A Krenov revival...

Apologies for not posting more regularly but most of my project builds and images have moved to Instagram, @woodskillsmag and @pirollodesign. I've been working on my latest piece for a few weeks now. It is a cabinet on stand inspired by James Krenov work and philosophy. The story behind this particular piece is as follows. I originally created a similar piece to this in early 2012 and looked forward to making another a few months later.

Original cabinet on stand designed and created in 2012. Door and side panels are veneered with figured Big Leaf maple, interior is soft maple, back panels are Ambrosia maple, stand is cherry.

The design adheres to the principles of Krenov, construction follows his methods and philosophy, and the aesthetic is clean, minimalist and devoid of ornamentation. This has also become my furniture making style in the past 14 years or so. I discovered the work of James Krenov about 14 years ago and read his books quite regularly, each time extracting a new nuance or so. This was the age when learning from woodworking books was the preferred way of understanding woodworking. I followed Krenov's writing and tried to glean as much technical information from the grainy black and white photos in several of his books. A little while later, I attended a furniture making school that was founded on the principles of James Krenov and College of the Redwoods. It was one of a very few schools in North America espousing the tradition of hand work. This experience opened my eyes to a slower form of furniture making where the focus is on the wood itself and attention to detail is paramount. Where am I going with this? Well, between the years 2012 and 2018 I pursued a few other interests, mainly wood sculpture, furniture design, video production, writing books and publishing a semi-annual woodworking magazine WOODSKILLS. As well as returning to school to follow a one year business program, my woodworking continued.

My woodworking (2012-2018) followed a different path where I embraced modern, contemporary design. In this intervening period, I entered furniture design shows with very contemporary console table and chair designs. The years went by while I yearned to revisit that original cabinet on stand and hopefully make another. I had even developed a set of plans and drawings of the cabinet at the time thinking it would be a matter of a few weeks before I could start on another. Fast forward to late 2018 and I finally set aside time to fulfill this build. The following are progress shots. This version of the cabinet on stand has a slightly modified interior layout than the original. The stand is configured differently only because it was possible to do so and I wanted it to be both different and unique. A couple of new additions are a hidden, secret compartment, inlay on the front apron of the stand and the cabinet floats on the stand. Otherwise, the design follows the original piece created back in 2012.

Installing knife hinges in 2018 version of cabinet on stand

Fitting door panels an creating lip and rabbet where they join.

Interior layout of new cabinet mocked up on cabinet base (using a few of the tools I design + make).

Cabinet mocked up and drawer fronts fitted. Hidden compartment also visible below right-hand drawer compartment.

New set of three dovetailed drawers created (at bottom).

New dovetailed drawers fitted into respective drawer compartments.

The legs, aprons, rails for stand are mortised and prepared for loose tenon and dowel joinery (using modified horizontal mortiser).

Progress checklist (whiteboard and dry erase markers) on one of two wall-mounted hand tool cabinets.

Creating mortises for drawer and door pulls ( cocobolo heartwood and sapwood combination)

French Polish process for door panels and cabinet sides.

New version of cabinet completed. Note the dropped front apron with inlay and floating cabinet on side rails.

Cabinet with figured Big Leaf maple door and side panels and cocobolo pull. Cherry stand with inlay.

Interior of 2018 cabinet. Compartments are flipped from 2012 cabinet. Secret compartment behind the small blue cup at lower right.

The new cabinet on stand seen here. Final detail was the addition of a single, small bullet catch at top of right-hand door.

So I've fulfilled my requirement of building a Krenov-inspired piece of furniture every six years or so 👊😉

Horizontal slot mortiser (update)...

So I just created a 2-part video of the Jessem Mortise Mill mounted on my rolling cart. The two-part video for this can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/WoodskillsCourses . Tech in wood joinery meets handcrafted design + build. Top is the mortising unit mounted horizontally, below the micro-adjust system. The original story follows as this is an update to an earlier post. The Jessem Mortise Mill unit was purchased a few years back and I created a few loose tenon slots successfully with it. The original mortiser design was to mount it vertically and use a power drill from the top down. Although this worked, I found the drill pressure would push the board down no matter how much clamping pressure I used. So I put the Mortise Mill aside for a few years until recently. During a shop reorg, I found the unit gathering dust and decided to re-incorporate it in my shop. I had always wanted a horizontal slot mortise and thought why not set this up to create slots horizontally instead of vertically. Original instructions were to install it vertically with boards placement underneath. So I decided  instead to mount it so slots were created horizontally as a horizontal slot mortiser. 

Next step was to find a suitable platform, i.e. workbench surface to mount it. A rolling cart in my workshop was ideal since I could wheel the unit away when not in use and the footprint of the Mortise Mill was not large. The rolling cart has large locking casters which do a good job of keeping the cart immobile. Installed it so the surface of the base plate was even with the surface of the cart, this took some time. I used large enough 1/4-20 bolts to maintain rigidity and keep it from shifting. The Jessem mortise Mill requires that a shop-vac be attached to the dust port otherwise the unit begins to clog up with sawdust, this can also be seen in the videos.

Have been using it since and am pleased with the system. The addition of the L-shaped wood bracket to support stiles while being mortised works well. The ends of rails to be mortised are easily supported by the wood surface of the rolling cart. I like the fact that I can permanently leave the Mortise Mill bolted to the rolling cart.

The only small issue was the vertical adjustment of the slots on a board. Since the Mortise Mill was installed horizontally, the adjustment was not as smooth as I would like due to the weight of the sliding carriage of the unit. Notice the etchings on the Mill are upside down. So, using scrap walnut and maple, in comes the micro-adjust setup to solve the problem. It is all wood construction with a 1/2 inch lead screw and wood handle. The end of the lead screw has a custom cradle contoured to fit the bottom edge of the sliding part of the Mortise Mill. I can precisely dial-in slot placements for either offset or different thickness boards now! 

Since the micro-adjust system is cantilevered off the rolling cart, I beefed up the supports, it's probably over-engineered now. Things to watch are the exact placement of the tip of the lead screw over the center of the edge of the Mortise Mill for smooth operation. A large paddle switch for the built-in Mortise Mill dust collection was installed for convenient access.

The two-part video for this can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/WoodskillsCourses

Completed, tested and have been using for a few months now. Works great!

Drawer pulls...

My process for creating and fitting drawer pulls is outlined here.This involves designing the pulls, selecting the preferred wood to use for the pulls, deciding on a size for the pulls, laying out the pulls, and shaping them. I need to admit this is one of my most enjoyable processes of a build. The build is at its final stages and this can be considered the "adding the icing" part. Pulls often add considerably to a cabinet both in aesthetics and design. The pulls are often a draw to the cabinet if they complement the cabinet yet impart a unique addition to the cabinet. In these photos, the pull design I is a rectangular one with a tenon extending out. The pulls are of mixed cocobolo so both heartwood and sapwood create an appealing contrast in colors. The tenon has shoulders on four sides to overlay the drawer front. This tenon fits into a matching mortise in the drawer front. The mortise is marked and created using hand tools, namely small chisels.

Creating the tenon is meticulous work and I used a small, fine saw to delineate the tenon from the actual pull area. Once this is done, I use a skew rabbet block plane and some small chisels to shape the sides of the tenon. The important part of this sequence is to accurately mark the mortise to fit the tenon. A mistake here could ruin the drawer front or involve a re-design of the pulls to correct the error. The tenons of the drawer pulls fit tightly into the mortise and then glued in. I also take some time to orient the drawer pull graphics and orientation to match each other.

After completing and installing the drawers pulls I proceed to adding a pull to the right door of this particular cabinet. This door pull is similar to the drawer pulls to maintain harmony in the design. This design involves one pull on this door to distinguish this door as the one to open first. I've always liked the idea of having a single pull on the cabinet front, it just looks like a clean, minimalist design. This door pull is also slightly offset towards the bottom of the door to minimize any impact it might have on the door graphics as more of the door graphics are now visible above the door pull.