Rattan Doors!

Well it's been a while, and a lot has been going on. My work has been leading me towards fabrication primarily, as I had to leave the estate agent! Since lock-down began their movements have become suspicious, and I became wary of being ripped off!!!

Anyway, moving swiftly on to something more gratifying, I made these Rattan panel doors!

It was a great challenge. From cutting the bamboo, which was harder than oak, to attaching the rattan to the frame, which was a new task to me, and considerably harder than it looks in you-tube videos.

The center-piece of the frame is one piece of bamboo with a v-groove cutout to make it look like two pieces. I then joined the two halves of the frame structure to this centre piece. Joins were all constructed using biscuits and pocket hole screws.

The success of this project marks a great advancement in my work.

My customer, an architect, asked me to clad the wardrobes in thinner bamboo (5mm) and I formed the join in line with the decoration of the doors themselves. A further requisite was the bamboo shelves installed in the corner next to the second wardrobe, to make use of that space.

This was definitely a one-off job, although I have encountered rattan in another incarnation, fixing some chairs for a customer.

Tom Rutland,

E.H.S.