After discussing with the client, they agreed to give me artistic freedom on the door design. I spent some time working on the frame components of the individual door frames , and I've progressed as far as fitting the door frames into the carcase for test fitting. The door frame components, rails and stiles, are joined with conventional mortise and tenon construction. My natural inclination is to have the stiles on a door frame extend top to bottom of the door and I usually don't think twice about this. Borrowing a page from James Krenov and one of his older designs, I decided to instead extend the top and bottom rails the full width of the door frames instead. The lines become horizontal now rather than vertical. I'm also going to set the vertical stiles back a fraction to provide a shadow effect and give the appearance of horizontal lines running continuously across the top and bottom of the doors. It is preferable to make a mock-up of the door frame configuration but I did the next best thing and drew the new design and applied it directly to the carcase of jewelry armoire as in the previous photo. I'm taking a blind leap of faith at this point and basing the success of this modified design on a photo of an existing, but different cabinet along with my modified drawing.
At this point, I like the lines of the door frames and panel area and have decided to proceed and prepare the figured maple raised panels. I need to be judicious with this step as the reveal around the raised panel and the door frame needs to be uniform on four sides of the panel. I'm also implementing a cool rabbet between the door frames to have them overlap and not reveal a gap when the door frames expand and contract with seasonal change in humidity and temperature. A photo of the figured maple door panels will be posted next, after I rabbet the edges and begin to fit them into the door frames. I'm kind of excited at this point and am looking forward to what the completed doors on the carcase look like. It's easy to rush things when anxiety sets in, and patience is a great virtue during some of these delicate and accurate fittings. Steps need to be followed in the correct order before the doors are glued together. Early on when the sketching of this armoire began, one of the proposals was to have one piece veneered doors. A good design alternative, it allows the full width of the individual doors to feature a nicely figured veneer without frame components taking away from the space. Another small advantage is the increased dimensional stability a multiple ply substrate with veneered surfaces provides. I'll be exploring this technique in future designs.
I left off having completed the back panel. I've been looking forward to working on the front doors for quite some time now as they are a large part of the focal point of the piece. I had some nicely figured tiger maple also known as curly maple squirreled away for quite some time. After a change of heart, I decided to go shopping for a more dramatic piece of tiger maple with which to make the door panels. A couple of options were available to me, either bookmatch each door panel from a narrower board ( more commonly available) or make an effort to find a wider board and have each door panel one continuous piece. The thickness of the tiger maple board also becomes important since I also intend to raise each panel within its door frame. As luck would have it, with the aid of my wife and some diligent searching, we stumbled onto the correct tiger maple board at a local exotic hardwood dealer. It is just the right width board and substantial thickness to accommodate the raised part. Simultaneous to this, I've had a change of heart about the design of the front doors. I'm beginning to prefer straight lines for the rails instead of the previous curved/angled rail design. I prefer this to be able to add a small design element, shadowing, into the design for the lower and upper rails. I will be discussing this with the client very soon and proceed from there.
In the photo, a layout of the doors with the straight lines is shown. The bottom rail is fractionally wider than the upper rail and the stiles. The vertical stiles would be set back fractionally to create the shadow effect and emphasize the fact that the top and bottom rails are extending to the edges of the door frames.
I left off with a few components which comprise the frame and panel back panel. These consisted of outside stiles, a center stile along with two resawn cherry panels. The frame components have been accurately sized and grooved for the panels. I use slip joints to assemble the frame along with the center stile. The frame is dry fitted along with both panels to make certain there will be no issues while gluing up. A small gap surrounding the panels is purposely left to allow for the solid wood panels to expand and contract with seasonal changes. After some judicious hand planing the frame and panel assembly is nicely fitted into the back of the jewelry armoire carcase. Before it is permanently attached , I perform some final smooth planing and scraping of each of the surfaces of the back panel as this is my only good opportunity to do this correctly and on a flat surface.The jewelry armoire slowly but surely comes together. I move to the front of the piece next and begin to work on the two hinged doors. These will also be frame and panel and I am hoping to use a figured piece of tiger maple I have. After resawing this piece of tiger maple I'll have a better look at the figure and then determine if the effect is sufficiently dramatic and contrasting to the cherry front door frames. I do all this next beginning with the resawing and then moving on to the sizing of the individual door frame members. Also want to mention that the door panels will be raised with a small flat field or reveal surrounding the individual panels.
I left off with the bare carcase and the components for the back panel milled and dimensioned correctly. I handplane the surfaces of all the components as a final step to get the correct thickness and width along with preparing the edges. The handplaned surface becomes exceptionally smooth as any small milling marks are cleaned off. In this photo I am using a jointer plane, one of my longest planes. This provides me a perfectly straight , smooth surface. I place the back panel components on a planing board with stop, this works extremely well.
After the back panel components are sized to final sizes I need to create grooves on one edge of each rail and stile. The center stile will have two grooves, one groove for each panel. The grooves are part of the frame and panel construction and allow the two inner panels to float slightly within the frame. Dimensional changes of the two panels will then be accommodated within the frame. Frame and panel construction dates to the late middle ages and became more entrenched as furniture was placed in heated homes and buildings. Temperature and humidity variations cause wood to shrink and expand and some allowance needs to be designed in to accommodate this. The back frame components are grooved and this operation is performed on the router table. Care is taken to orient the boards correctly against the fence of the table. I made certain to adjust the router bit to be exactly centered in the edges of the frame components. This is important in that the routed grooves will line up correctly when the frame components are assembled. The center stile will be attached differently from the outside rails and stiles.
I have the carcase assembled now. Before assembling I hand scraped the individual panels, both inside and out, this should be done at this point since it is becomes more difficult as the jewelry armoire progresses. Since the carcase needs to be glued up with all panels, the glue-up step can lead to some scrambling. All the clamps need to be in place and ready, I use a wood mallet with a small board to get the joints tight just before clamping. One of James Krenov's philosophies is to finish the back of a cabinet well and to use frame and panel construction with hardwood panels. This extra step is very often skipped in modern furniture construction as it is considered the back of the furniture. As J. Krenov says, it often doesn't take much more time to complete the back properly, and dramatically enhances the beauty of a cabinet. You can notice the components for the back panel in the photo, these have been prepared and dimensioned to size. The back panel is comprised of two horizontal rails, two outside vertical stiles, a center stile, and two cherry panels.
I use hardwood throughout in this project including the back panels. I must also mention that I let the back panel frame components stabilize or in James Krenov parlance, attain "calmness". This is an important step as wood often reacts to environmental change, especially after milling and might cup or bow slightly until the outside surfaces have attained moisture equilibrium. This step consists of waiting a while after milling and before further processing of the components.The sides of the jewelry armoire are set back to allow for the overlapping front doors. The back frame and panel is inset into a groove on either side of the back of the armoire. The cherry is very light at this point, but over time and exposure to light it will develop a beautiful patina and become a dark shade of honey with reddish undertones.
The next step in this sequence is to create the grooves in the rails and stiles for the two back panels. Something I've learned over the years is to clearly mark all the individual pieces and their orientation, this keeps the confusion level to a bare minimum.
With some small temporary projects out of the way I've been able to resume work on the jewelry armoire. I have the panels correctly dimensioned and almost ready to be assembled together to form the carcase of the jewelry armoire. The panels at this point consist of two sides and a top and bottom. The top and bottom panels have bevelled edges, this was an original design consideration. The top and bottom panels need to be a certain thickness for rigidity and strength, and the bevelled edges serve to provide the illusion of the panels being thinner than they actually are. These bevels, actually wide chamfers, intersect the side panels on either side for a nice transition. Because the top and bottom panels in this design extend past the sides, the choice of joinery is rather limited. Conventional corner joinery such as dovetails will not work here.I've gone ahead and used time-proven dowel joints which are ideal for joining end grain to face grain, regardless of any orientation of panels. James Krenov developed a great technique which I am using to align the dowel holes of the side panels with the top and bottom panels. In the photo above, along with a side and bottom panel there is a small doweling jig also present. This jig is essentially an extension of a side panel with the same width and thickness. I accurately bored holes along the width of this jig and then use the jig to bore holes in the top, bottom panels and side panels. This technique ensures great accuracy and an important note is to secure the dowelling jig to any of the surfaces to have holes bored for dowels. To aid in the alignment, I've inserted two pins on either side of the doweling jig which serve to keep the jig aligned with the surface to have holes bored. With this technique, it is important to keep the reference surface of the jig clearly marked so that the holes are correctly transferred. After all this, I forgot to bore one hole as can be seen in the bottom panel, it was a simple thing to correct though .Next is to finish plane and hand scrape the individual panels and to then assemble these panels into a carcase, I hope to have this done in the next day or two. Slowly but surely the armoire is coming together.
This week I am attending a week-long class with a renown furniture maker and prolific writer of woodworking articles and books. Garrett Hack is quite well known throughout North America for the detail and hand tool skills he brings to woodworking and furniture making. In the course I'm refreshing some existing skills and techniques along with learning a multitude of new skills. The essence of the course is fine detail such as inlay, stringing, banding, cockbeads, etc.One soon realizes how much patience and attention to detail this type of fine work demands. It is fairly easy to make a mistake and in the process waste a component of a furniture piece. The individual details are called elements and are added to a piece to both accentuate the piece and to add elegance. I am learning that good judgement is necessary to enhance a piece of furniture with these detail elements. It's sometimes best to add fewer rather than more elements to avoid simply having too busy graphics on the furniture.Delicate hand tool skills are the main ingredient of this type of work. Good, sharp tools are also very important. I find myself picking up a optical loupe to examine the recesses and grooves I have prepared for inlay and stringing, this demonstrates how small and precise the work is. A few periods of furniture style in past centuries featured adornment of furniture with these fine detail elements, notably the Federal period of furniture. As I once mentioned, furniture often denoted the status of an individual in these periods and therefore more detail and ornamentation made the piece more alluring and exclusive.I have prepared this sample of abalone inlay, a fan detail, dots and squares, a diamond ebony inlay and curved stringing which can be seen in the photo above. These are very nice touches to furniture in both my opinion and from the feedback I am receiving. It was a very constructive week with many new techniques and processes acquired.
I find it fascinating how furniture design has evolved over the centuries. If we go back to the middle ages and the era before, quite a few developments in furniture construction techniques were in progress. Prior to this era, in the centuries before, very little furniture was available, it was considered a luxury to have chairs, tables and cabinets. The larger, more finely made furniture of this era was typically destined for the aristocracy of the time as a display of their wealth and status. Most conventional furniture of these early periods was assembled without consideration to wood expansion and contraction or wood movement. This worked for many years, since the interior of buildings in this era was often at the same temperature as the exterior. With the advent of heated interiors, wood movement became much more of a factor to deal with in construction and design of furniture, and the practice of simply assembling wood planks together to form furniture needed to evolve. It was in the middle ages that frame and panel construction was adopted. This technique allowed a solid wood panel to literally float within a wood frame composed of rails and stiles. The solid wood panel could expand and contract on a seasonal basis, and not cause any structural failure within the furniture. All of a sudden many more possibilities were created for furniture design and its widespread appeal began in earnest. Furniture also began to become more affordable as of the 18th and 19th century, more furniture makers existed and sound construction techniques began to become standardized. There are numerous periods over the past centuries and each of these had a style or styles associated with them. Additionally, each country had a style of its own within these periods. One can see how similar furniture design principles were adopted by successive countries over the different periods. Popular furniture styles which are widely recognized have familiar names such as English Chippendale, German Biedermeier, American Federal and Arts & Crafts, French Art Nouveau, Italian Rococo, etc. To be continued...
I left off in my last post with a gathering of jointer components which needed to be re-assembled. Over the past day or two I have been re-assembling the new ( to me) jointer. I did most of this work myself and after having done some careful analysis, I realized there was only one way to successfully perform the assembly. I slowly built up the jointer while it was inverted.. The critical phase of assembly is joining the two halves of the table, the infeed, outfeed, and cutterhead assemblies. Since the pieces are solid cast iron and extremely heavy, this was done while the pieces were inverted and raised off the floor with some boards and in perfect alignment with each other. I attached the outfeed and infeed portions of the table after lubricating the moving parts, rods and ways. At this point, the jointer table or main assembly is very heavy, so it stayed put while I built up the base. Once the main components, the table and base , were assembled together, the next step was to right the jointer from inverted. At this point the jointer is in stripped down form, without the motor, magnetic switch, rabbet ledge, fence assembly , etc. I had help to right it and afterwards installed the electrical cables, motor assembly, fence assembly, rabbeting ledge, knobs, cutterhead guard, etc. After moving it into its final spot, I set up the chip collection piping and ducting for the new jointer. A few adjustments later, and success! It joints wide boards very well, feels solid, and isn't very noisy.
I have been needing a particular piece of machinery in my studio for quite some time now. I currently have a smaller version, but a larger one with greater capacity was very much needed. This machine is a jointer, which serves to surface or true one face side and edge of a rough board.The surfacing process removes any inherent twist, cupping, or bowing in the board. In my case, the larger capacity corresponds to the width of the jointer cutterhead, allowing me to surface one of the faces of much wider boards. The advantage to a larger width is that boards do not need to be reduced in width due to the constraints of a narrower, smaller jointer. The larger width allows me to maintain the figure of a board in its natural state and allows me to maintain a wider width of board for bookmatching purposes. As luck would have it, the availability of such a jointer was mentioned to me by a friend and I promptly looked into its purchase. This particular machine is a vintage Wadkin - Bursgreen (UK) jointer dating from sometime in the mid-1950's. The advantage to these older machines is their heft ,a large component of cast iron resulting in stability and solid, superior construction. Testimony of the superior quality of this vintage machine is the fact that it is still in use more than fifty years later. My current jointer has a 6 inch capacity, this vintage jointer has 9.25 inches capacity. This jointer weighs more than a quarter-ton. A few weeks went by and the call came that the jointer was available.I packed my set of tools and went to where it is located and performed the transaction. I knew beforehand from having already seen the jointer that it would need to be disassembled in as many parts as possible for ease of transport and coping with two sets of stairs at either location. I began disassembly with the help of Andy Woods of Woods & Co. I even brought a camera along to photograph the main units prior to disassembly for later use. Actually, I didn't mind disassembling it, it would provide me the opportunity to understand how this jointer is put together, specifically the moving mechanisms. A couple of hours later and we had it disassembled into manageable pieces for transport back to my studio. Two trips later, the jointer pieces were in my studio after which I took some time to clean them thoroughly and remove any old grease and dirt. The photo above are the jointer components gathered together after cleaning, and prior to assembly. Next, the assembly and adjustments.
I would like to talk about the design of the jewelry armoire, something I neglected to do in my previous posts. The actual dimensions of the armoire were arrived at after close consultation with my client and discussing their needs. The client wanted a particular look and after producing a few sketches and drawings we arrived at a sort of design compromise. We discussed the woods to be used, the design, proportions, and detail work. I also considered a few structural factors, since the armoire design is sixty-five inches high and not on a very deep or wide footprint. This introduces a possible stability issue, which was worked around by maintaining a minimum depth and width for maximum stability in light of the small width and depth. The client also gave me artistic freedom to embellish the design as I felt comfortable with and to add any elements which would add to the uniqueness of the piece. The style of the armoire is contemporary therefore no pre-existing furniture period is really involved. I have, in the process, created a scale representation to show my client what the proportions look like in real life.
The joinery will involve primarily mortise and tenons for the door members and multiple dowel construction for the main carcase. At the rear of the armoire there will be a frame and panel back which is completely rabbeted into the frame of the armoire. Interior joinery will primarily consist of dovetailed drawers. I haven't discussed the base of the armoire at this point, since it is not yet definite how I will assemble this. The armoire and base will be two separate sections for ease of transport and it generally makes much more sense to build this way. One feature of the armoire I am looking forward to working on are the tapered legs with contrasting toe caps. This is sort of uncharted territory for me and to top this off I hope to add some string inlay into the individual legs.
The armoire is designed to hide its contents completely for obvious reasons, so this was a no-brainer in the preliminary design criteria. I worked with the Golden rectangle or carcase ratios as much as possible, yet I needed to modify these proportions for both functional and aesthetic reasons. The functional reasons are basically the stability of the armoire given its height, width, and depth. The aesthetic (form) reasons are specifically to keep the depth of the armoire down to the minimum necessary. More about the design later as the project progresses...
After discussing with the client, they agreed to give me artistic freedom on the door design. I spent some time working on the frame components of the individual door frames , and I've progressed as far as fitting the door frames into the carcase for test fitting. The door frame components, rails and stiles, are joined with conventional mortise and tenon construction. My natural inclination is to have the stiles on a door frame extend top to bottom of the door and I usually don't think twice about this. Borrowing a page from James Krenov and one of his older designs, I decided to instead extend the top and bottom rails the full width of the door frames instead. The lines become horizontal now rather than vertical. I'm also going to set the vertical stiles back a fraction to provide a shadow effect and give the appearance of horizontal lines running continuously across the top and bottom of the doors. 
