[jazzy music] [power saw grinding]
[sander buzzing]
[blowtorch pops]
[flame hisses]
[jazzy music]
- Hi, my name is Ginger Gordon.
I would describe my style as bold,
free form, and sculptural.
- Hi, I'm Quincy Ellis and I would describe my style
as light, color, and transparency.
[jazzy music]
My first impression of the Lack table was the price,
and I wanted to take something that
clearly a lot of work went into,
but to elevate it into something that really reflected
the amount of effort that actually goes into
these things compared to their price.
What I really wanna do with this table is
take this simple form and wrap it in color
and create something that looks
absolutely nothing like the aesthetic of
the original table but still has the faint bones of it.
- I was really excited because it was one
of the first pieces of furniture I ever owned.
I feel like it's one of those
classic tables that everyone's had in their apartment.
It's packed up perfectly.
So I had a few goals coming into this project.
The first was to sort of keep that IKEA
flat pack abilities.
I also wanted to transform it as much as possible.
My first step in the process is I start by collaging
to sort of create the table and the table forms.
The top of the table is a sort of classic bean shape,
and the table legs are more organic natural forms.
On the tabletop I wanted to create a small collage,
a little marquetry using the veneer.
I know that the tabletop contains
sort of this honeycomb cardboard structure.
- I actually use aluminum honeycomb in all of my tabletops.
Dealing with it where it's all made out of
fibrous material and isn't sealed with metal
will definitely be a challenge.
I'm excited to see what happens.
- [Ginger] So first step in the process
was to collect all the materials.
- So I think the biggest thing for materials was
researching and getting a quick drying resin
that was able to be poured and sanded in the same day.
The resin that I usually use takes three days to cure,
and you can really start sanding it after four days.
I have used a lot of quick dry resins before.
What they're usually supposed to be used for
which is smaller objects that are in small molds.
So this is the first time I'll be using it
in a large scale furniture piece.
- [Ginger] Once I get the table out
of its original packaging,
I need to sand off the finish that they have on top.
- [Quincy] The first thing I'm gonna do is
lightly sand them, get a feel for
what the paint finish is on the legs,
paint them white, and then I'll paint them yellow.
I'm painting the legs yellow because I want there to be
a shifting color from the deep dark blue,
and then when it gets thin it'll be a bright green, ideally.
- I wanted to use the tabletop
on the IKEA table as the table legs.
I liked the thickness of the material,
and I thought thought they would make nice
like chunky coffee table legs.
And so in order for me to cover up
the honeycomb that I expose when cutting,
I'm going to laminate the tabletop and the legs with MDF.
I just wanted to give that tabletop
like a little more thickness than it had,
just to feel more like proportional to the table legs.
- I think the biggest element that I want to bring
to this table is the complexity of the geometry
that it takes to make that shifting pattern.
I want to go from a rectangle
to a smaller rectangle using a geometric form,
kind of like a pyramid that's going up to a flat surface
and being able to control those depths
to make the resin go from a dark blue
to a lightish greenish yellow in the center.
Part of my design process is always to make a 3D model
of what I wanna make.
It helps me with figuring out dimensions
and a lot of it is figuring out
how much resin I need to use,
'cause that's all calculated in the computer.
So I already made my pyramid shape that will
control the resin thickness.
So we take that positive shape,
we make it into a negative shape on the computer,
and then we move that onto the CNC
and cut that into a board.
Where we're gonna make a dish shape, basically,
of the reverse of the pyramid and then
we can use that as our mold to cast our plastic top
for the Lack tabletop.
Looks great.
Still looks like a a flat sheet,
but definitely has that geometry that we're looking for
that's gonna create that sunken raised square
in the center of the Lack top,
which will fade out to that very thin amount at the edges.
It's a very subtle sloping piece of geometry.
So if the mold's a little bit off,
it completely changes the color.
So now we just need to take this off the CNC,
sand it a little bit, put some sealer on it,
and we're ready to pour the resin into it.
- The next step in the process
is to cut out the legs using a band saw.
It was interesting, 'cause I wasn't really aware
of this particle board being here,
so I felt a lot of resistance here.
But once I hit the cardboard, so smooth.
- We have our mold that we CNCed out, we have it sealed,
and now we're ready to start pouring our positive pyramid
that's gonna get glued on top of the Lack tabletop.
So I'm gonna mix up some resin.
We're gonna pour it on here.
It's gonna set super quickly.
Now it's doing its full reaction where it's turning
from a liquid into a solid
pretty much right before your eyes.
So once this fully sets up and turns into a solid,
we're gonna take it off of here
and then glue it on top of the top.
- [Ginger] After I've cut the sides of the tabletop
on the bandsaw, I need to cover up
that exposed honeycomb cardboard structure.
And the way I'll do that is something called wacky wood.
It's a plywood material that is very bendable
and it'll allow the wood to actually conform
to those curves.
- [Quincy] I'll be sanding all of the paint off
of the tabletop in order to get a good gluing surface
for gluing onto my pyramid shape.
It's ready for resin
and we're gonna put the cast that we took
out of the mold directly on top.
This is the exact same material that the
plastic pyramid is cast out of.
It should act as a really good glue.
You get the wood, you get the clamps.
Cut these 'til they fit.
So I'm just double checking to make sure
that we have our correct spacing here.
So this whole piece of plastic is just to create
a slight difference of three eighths of an inch
between the edge of the piece and the center rectangle here.
- I now wanna use wood filler in order to
fill these holes and create a super smooth surface
for the veneer to be applied to.
Veneer tends to pick up any imperfections
that are found in the piece.
So you just wanna make sure the object is super smooth
before applying veneer.
So using a jigsaw I will rough cut
out that bean tabletop shape
and I've made a template using MDF that I can route around
and that will actually allow me to have
a perfectly crisp edge.
That bearing will just ride along the template
and cut down the material.
- So now we're applying the paint over the surface
of our plastic piece to get ready for
our blue resin over the top
- I wanted to have the table be really uniform
in how it's finished,
so I'm applying veneer to the whole thing.
In order to veneer the legs, I'll use contact cement.
I like to start by applying this
from the center and work my way out.
You wanna make sure you don't have any air pockets
and that it's laying on straight.
Once I apply that veneer, it'll have a little overhang,
and I need to use a router
in order to trim off the edge of the veneer.
Then I can sand it down to give it that final crisp look.
- So I have my MDF with my predrilled holes
to screw into the bottom of my leg,
and then I have my tapered box.
And this will create the thin amount of resin
on the bottom to the thick resin on the top.
So all of these molds have already been presealed
with paint, so they're ready to go
with resin directly against them.
This is really the critical juncture where
you've made the molds, the cores have already been made
for me thankfully by IKEA,
and I'm making sure that I get the correct negative space
around those IKEA pieces to create the space
that the resin will go into.
So this keeps the leg at least an eighth of an inch
away from the edges of the mold.
And then we have to seal everything with caulk.
So everything needs to be completely water tight,
otherwise we're gonna lose all of our resin
leaking out of the sides.
If the resin leaks, not only is it hard to clean up,
it will leak out of the cast.
I always like to tell people I work with,
don't worry if you miss a spot,
we'll just have to redo everything.
We're gonna put a little bit of caulk
underneath our finished painted top,
and then we're gonna screw this down
as tight as we can here, put the molds around it,
and then let the caulk dry and we're good to pour.
- Because my process starts with collage,
I wanted to create a collage on the tabletop,
and so I wanted to do marquetry for the top.
Marquetry is a process of either using hardwood
or veneer to create a decorative pattern
on the surface of an object.
So I just cut out the tabletop bean shape of the veneer,
and now I'm about to cut out the marquetry for the tabletop.
So I made these MDF templates that
I'll use to help myself keep the form and cut around.
And so I've placed them where I'd like to have
the marquetry and now I will just take an exacto knife
and go around them really lightly to create a line.
And it's better to go slow because, especially with veneer,
there's a grain that can sometimes pick up the exacto knife
and take it in a place you don't want it to go.
And there's a piece.
And because I cut it out from the sheet, it's a perfect fit.
I am staining a piece of marquetry using India ink,
which will give a really rich black tone
to the veneer creating contrast on that tabletop.
Once this India ink has dried, I'll tape it
with blue tape back into the tabletop
and then I can cement it right onto the top.
Contact cement, it's in the name you need contact
in order to allow it to adhere.
So I use a scraper tool to scrape across the surface.
Yeah, nice and dry, ready for stain.
- I've decided on bright yellow as my base color.
Now formulating the blue
so that it makes the color transitions that I want
really is the tricky part.
I love resin as a material.
I love what it can do, but working with it
is not the most fun thing to work with.
It's basically a temperamental chemical
that reacts to temperature and moisture.
Most of working with resin is trying to control it.
With this resin that we're gonna be using,
all I will probably have time to do is mix the resin
and then dump it into the molds.
So we'll see how that goes.
We've got our mold set up, got our leg painted yellow.
We're ready to pour the resin inside.
Hopefully it doesn't leak.
Made a mess.
The thing you're always trying to control when
you're pouring a lot of resin is the chemical reaction
of when it goes from a liquid to a solid
creates heat and if you do too much at a time
it can do all kinds of crazy things.
So that's something that I don't have a lot
of control over with this project.
Let's get it in there.
I try and pour it in as slowly as possible
to reduce the potential for bubbles.
Nice.
Then we'll do a little flamey flame,
'cause everybody likes fire.
So I'm heating up the surface of the resin
in order to make it more liquid
so that the bubbles pop out at the top.
- In order to attach the legs to the tabletop,
I needed to create an attachment plate.
These will be screwed into the tops of the legs,
and then those attachment plates will be
attached to the top.
Typically I would glue the legs to the tabletop,
but I wanted to keep that flat pack ability,
so I will just be screwing the legs to the tabletop.
The legs are all screwed on,
so I'm gonna bring it over here and stain it.
- As soon as the resin's set,
we're gonna cut open the molds,
unscrew everything and see what we got.
Looks pretty good.
It's a really nice transition
from this like bright green to the blue,
but I can still definitely see the form inside
so it's gonna read really nicely.
Perfect.
The surface of the molds are not glassy smooth.
They have like a paint texture to them,
so we'll be sanding it from that to
a more smooth finish that's more transparent
so we can see deeper into the piece.
It's really got a beautiful color shift going on.
I'm really loving how the legs,
they read with some of these air bubbles in them.
It's creating these like really interesting mirror forms.
- I'm using a cognac color stain to create a more
rich tone for the table.
I like using osmo wood wax because it has
a really satin smooth finish and it allows for that
grain to really show.
I am so excited about the table.
- What's going on where these like air bubbles
are kind of like rivering and coursing throughout
the surface of the piece is
something I've never seen before.
They look awesome.
The only thing that I can think of is
it's a completely hollow box, and when the resin
got really warm because of the chemical reaction,
the air inside the box expanded and pushed its way out.
It's something I wish I could repeat,
but never gonna happen again.
[frantic drum music]
- [Ginger] It's so exciting to get that last piece in.
- [Quincy] It's pretty cool.
- [Ginger] She's done.
[Ginger chuckles]
- [Quincy] I'm really liking the unexpected,
the movement underneath the surface.
- Hi Quincy, nice to meet you.
- Hey Ginger, so great to meet you.
- I cannot wait to see your design.
- [Quincy] Wow
- [Ginger] Wow.
[Ginger laughs]
They are so different.
Oh my god. - So different.
I can't even tell that it's a Lack table with yours.
It looks amazing.
- [Ginger] The color is incredible.
- [Quincy] Yours looks so expensive.
[Ginger laughs] It elevated the hell
outta the thing.
It's amazing - Honestly, same.
I can tell there's like nice light coming through
on the edges of that table.
I love how it like goes from that green to the blue.
- [Quincy] Thank you.
I'm like just amazed that you dealt with
the crazy core of the table.
- I used the tabletop for the legs and the second tier
of the table as the tabletop.
- Right. - So the idea was sort of
to like flip it on its head.
- And also like the general feel of it
is so like warm and there's so much movement
compared to the original. That's amazing.
- I love that you pulled like movement as a word,
because that's something that I try to like capture
in my work.
- [Quincy] I really like that you added an
even extra element, adding these other organic shapes
on the top. How did you come to that decision?
- So part of my process of design is
it often starts with collage
and I decided why not sort of pull a collage
on the top of of the table?
And also wanted to bring like some contrast into the piece.
You do a really nice job with that,
with the color and the gradient,
and I think for me I didn't want it to just be
a single tone, single color,
so thought it would help pop.
- [Quincy] That's really cool.
- [Ginger] I saw that like in a lot of your work
you work with resin, but how was it
playing with the material on the Lack table?
- [Quincy] All of my work has like a wood core
inside of it, so I just kind of took the Lack table
as a core that I wasn't really going to mess with.
I added a piece to it to make this like crazy gradient
in the center of the top
but otherwise I just kind of left it alone
and just painted it white and then painted it yellow.
- Yeah. - I even used the same
connectors for the legs.
- [Ginger] It's such a cool effect.
- [Quincy] It's something that I always wish never happens,
but also now something I wish I could recreate.
- [Ginger] Yeah, like it's just kind of
magic or like happens on its own.
You can't control that. That is so cool.
- Yeah, I was forced to do things
I don't normally do, and I learned a lot from this table
in terms of the physics of what I'm working with,
that I usually have control over.
So I'm super happy that I learned a lot
about my own material.
- [Ginger] Yeah, I'm super happy with the results.
I think if I had more time, I would love to have seen
more collage work on the top,
but overall like, I'm happy with how it turned out.
- Ginger, it was amazing talking to you.
I learned so much about my own table talking to you,
and I'm just blown away with how much you
transformed your table,
and I hopefully get to see it in person one day.
Thank you.
- Quincy, it was so nice meeting you.
I was so excited to see your transformation.
It's so beautiful, and congrats.