CONESTOGA COLLEGE
Woodworking students present capstone creations

Jun-Yi Lin's cabinet earned him first place in the Best in Manufactured Award.

Projects included coffee tables, cabinets, desks, a foosball table, consoles, a foldable table, chairs and more, featuring diverse types of woods, shapes and carvings.

First place in the Best in Manufactured Product Award, sponsored by FS Tool, went to Jun-Yi Lin for his cabinet. Crafted from maple and walnut, his "Dialogue in Wood" combines dark and light colours, storage and display elements and diamond-shaped legs. "This cabinet is a combination of classroom learnings," explained Lin. "We learned how to craft drawers for coffee tables, build a turning table, mitered corners for joints ... Everything we learned is reflected in this piece."

Second place went to Marcia Mitchell. Mitchell combined walnut and basswood for her cabinet, which took approximately 200 hours to build.

The doors feature Kumiko panels, a Japanese woodworking technique which uses small, intricate pieces assembled into geometric patterns. "I designed my whole project around these doors," she said. To build these delicate panels, Mitchell hand-cut every piece with a chisel to avoid damaging the soft basswood. "I had never done Kumiko before. It's very hands-on."

Even the walnut was difficult to work with at times: "I had issues with the walnut warping. I had to work hard to tame it and get it to where I wanted it to go."

Luke Pepe received both the Rampa Tec Design Award and third place in the Best in Manufactured Product Award for his white oak desk. While building the desk involved tricky angled cuts, Pepe found other parts of the process more difficult: "The real challenge was designing it digitally first. I have more fun in the shop."

The Woodworking Centre of Ontario is among North America's leading training centres for woodworking. This institution, established in 1988, has produced countless industry leaders and talented craftspeople who have gone on to have fulfilling careers in the woodworking trade.

Conestoga offers the Woodworking Technician and Cabinetmaker programs at the centre.