d deal with
it and keep it in my loft until the day came.
‘Of course,’ I said, but I didn’t have a loft.
When it arrived, I didn’t want to leave it
unexamined. I wanted to put it together now,
so that I wouldn’t be rushed later. I didn’t find
it easy to assemble. It involved plastic rivets and
the holes didn’t always align. I actually phoned
the manufacturers at one point and said I didn’t
understand the instructions, and I’m reasonably
good at instructions (and making things).
I completed this origami/woodwork/
shipbuilding puzzle, but I had a few rivets left
over. This is never good. Count your components
first to see if it’ll be you or them. Do you imagine
that a disgruntled packer might occasionally add
extra pieces just to confuse you? I, however, was
not perplexed. I could see where they should be,
I just couldn’t get them in. Would their omission
compromise structural integrity? Patrick was
a big bloke. I decided, a little unhappily, that
I could get away with it.Hammerless horror
Here’s a question: if you don’t have a loft, but
a cottage that you let out does: is it better to
tell your tenants that there is a coffin in their
loft, or hide it so they won’t notice? What if they
do notice? Is it not more Transylvanian to finda coffin in your loft (not knowing what might
lie inside), than to know that an empty coffin
is up there minding its own vacuous business,
just maybe occasionally whispering about the
transitory nature of life? Which box holds the
more heebie-jeebies?
By the time Patrick died he had moved house.
I took his coffin from the loft. It wouldn’t go in
the car. After the tussle I had putting it together,
I wasn’t going to take it apart, so it had to go on
the roof. The weather was inclement. A soggy
coffin doesn’t bear thinking about, so I had to
cover it. The tarpaulin wasn’t quite big enough. Did
it look bad like that? Like a see-through disguise?
(When I was a student I worked for a while
as a mortuary porter. I remember the blanket
and pillow theatrically perched on the lid of the
trolley of death, as if that would fool anyone).
Short of taping polythene all over it, it was
the best I could do. I wondered if I’d be stopped
along the way. ‘Excuse me, Sir’ etc.; or give
passengers in overtaking cars (overtaking an
undertaker) a sudden spasm of grief or horror.
I dealt with that one. I didn’t look. I stayed in
the inside lane, and drove at a respectful speed.
The box stayed put. The tarpaulin chattered in the
wind. It didn’t rain. I pulled into the undertaker’s
yard with a surge of gratitude, untied the box
and took it off the car. ‘Over to you’, I said to the
undertaker. Then I reached out my closed hand
and dropped a few rivets into the palm of his.BOXING
CLEVER
Origami woodwork
(with ship-building)