5" Round Nantucket Lightship Basket
December 16th, 2008 in The Gallery
oharaworks, member
21 users recommend
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For Laura...
A five-inch round Nantucket Lightship basket using (mostly) traditional materials and methods. The base, handle, rim-halves and staves are of red oak, the weavers are 1.50 mm rattan cane. The wooden parts are sealed with tung oil. The completed basket is varnished and the base, handle and rim are given a couple of coats of hard, paste wax for protection.
Design or Plan used: My own design
posted in: The Gallery, accessory, steam bending, rustic, varnish, oil, red oak
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Congratulations to our two winners Keith Burns from Collierville, TN for his
Segmented Leopardwood Hollow Form and Jordan Durbin from Arcade, NY for his Double Highchair
Comments (5)
Thanks for the compliment.
Construction time depends on how much of the basket you make and how much of the basket is bought pre-fab. I make all my own parts (except the rattan cane, of course) and figure on about 24 hours spread over 10 days from start to finish. This does not include the R&D of making the molds for the body, the rim halves and the handle. However, once these are made they are used over and over again. Another factor is, if you do all the parts yourself, how "authentic" you want the thing to be: are you going to break all the staves, rims and handle out of green white (or red)-oak? are you going to use a metal ear or a wooden ear? if a wooden ear, a simple insert or a through to the base ear/stave?...of course, the list goes on and on, ranging from the primitive to the effete...
Usually, people think it is just the time weaving. My round baskets, with 69 staves, whether a 12"d. or a 6"d. take about eight hours to weave (over three days because it takes a lot of attention and I'm teetering on the brink of senility...).
Hope this helps. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Good luck,
Tim
p.s. I have a web site (http://www.oharaworks.com) where there are a lot of photos of my baskets and a few construction notes. T. Posted: 8:27 pm on January 4th
Dave Nelson. macher@pacbell.net Posted: 11:38 am on December 27th
Regards, Tim. Posted: 10:12 am on December 17th