Fairwell, Chicken Wing.

Goodbye, chicken wing mold #01. After multiple tries of casting, experimenting with different time of leaving the slip in the mold... it still would not easily come out as one piece.

Time to admit defeat.

After some not so serious CSI of the mold and the ripped pieces of clay chicken wing. We labeled the fragile points and where slight undercut exists. see image below.

undercuts + fragile points = fail.

This will not be our last attempt. We learned a lot and will definitely try different things soon... perhaps a drumstick?


- Jess

NDC featured in ARCH Magazine.

We were featured in the November issue of ARCH magazine - a Taiwanese luxury and style magazine. They wrote an article featuring the hottest new design from ten different countries around the world. Our M3/M4 rings were proud to represent Canada!

The entire magazine includes English and Chinese, however, upon reading the Chinese text, it slightly differs from the English text. Apart from both giving an overview of the rings, the Chinese focuses a little more on love.

"This design expresses the designer’s value and thoughts, perhaps this will not change the prestige stature of the diamond, but it gives people a new perspective on what a ring represents. Perhaps the carat of a diamond can buy a girls heart, but, when your lover really wants to keep you close and 'screwed tight', who then would really care about a mere diamond when you are already deeply in love?" - Arch Nov. issue. (Our bad translation... sorry.)

Netherlands is our neighbour !

London, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Canada (that's us!) and Netherlands spread

City x New Design spread

Visit our website!

Also, a quick congrats to the members of NDC, this is our official 100th post.
100 bottles of champagne?



- Jess
Follow us @theNDC

Banksia Pods

On our last trip to Exotic Woods in Burlington, we saw some Banksia Pods. Apparently they are a seed, or nut, kind of like the inverse of a pine cone. They are very hard on the inside, but actually kind of furry and brittle on the outside.

This is Natural?

The coolest thing about them is that they have ovoid holes running through the nut that go almost all the way into the center. So, we decided to pick one up and try turning it on the lathe.

After persuading a large family of spiders to vacate, the pod was trimmed on the band saw and then turned and sanded on the lathe into a cylinder.

The Finished Product

The wood inside is very hard and can be sanded to almost a gloss finish. The pod was then cut in half and drilled out to make two small tea light holders.

With Tea Lights

We really like how the light escapes from the holes in the pod. If we ever pick up more, I think that they will be made deeper so that this lighting affect is amplified. Either way, it was a half-hour well spent! I do hope they're fire-proof...

-Scott

Beau's Beau Packaging

Good beer and awesome packaging work by Ontario's Beau's.

We're loving the nifty handle, two-colour wooden plank print, durable cardboard construction....oh and the bubbly inside the 4 x 600ml bottles too!


- Heather

charred cedar & cactus

Like some sort of DIY phoenix rising from the ashes, here's a closer look at our latest charred cedar planter with its newest tenant.

To prevent sooty fingers and smudged window sills, the outside of the planter was finished with a light water-based coat. Plants don't seem to last that long in the NDC home as Craig is a bit of an omnivore, but we think this spiky Cactaceae will remain happy and uneaten (for a while at least) in his brand new home.



- Heather.

Learning to turn....with fire!

Ugh, we can't believe that is already November! The leaves have mostly fallen, Daylight Savings just rolled back our clocks this weekend, and Loblaws already has their winter decorations out. It's only been two months since the end of the summer and we're already missing the green! As we welcome back seasonal affective disorder :(SAD), we've decided to bring some flora indoors by lathing a wooden planter.

Research first! [Hand and Machine Woodwork, H.G. Miller, 1972]

Stripes!

Hollowing out room for one lucky plant.

As first time bowl turners, the nice semi-retired man at the wood shop recommended turning cedar for practice. Not only was this great advice, since cedar is soft and easy to work with, but it also smells so good too!

Beginning with a rough piece of cedar, the planter organically took on its own form as we got more comfortable lathing. It was actually kind of therapeutic and a good exercise in form-giving to not start out with a specific design in mind. In the end, after undergoing a few transformations, the planter ended up comme ca:

Since cedar is naturally insect and rot resistant, it seemed like an appropriate material for the planter. The planter is purposely shallow to act as a comfy home to either a succulent or cactus or two.

But since it was cedar and being the pyros that we are, we decided to set the freshly turned planter on fire:

Let there be liiight!

Now...plant shopping!

- Heather

[Eames] Parts Unknown

Excited! We acquired a broken Eames Lounge Chair wood. (replica? not sure, will need to do more research). To restore the chair, we want to find the parts unknown, repair and fill in the cracks, sand, and repaint.

The ingredients to an iconic chair

- Jess

Thanks Idris