Fernando Rodríguez Antúnez
TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Ronda de Navarra nº 29 2ºB, 37700, Béjar
ACTIVITY
Fernando works as a carpenter, joiner and cabinetmaker. In the sphere of traditional construction he has made complete wooden buildings, from pillars to roofs, as well as other features such as doors, windows, staircases and balconies.
He works mostly with the chestnut wood to be found… in the area between Salamanca and Cáceres. This wood’s properties, along with its texture and solidity, make it well suited to the type of work he does.
Beyond timber for construction, since an early age he has worked wood in all of its various applications, also making chests, picture and mirror frames, cabinets, bas-reliefs and sculptures.
In his workshop he also has all the necessary woodworking machinery, such as a band-saw, a circular saw, a thicknesser, a chiselling bench and a spindle moulder, as well as all the usual hand tools for woodwork (planer, sander, milling cutter or drills).
TRAINING
He took up the trade very young, working with a master cabinetmaker who had made furniture for his family. From this first master he learned to use hand-held woodworking machines as well as the sanding technique. Later, in Granada, a master carver taught him to… work with gouges and other precision tools.
SELECTED WORK
El Regajo restaurant: built wholly from the pillars to the roof. In a first phase, the whole structure, on a rectangular plan with hip roofing, was erected manually, as the rural site is off the electricity grid. Then another hipped structure was built with Spanish… knife trusses, all of chestnut wood.
Restoration of an 1880 dispensary known as “Botica de Agero”, donated by its owner to the town of Béjar and displayed in the Convento de San Francisco museum.
Other restorations, such as on the 16th-century altarpiece of Junciana (Ávila province), religious images of various periods and styles, and antique furniture, such as chairs, tables or chests.
Gilding work (on a substrate of gesso and rabbit-skin glue, an ancient technique used by the Egyptians), and polychromy with natural earths.
