Drawer fronts...

I've been busy gathering the right wood for the drawer fronts, sides and bottoms. Drawer fronts will be Sapele, a fine-grained wood in the mahogany family. As part of the drawer front fitting, I cut the fronts oversize in thickness, width and length and then proceed to shoot the ends so they fit the drawer opening just right. I follow the same process with the width of the drawer front, handplaning and tuning it down to size. Prior to this, I had planed the thickness of the drawer fronts to fit the opening. The drawer front of the upper right hand set will overhang the divider providing a seamless look, I designed the divider to be shorter than the drawer opening by the thickness of a drawer front. Next, I begin dovetailing the drawer sides into the fronts and then create the grooves for the drawer bottom, in this order. Important to position the groove correctly over a tail so the groove doesn't exit through a pin in the drawer front. This would preclude using a stopped rabbet instead of a through rabbet.

I'm glad to have completed the stand as the cabinet has been occupying a cool rolling cart I built a few months ago. I now have access to my rolling cart once again, which by the way I'm kicking myself for not having made earlier. These things are great in the shop, allowing me to wheel components around to different benches and assembly tables, etc. Also, I haven't decided on the drawer pulls just yet, preferring to wait a few more days and examine some options in the meantime.

I'm also going to install a short divider between the sets of drawers creating more of a delineation between the left and right sides of the cabinet interior. The area above each of the drawer compartments is to be used to display an art object , the divider perhaps will separate the styles of art objects? It just feels right.

I'm still not sure how to work the area below the left hand drawer compartment into the mix. The design of this has been up in the air for a while, and I'm thinking once the drawers are in along with the divider it will make more sense and a a spark of imagination will occur, an "aha" moment. I'm leaning towards a hidden compartment at the moment. Or I might leave it open, in the spirit of "dynamic design", a philosophy I coined a few months ago.

Cabinet stand...

I assembled the stand and am test fitting it in the photo a few hours after glue up. It fits well and is in very good alignment with the cabinet. This is a concern otherwise the stand looks more like an afterthought than designed with the cabinet if it doesn't fit right. The twin stretchers at the bottom work out well and introduce a small focal point into the design. It is quite a small feat getting the rails and stretchers in position for the glue up and a good point to stop and plan this out well. I assembled the sides initially, then put everything together with the front and rear rails and stretchers. The upper and lower rails are mortised into the legs with single tenons, whereas the twin stretchers are dowelled into the bottom side rails.

I am quite pleased at the aesthetics of the piece and the harmony between the cabinet and stand. I needed to spend some time at the edge treatment phase of all the stand components. The edges of each component are slightly chamfered with a small hand plane, then the edge transition is touched with a very fine sanding block to knock out any sharp edges. Since this is all done by hand, I find myself counting the exact number of strokes with the hand plane, in this case two. It is recommended that all the components be completed in one pass to avoid confusion. In other cases, where multiple passes are necessary, counting the handplane strokes is a good technique.

The stand is also beech and all the front and side facing components have non-descript grain pattern, straight grain for the most part, to not introduce any crazy graphics which take away from the main focal point, the cabinet.

I'm kind of anxious at this point to complete the interior of the cabinet, create the drawers and a small partition, then the pulls, so I can begin to apply finish. I'm curious to see how the figure of the door panels comes out. Of course, I can always wet the surfaces with naptha to temporarily see the figure pop, but I can wait a few more days.

I had a little deliberation deciding on the final height of the cabinet and settled for a 55 inch height , along with a second opinion from my better half. Having the piece too low and it begins to look like a credenza , too high and the stand begins to look spindly. I also wanted to provide an opportunity to see the cabinet as a whole, including a partial view of the top. Accessibility and visibility of the cabinet interior is also important as this is somewhat of a showcase cabinet, and my wife and I did take this into consideration.

Cabinet stand...cont'd

I have resumed work on the beech cabinet in the past few days. I've rethought the design of the cabinet stand and made some changes. The original design called for four upper rails mortised into the legs. I would need to have wider front, rear and side apron rails to maintain the strength and integrity of the stand. Rather than this, I have decided on narrower top apron rails and move some support to the bottom of the stand in the form of stretchers instead. The aesthetics of this are more pleasing to me, very much like dividing the load at the top and bottom of the cabinet stand.

The leg dimensions remain the same, instead I divide the original upper rails into two components per rail and use the narrower component at the bottom of the stand. The strength and integrity of the cabinet stand should be maintained with this design along with more pleasing aesthetics, and more subtle, smaller components. I should have the stand assembled within the next day or two. In the meantime, I need to replace one of the components in the stand, a front top rail. In the handplaning effort I was a bit overzealous with this particular rail and the dimensions are no longer right, a little too thin. Rather than handplane the other rails to this dimension, I would rather replace this rail instead.

With significant hand planing, it becomes more important to maintain keen edges on the plane irons. The dullness of the irons sneaks up on you, and before you know it the handplane is struggling to produce fine shavings. I stop occasionally to sharpen the plane irons, otherwise the temptation is to increase the depth of cut with dull irons and all of a sudden they grab and tearout follows.

It's amazing how much the weather has changed in the span of two to three weeks in these parts. It was early fall weather a few days ago, now I hear some wet snow is arriving overnight. It should be nothing significant and late fall will resume, I hope.

Off on a tangent...

I had some spare time recently while waiting for finish to dry and thought I would experiment with some inlay techniques. I have always found a piece of inlay with a surrounding border to be fascinating to be able to make. I need to confess, I've done this before although quite a while ago and need the practice. What I had in mind is a fair sized yellowheart diamond with a black border, I used blackwood. I have the inlay set in a lighter wood, nothing special, just a small offcut. The process of creating and inserting the inlay is a very good test of patience and fine hand tool skills , for almost everything here is accomplished with hand tools.

The border itself is bandsawn from a larger piece of blackwood and the yellowheart also bandsawn from a solid block. The yellowheart inlay is first drawn out and cut with careful attention to the shape of the diamond, each of the sides and facets needs to be a mirror image of the other side. I then mark the inlay onto the lighter background wood with an allowance or margin for the surrounding border. Once marked with a fine knife, I then remove or carve out the recess for both the diamond and border. Next step is to fit both the yellowheart inlay and blackwood border into the recess with glue , make sure it is well seated and wait for everything to set. Afterwards, I judiciously handplane the inlay and the result is in the photo at top. I find it great therapy to go off and do some other type of woodworking during or after some intensive furniture making, it clears the mind and the instant results can be very gratifying, the practice also keeps the skill retention up...

Back panels...

Much of my cabinet design and build process involves the creation of a cabinet back. Conventional wisdom says the back of a cabinet is not nearly as important as the front or sides, so it merely needs a panel which is rabbeted into the sides, top and bottom. The problem with this thinking is that it assumes the back of the cabinet will be placed against a surface or wall and never seen. This doesn't apply to all cabinets as many cabinets are designed as showcases which are away from walls, sometimes placed in the center of a room or even a foot or two away from a wall. Something also feels wrong about diminishing the importance of the back of a cabinet when so much emphasis is placed on the design and structure of the front and sides of the cabinet. With this in mind, the need for a more aesthetically nice cabinet back becomes important, along with the function that it introduces to the cabinet. An example of function is if the cabinet is a wall-mounted cabinet and needs a structurally strong back.

The resulting back panel which best meets the criteria of both aesthetics and function is the frame and panel back; a panel inset into a surrounding frame composed of rails and stiles. The frame and panel back is inset into the cabinet back much like a panel would be and in the process the frame and panel also provide some rigidity to the cabinet. In those situations where a single panel is too wide, a middle stile is installed to divide the frame into two halves, otherwise for smaller cabinets a single panel is sufficient. The panel itself can either complement or contrast the cabinet, providing an interesting focal point once the doors of the cabinet are opened, as well as drawing the eye to the pleasing back of the cabinet.

Dowelling technique...

In many of my cabinet assemblies I use dowels to attach the sides to the top and bottom. The use of dowels gives flexibility to the design of the corner joint. For example, I can offset the side panels away from the edge of the top or bottom and in the process work the protruding edge of the top and bottom into a shaped contour, chamfer, rabbet, etc. The alternative would be to use specific corner joints which need to have the side panel and top or bottom panel intersect right at the very edge. An example of this would be a dovetailed joint, a box joint, or a rabbet and lip edge. If you've ever read up on James Krenov and his work, you will find that he embraces the dowelled corner joint for these very same reasons. This is where I received the inspiration for this type of joint and its virtues.

Creating the doweled joint involves some measurement , but most importantly it involves the little jig you can see in the photo, the dowelling guide. This is a piece of wood with the exact dimensions of the panel I am dowelling, the length and thickness. The dowel holes are marked with arbitrary spacing and the dowel guide holes are bored out on the drill press. I use this dowelling guide to create the dowel holes on both of the mating surfaces , in this case the side panel and the top or bottom panel. There is some skill involved in aligning the dowelling guide to both surfaces since the holes for the dowels need to be perfectly aligned. Marking and orienting the dowelling guide to the correct edges becomes very important and I make many pencil marks in the process. The old adage, "measure twice , cut once" becomes "measure and mark three times, drill once". in this process.

Under wraps...

These past four weeks I have been working on two new pieces of furniture. The first is intended for a gallery exhibition and the second to be entered in an upcoming local furniture exhibition. Unfortunately I will not be able to share the design and build of both these pieces for a while. The second piece intended for the exhibition, is essentially under wraps as all entries need to be in and judged by a certain date. I can say that I am really enjoying creating these two pieces as they are purely on built on speculation and I therefore have complete carte blanche on what I make.

Once I have completed these two pieces I will continue with the beech cabinet on stand which is currently on the back burner. I would estimate I can continue my work on the cabinet on stand in the first week of October. The two pieces I am working on are purposely not very large so I can instead focus on some extra detail I can hopefully incorporate into the design. Sometimes we need to take a leap forward and move into uncharted design territory to be able to add new skill sets and techniques to our furniture making repertoire. We need to regularly challenge ourselves. Wood selection has been a bit of a challenge lately as I have a difficult time locating wood with nice grain and good graphics. Most of what I find is suitable for cabinet work and not so much for fine furniture. Veneering becomes more of a viable option to circumvent this issue. Once I have boards with ideal grain pattern, graphics or figure in my hands I can simply slice veneers from it to use as components of furniture I am creating.

Cabinet base (2)...

I have let the components of the cabinet base or the cabinet stand sit for a couple of days to have them release any internal tension from the resawing operations performed earlier. This tension is due to the interior part of the wood not being as dry as the outside , therefore typically contracting inwards to form a concave form. After a day or so I began to plane the legs a small amount to create flat reference surfaces on two adjacent sides. I then use these perfectly flat sides to dimension the legs to the proper thickness all around. This is one area where it is best to take the time and do it right regarding the judicious dimensioning. I monitor the leg stability every so often, making sure there is no bowing or twist occurring from pent up tension. Th extra material I had left in each dimension would allow me to remove this safely if it does occur. I have also highlighted the grain orientation of the legs and aprons.

I also have the parts for the four aprons almost ready, they are rough dimensioned at this stage with a flat reference surface. I also check this flat reference surface periodically to confirm that it is still flat and not cupped, bowed, etc. When these base or stand components have stabilized further, I will dimension them to the finished sizes. Afterwards, I introduce a taper to each of the legs which I perform initially with the bandsaw and then handplaning the surfaces flat. I also have the blank for the drawer faces selected. The blank is a straight, fine grained Santos mahogany and from it I will rough cut three drawer faces.

Well, it's that time of year again. My wife and I are off to the mountains for a few days of hiking, kayaking and relaxing. With our warm and humid summers up here, we like to go to the mountains as it's cooler and drier. I'll continue where I left off when I am back.

Cabinet base (1)...

We have decided to go ahead with a cabinet base of the European beech. The process of creating a base from the beech slab involves a few steps. Initially the slab is partitioned for optimum use and minimal waste with an important consideration to grain orientation. Ideally, the slab is quarter-sawn. This particular slab is a cross between rift-sawn and quarter-sawn but I do need to pay attention to how the grain is oriented on the individual pieces. Ideally, the grain should be straight along the length of the aprons and all faces of the legs. The grain pattern in this case is diagonal to each face and not parallel to any of the four faces of the individual legs. I will saw the four leg blanks from the larger pieces I have already sawn with this in mind, and the possibility of re-orienting the leg blank within the larger piece of beech.

The original beech slab has now been sawn into three parts. Two of the three parts comprise the legs and the remaining part is utilized for the aprons. There are a total of four aprons, front, back, two sides. I'm cutting this slab in three stages leaving the sawn pieces to stabilize and to release any internal tensions. Since the original slab is resawn into smaller pieces, internal tension in the slab is released when resawing occurs. This isn't a hard and fast rule but in my experience occurs every time. I have also sawn the pieces oversized to allow for sawing at the next stage and the possibility of any cupping or bowing from internal stress. I leave these three sawn components to stabilize for a day or so before proceeding to the next stage of rough cutting the actual pieces which comprise the cabinet base.

Cabinet base design (1)...

The other option of wood for the cabinet base is European beech from the same slabs I used to build the cabinet itself. This would provide a uniform color between the cabinet and base. I need to weigh this uniformity vs. the contrasting wood and color of a mahogany base. Since there is a client involved in this commission, the best thing for me to is defer the decision to the client. In the meantime, I have possibly found just the right slab of beech to be able to accomplish the build of the cabinet base. The cabinet base will be composed of four aprons and four legs. I have a slab of European beech with possibly enough wood to cover these eight components. Another option I have is to have the cabinet floating above the base, this would involve two more components.

In the photo, the beech slab is marked at one end with the divisions of the different components along with a small percentage of waste and dressing for each component. If the decision is made for the beech, this will be somewhat of a challenge for me. There is little margin or error when slicing this slab, with almost no wood to make spare pieces. Forgot to mention, this is the last of the European beech I have in my studio, and would need to source some more if I need it. It is not readily available in my area. Since I love challenges, I'm looking forward to this if the client decides on a beech base.

To be continued...

Cabinet base design...

I'm picking up where I left off on the beech cabinet I began a few weeks ago. The cabinet itself is fairly complete except for three dovetailed drawers. I will build the drawers only after having decided on the type of wood to use for the cabinet base. The reason I am doing this is to bring some of the color from the cabinet base up to the cabinet itself. The very first step in this process is to select the type and color of wood to use for the base. I have the option of either making the base of the same wood (European beech) as the cabinet itself, or selecting a contrasting wood instead. If contrasting, how much variation in the color and grain pattern also.

I've been mulling over this for a few days now as I complete some smaller items in my studio. It is not a simple decision as it can affect the complete aesthetics of the piece. I need to consider if the eyes are going to be drawn away from the upper cabinet and how much so. I also need to design the cabinet and base to be in harmony with each other. I have the actual design in mind, the stumbling block now is the color and which wood to use for the base.

In the photo, I have a fairly large plank of mahogany I have kept for quite a while now. The plank is rift-sawn and has ribbons of color in it, although subtle. Using this wood would provide the base with a reddish-brown color once the patina of the wood has developed completely. This is something that should always be considered when selecting woods for a piece of furniture. after a number of months or years, what color will the wood finally attain. It is important when using two colors or tones of wood, as the initial contrast might either become subdued or more pronounced over time.

This is one option I have, to use this plank for the base components. I should decide in the next few days however...