Zipper, the newest addition to our showroom is a wall hanging with lots of personality. Below the photographs is a story and description designer, woodworker and owner of Woodleaf Studios, Matthew Smith.
Meet “Zipper”
This piece was inspired by the spectacular qualities of the 2 woods that are used…tamarind and wenge. The serpentine connection of tamarind boxes moves the viewer’s eye up, down, and through its central spine of wenge. Snake-like steely gray pipes neatly pierce the chocolate colored wenge exposing its tight grain and superb linear qualities. The worm eaten character of the spalted tamarind boxes suggest that filtration is somehow in progress as the mysterious material rhythmically flows in and out of the wall. Each tamarind box has an L-shaped operable door that swings out 90 degrees and is visually trapped by the pipe’s anchor plates. The doors generally require 2 hands to operate and due to the wooden indexing blocks mounted to the backside of each door can be a bit clanky sounding as they open and close. But don’t worry no damage is being done as your curiosity invites you to see what is inside each compartment.
Some assembly and your own tools (drill and screwdriver) are required when mounting this piece to the wall. And it will require 2 fairly strong and able bodied people to safely lift and position the unit onto the wall cleat. Matthew will be more than happy to speak with you and outline the installation procedure. You can reach him at (919) 834-2566. Woodleaf can also email you a short video clip of the installation procedure.
NOTE: The pipes are not meant to be used for lifting purposes. Only lift and handle the piece by holding onto each end of the wenge column. Do not lift or handle the unit by holding onto the pipes or tamarind boxes.
NOTE: Zipper will arrive with the top and bottom pipe assemblies unattached. These are the pipe assemblies which connect the smallest of the tamarind boxes to the wall via an anchor plate which literally gets screwed to the face of the sheetrock wall. All other intermediate pipe assemblies come attached and do NOT have to be undone.
This piece mounts to the wall via concealed bedrail fasteners. The bedrail fasteners engage into a concealed vertical wall cleat that is securely attached to studs. There are stabilizing thumb screws mounted into the backs of 3 of the boxes.
First you must locate a vertical stud in your wall and securely attach the wall cleat. The cleat comes with the female side of the indexed bedrail fastener hardware already attached and with predrilled holes indicating where to attach the cleat to the wall. Once the cleat is securely attached to the wall you are ready to hang the unit. The corresponding male portion of the bedrail fastener hardware is already indexed and securely attached within a dadoed channel on the backside of the wenge.
Once the main unit is hanging on the wall you are ready to attach the top and bottom pipe assemblies to the small tamarind boxes and then to the wall. Each pipe assembly will come in 2 sections…one section which gets attached to the tamarind box has an anchor plate, elbow and 6” length of straight pipe. The other section which gets attached to the wall will only have an elbow and anchor plate. Both sections will be clearly marked as to which end goes where. Zipper will come with all the screws necessary to install the unit and to attach the pipes.