LOL, that is pretty funny about your son. You just need to teach him perspective though, or he will become a design snob (uh, I mean lover) like us, far too young. He might refuse to sit in chairs at school, because they are not aesthetically pleasing enough! I doubt it though, his father seems very kind-hearted and grounded, so the more likely result will be a guy that at 30, has one of the best design collections in France!
I agree, I think the pedestal looks fine. To me, it would not be worth the risk of removing it, although it might be hard for me to resist the challenge.
That pedestal would drive me nuts.
Some of the glues that could have been used to attach it are water soluble. Some are not. Maybe you will get lucky and it is a water soluble one. If you put it in a tray of water that just reaches over the top of the pedestal and let it sit for 30 minutes or so, you will know.
Well, it looks fine on its base -- but I'm not a purist about objects I'm not strongly attached to.
The base can be sacrificed, presumably. So, it wouldn't be hard to run the piece through a band saw, slicing the top 1/16" of oak off -- or closer, if you have good control of the process. Then, the remaining oak can be carved away from the feet, finally sanding the last of it off the bottoms of the feet. Or, when the oak is very thin, water could be introduced, to attempt to melt the glue.
I have the Bosch 3 x 21 belt sander, which I use in all kinds of ways. It has a flat side and a flat top, so it can be clamped to the workbench as a stationary sander. And it's light enough to hold in one hand, for free-hand work. The front handle is easily removed, for more access to the round end of the belt. A favorite tool . . .
DrPoulet you have him well trained! Clearly he has his tastes well developed, have you donated anything to his room?! It's funny how we take so much from our parents interests...my father thinks I absorbed his interests in old furniture and ephemera when I was younger and tweaked them to suit my own tastes as I got older. I still send him pictures of newly acquired pieces to discuss and have gifted a few items he took a shine to. Many a Saturday was spent in antiques shops or markets....I want to do the same with my offspring as you are clearly doing with your son! With regards to the duck I think I'd like it that little bit more without the stand....
The "improvement" of the stand or base reminds me of my dear dad. He bought one of these Orb clocks for his desk on the 38th floor of the Chrysler Building in New York. But he wasn't happy with it until he'd "improved" it: he took it apart and added a white paper arrow-head to the minute hand, matching the one on the hour hand !
https://danishmodernla.com/product/george-nelson-chronopak-orb-desk-cloc...
I was a budding design fan as a teen. When I made it known I'd like an Eames shell chair for my bedroom desk, I apparently didn't emphasize that only a "real" one would do; little did I realize, in 1956, that there were already knock-offs on the market. Christmas morning revealed a sad gray round-shouldered fiberglass chair, with simple bent-tube metal legs. My shoulders must have slumped . . . not too noticeably, I hope.
Yay for brittle old glue!
I have looked at an awful lot of these ducks online and most have the incised mark. They're still in production so the logical guess is that the paper label is older. I don't know when they switched over, though. Somewhere there's an article or maybe a video of B
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