Wendell Castle Collection — Modern Luxury Furniture Blog

“It’s Finished.” Series part 1

Walnut Kyoto, Caldo Lacquer Habileur, Crackle Fiesta

A finish is a special top coat or layer that is applied to a substrate, luxury furniture in our case, to make it more beautiful or durable for its intended use.  At the Wendell Castle Collection, we use a wide variety of finishes, even offering limitless custom finishes when needed.  Considering all of the options, finishes can get very complicated, and often misrepresented.  Here are some of the basics to help you understand all of the finish options at The Wendell Castle Collection.

Substrate (the flesh)

Wendell is a great sculptor of wood so, as you would expect, we work primarily in wood.  Solid wood is primarily used when we are sculpting or where the structure requires extra strength.  Veneer is typically used for exotic species, which may not be available in solids, or where the design requires something special that can’t be done with solid wood.  Solid wood and veneer are available in a great number of species, like Mahogany, Walnut, and Oak, as well as different figures or looks, like plain sliced (with cathedrals), and rift (straight grain).

Sizzle 3 & 4 Pod Tables

When the form overcomes the practicality of wood, we will create a piece in fiberglass, or plastic resins, which can be molded into limitless shapes that are painted to achieve fine aesthetics.  Our highly regarded Sizzle tables are examples of these sculpted pieces which utilize fiberglass forms

Color (the underwear)

To enhance mother nature’s colors on our wood finishes, we frequently use water-based stains, which provide consistent and easy to match colors, while being environmentally friendly.  The wood stains are also completed in multiple steps, including coats of sealer, stain, toner, and ceruse (color that stays only in the grain), to accomplish a variety of colors and effects and meet the design requirements of any interior.

Bleached Walnut MC3 & Quilted Moabi Sizzle

Fiberglass pieces are most often painted to achieve one of two looks, crackle or lacquer.  The crackle finishes are quite complex, using as many as 8 paint colors, and “crackling” or shrinking the paint multiple times to achieve the desired effect.  For lacquer colors, we use the highest quality DuPont paint system, which is also used on custom automobiles, and allows us the flexibility to match any color possible. The paint is so durable that lacquered Wendell Castle pieces such as Morocco and Karma are often used outdoors.

Top Coat (the clothes)

None of the paints, stains, or crackle finishes would be durable without the top coat.  This is a layer of pre-catalyzed lacquer, urethane or polyurethane that seals and protects the substrate and color while providing desired sheen, or shininess.  In some cases, the top coat will follow the texture of the wood grain or crackle.  Typically, with the exotic woods, we will fill the grain so that the top coat is applied to a smooth surface and can then be polished to achieve a glass like surface, just like the top coat on the lacquer paint finishes.

Fiamma Lacquer Morocco & Moabi/ Walnut Sorcerer

When someone specifies a finish, often we use a single word, like “Mahogany,” or “Ebony.”  However, each finish has all of these layers, substrate, color and top coat that contribute to its beauty and durability.  They also allow us to offer a wide variety of finishes to perfectly match any interior, which means we can custom make a finish to a customer’s color specifications.  At the Wendell Castle Collection we are always up for the challenge.

“What have you done for me lately?” Series Part 4

At the risk of overusing yet another business colloquialism (yes, it’s a word); there is no fat to be trimmed at The Wendell Castle Collection.  For this reason, we are able to be efficient, and quick to make changes.  This lean organization (I can’t believe I used that one) also requires us to share responsibility and constantly reprioritize in an effort to adapt to changing circumstances.  Unfortunately that often leaves the blog at the bottom of the list, and you in the dark.  Yes, this is a fancy way of saying: “damn, I forgot the blog again.”  So, with renewed effort, organization, enthusiasm and priority, here are a few things that have kept me from creative weaving of phrase.

WCC Custom Dining Table

Customs

What isn’t custom?  It’s been said, but it’s worth repeating: there’s no shelf stock here, we make a piece when you order it.  So, we know who each piece is being made for, and as you can see from our ever-changing Custom Gallery, new and interesting pieces are an every day occurrence at WCC.  Among the recent highlights are the custom Claro Walnut dining table with a Lucite slab base, the revival of the Boxer chairs, and my personal favorite, the 2 Pod Sizzle with Pau Ferro veneer top and Cioccolate Lacquer base.  The Pau Ferro Sizzle has to be seen to be believed – it exudes elegance.  Excitement builds for each of these projects, because we know that no matter the depth of our imagination, the final result is much more impressive than we had expected.  Coming soon, we will share some beautiful custom Muse Night Stands, again with Pau Ferro, and an delightful Habileur-Changing Table hybrid – No, I am not kidding.

Voiture Chairs & Custom Olympia

Upholstery

No person or company stays on top forever, rather we all journey through the struggles and triumphs that result from changing conditions, our efforts, and luck.  When challenges arise, I prefer to be on my toes rather than my heels, and that’s what we are doing with upholstery.  We’ve invested in an upholstery workshop that is four times larger than previous – a clear signal that we are strongly committed to making improvements in this area.  With Wendell’s guidance we will be redesigning our existing seating to improve comfort and tailoring.  When complete, we will use the methods employed to design and launch new upholstered pieces, worthy of the Wendell Castle name, with high quality details and buttery comfort.  (I wanted to make sure you were still paying attention.)  We look forward to impressing you with the results.

New products

Prototype Desk Sneak Preview

Other than getting to work with world leading craftsmen, and very good people, the most fun thing that I get to undertake at WCC is development and production of new products.  What is he going to come up with?  How are we going to make that?  What does it cost?  How will everyone know about it?  Why doesn’t the picture ever do it justice?  There are so many questions to ask and problems to solve that when it is all said and done, the resulting pieces are extremely satisfying.  Though it is very difficult to let them go, we are very lucky to craft such wonderful pieces of luxury furniture every day.  This fall, with Wendell driving our creative process, and strongly favoring quality over quantity, we are hand crafting some beautiful tables and desks for spring introduction.  Inspired by art pieces that Wendell created in the 1970s, this time our new pieces begin their design in 3D CAD.  From this platform we can make significant changes without the burden of rebuilding the pieces, and create pretty renderings like the one here.  Look for these pieces, which share the same timeless elegance and lasting quality synonymous with all of Wendell’s work, to be introduced at West Week in the Thomas Lavin showroom in March, and at a showroom near you throughout the spring.

While my communicative efforts have suffered, The Wendell Castle Collection is hard at work crafting your beautiful luxury furniture, continuously improving our pieces, and turning more of Wendell’s design vision into reality.  At WCC we are always improving, striving to exceed our customer’s expectations, and hand crafting furniture as an American art form.  How many colloquialisms did you count?  I have twelve, not including the shameless search engine optimization phrases.

“Taking Care of Business.” Series Part 2

I am rarely at a loss for words, a fact that would be verified by our craftsmen who frequently tell me that they “have to get this done,” a polite way of saying “shut up.”  However, faced with creating frequent blog posts, to keep our showrooms and customers informed about the features of the Wendell Castle Collection as well as our upcoming projects, I found myself sitting at my keyboard, looking at a blank screen, lost.

You may know that Wendell is an aficionado of old European sports cars.  I, myself am a bit of a motor head, though from this side of the pond.  So, I listen to Car Talk, on NPR.  I like to try to solve the problems before the hosts can, who undoubtedly have a battalion of researchers helping them.  They have a weekly puzzle which is always titled “from my Blagh Blagh series.”  OK, in short: I stole the series idea.  Unlike the gentlemen on Car Talk, who have a different series represented each week with no repeats in sight, I have a finite number of series – currently nine of them.

We’ve begun several of them – “Quality First” as the name suggests is about the high quality details of our modern furniture; “Taking Care of Business” was inspired by Elvis’s famous saying and tends to cover the business of luxury furniture; “What Have You Done For Me Lately” has been frequently used as I have an affliction leading to infrequent blog posts – and there are several more to come.

“It’s Finished” will share some of our finishing techniques, while “What Did You Make Today” will feature struggles and triumphs of luxury furniture pieces in process.  My favorite series will be “American Made” which will feature profiles of each craftsman at Wendell Castle Collection.  However, since they are a humble bunch, it may take me a while to coerce them into some self promotion.  I am sure you will enjoy it; they are great people and amazing at what they do.

So, if there are any other series, or ideas, or details that you want to know, let us know.  Now that the serieses give me an avenue to organize my thoughts we can share anything you want to know about The Wendell Castle Collection.  While Wendell is usually soft-spoken, sharing his thoughts through his art, I am never at a loss for words about him or the collection.

“Taking Care of Business.” Series Part 1

Wendell Castle Collection Workshop

Go ahead – ask us where The Wendell Castle Collection is made.  We will tell you that it’s made in Leroy, New York; a suburb of Rochester in the beautiful finger lakes region of Upstate New York.  We will tell you with pride, confidence, and without hesitation.  Try that with any other modern or luxury furniture and you will probably get hesitation and a veiled answer.  The fact is that most of our competitors have their furniture manufactured in the USA, but they don’t do it themselves.  The Wendell Castle Collection isn’t a made-up name or a business put together by venture capitalists.  Wendell himself, the world renowned artist and sculptor, created this company with his own hands, as he has with countless pieces of furniture and art over his 40+ year career.

Dan setting up CNC Router

So, why do you care, and what does this have to do with “taking care of business?”  In luxury furniture, there is making and there is selling.  Both parts of the business require very different skill sets and personalities to be successful.  Very rarely can a person or business do well at both making products and selling them.  If you look closely at companies in our industry, Sales & Marketing is a separate business or separate business unit from Manufacturing.  While this allows those making the product to focus on the countless details and intricate skills required to produce; and allows those selling the product to drive design and inform the customers, it disconnects and adds more layers to the business.  When our showrooms or clients have a technical question their rep can answer it now, without calling “the manufacturer.”  When they need a quote their rep will crunch the numbers themselves.  When they have a last minute change, we can walk a few steps and make it happen right in the work shop.

If I may digress for a moment, we often use the words “manufacture,” “production,” and “workshop” to describe the same thing.  While I come from a manufacturing background, The Wendell Castle Collection is not “manufactured.”  Each piece we make is hand crafted for a specific client’s order one at a time by experienced craftsmen.  Perhaps “crafted in America” is a more appropriate phrase.  While we do employ modern methods, like our 4 axis CNC router and solid modeling, we strive to put the craftsman’s skills to work where it is really needed.  Let the machine chop a piece of wood – the craftsman is responsible for perfect joints, beautiful curves, and a flawless finish.

Wendell Castle Collection Julian Bench

The Wendell Castle Collection is crafted and sold by men and women who share Wendell’s passion for skillfully making beautiful pieces in the USA.  We are proud that our great pieces of furniture are handcrafted in America to amazing quality standards.