I occassionally get asked about making veneer hammers, so I have added them to my website. They sell for $30.00 (postage included). They will be made from various hardwoods; Beech, Cherry, Walnut, Oak, Ash, or Maple, depending on the species on hand. They are finished with tung oil and wax. The one shown here is made from beech. You can view a two part video on using a veneer hammer here and here.
Now with the drawings and cut list complete, it’s time for the construction to begin. The Mussey book, gives a description of the woods used in the breakfront, but not what those woods are used for. I decided to use cherry for the drawer fronts, birch for the interior parts of the lower case, ash for the base frame and pine for all other secondary components.
Due to space limitations, both for the raw lumber and the scraps left over, I only ordered about 2/3 of the lumber. This way I can place another order later and not have as much left over lumber, which can quickly take over a shop and is just added expense. As usual Groff and Groff came though for me. I needed 4/4 20” wide planks of mahogany, and when I first called them, they only had 5/4 32” wide boards. I was not crazy about the idea of chopping a 32” plank down to around 19” and planning off 5/8”, but you do what you have to do. This bothers me not only from the standpoint of wasting a fairly rare board, but from a financial point too; 4/4 20” boards are about $9-10 a BF and 5/4 32” ones are $15.00 and up. The next morning they called back and told me they had some nice 4/4 mahogany that would finish out to 19” wide, and wanted to know if that would work. That phone call saved me several hundred dollars, and only reinforced my impression of them as a first rate dealer.
I started by constructing the base units. Taking care during the stock preparation phase will pay off at every future step. I don’t have the space for a decent size jointer and to be honest, the big ones scare me to death, so I will never own one. Instead I use a portable power plane, the modern version of a scrub plane, to flatten one face. But, before any tools are used, I thoroughly wire brush the faces of the lumber to remove any grit, which will prolong the life of the planer knives. Mahogany is typically well sawn and due to its inherent stability remains very flat and true when dried. Birch on the other hand is not as stable, yet this lot was very well sawn and quite true, which made it easy to flatten. The first step is to eyeball the board for any gross humps or cupping, and remove these. Then, with an accurate straightedge, (I use one made from a piece of straight grain cherry), check for straightness and plane accordingly. At this point, the board may very well look flat, but could still have a twist in it, so winding sticks are used to check for this. I have a pair of winding sticks I made from mahogany with holly and ebony inlays, but I prefer two framing squares and an off cut piece of melamine; the melamine placed behind the far square, helps to highlight the deviation or lack thereof, in the top edges of the framing squares. You can view a two part video of using a power plane to prepare stock here and here. With one face flat, the stock can be sent through the thickness planer. Scaling the photo, showed the sides measured 11/16” thick, so for uniformity I planed the interior partitions to this thickness plus 1/32″ for later clean up.
The mahogany plank for the sides, wouldn’t fit through my planer, so I flattened one face, with the power plane, taking off approximately half of the total amount needed to bring it to its final thickness; in theory, this keeps the moisture content equal and the plank flat. When used carefully, the power plane is capable of extreme accuracy. I hold it very lightly and kind of glide it over the surface. I also work with, across and diagonal to the grain to keep things flat. The progress is checked frequently with a straightedge, winding sticks and a rule. With a face flat, a line is struck from that face, with a marking gauge, set 1/16” thicker than the finished dimension. That last 1/16” is removed with various hand planes. Starting with a fore plane, the mahogany is planed across the grain; even the most stubborn wood planes like a dream across the grain, just be sure to have sufficient width that the inevitable splintering will allow the plank to finish out to the desired dimension. Again frequent checking is required with the straightedge and winding sticks. I like to start with the face that was planed to establish the rough thickness. This way the scribe line to establish the final thickness is on the opposite face and the two can’t be confused. After planing across the grain, I go with the grain using a 30” wooden jointer plane, which is light and very accurate. With an accurately flattened face, it is just a matter of scribing that other line and planing to thickness, following the same procedures for the first face.
The birch has to be glued up to achieve the necessary width. I had asked for 9”-10” wide boards, so I would only need two pieces for each panel. Groff and Groff did their best to fill that request, but most of the boards were in the 8” range, necessitating a 3 piece glue up on several of the panels. The vertical sides for the central base section have a strip of mahogany glued to the front edge because that section protrudes pasts the flanking end sections.
Typically I make edge joints with only hand planes, but lately I have been using the shaper to roughly straighten the edges, by offsetting in the infeed and outfeed fences (think of a jointer laid on its side). This has proven to be very accurate, despite the relatively short fences on the shaper.
I had not used birch in quite a while, and I can’t say it was a happy reunion; birch is notorious for its hardness and revering grain. With more cooperative wood, the edge joints are made by clamping face to face, the boards to be joined and planing both at the same time, which causes any deviation from a true square edge, to cancel out and results in a flat panel. The cantankerous nature of the birch made this a bit difficult, so I planed each board separately, which called for more attention to keep the edges square. The wooden jointer, despite its higher center of gravity, is much easier to “keep” square, and add to that, its 50 º bed angle made short work of jointing the edges. The edge joints were planed with a very slight hollow or spring joint, and joined with hot hide glue, which was retarded with urea. With accurate stock preparation, the glue up will go easily, but some misalignment will exist no matter how careful you are. I like to work with the boards on the floor and use my knee and hands to make slight adjustments to get the faces flush. A few minutes of careful work, will save a lot of effort when it comes time to plane the panels after glue up.
Planing the glued up panels is similar to the mahogany plank, but the panel should already be quite flat and true, so the straightedge, winding sticks and marking gauge won’t be needed. Start by planing across the grain, which is the only viable option with the difficult birch. With a very sharp plane and a light cut an excellent surface can be achieved by going across the grain. That surface is quickly and easily cleaned up with a scraper plane.
The next installment will detail the dimensioning and joining the panels to make the base sections.
Over the next few weeks, I will document the entire process of building a Federal period breakfront, from interpreting photos to making working drawings, to the finishing. I will include all of the successes and mistakes (hopefully there won’t be many of the latter). Some of the entries were posted over 3 years ago, but some were not re-posted after a hosting migration, some 2 years ago and the last 2-3 entries were never posted.
This entry will begin with a bit on the history of the piece, what changes are being made, and preparing the drawings.
The breakfront is in the collection of the United States Department of State, and is on display in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms. It is a massive piece, measuring 89 ¼” high and 96 ½” wide. Several sources attribute the breakfront to the Salem or coastal Massachusetts area, but Robert Mussey (see below for a list of the titles referenced in this article) in his excellent book on the Seymour’s attributes it to them. Whoever made it, it is an impressive piece; appearing quite delicate despite its massive scale.
As with any project, this one begins with assembling the reference materials. In this case there are several fairly good photos of the breakfront, in various books. The Mussey book has the best, in that it is taken straight on , is in color, and has a lengthy description of the piece. Yet, if using only this photo, you may think the center section is considerably taller and deeper than the flanking sections. The photo in Treasures of State is of somewhat poor quality but does show the relationship between the center and end sections, and also has a description of the piece. The photo in the Sack book is much clearer, and very accurately shows the relationship, between the center and end sections. A photo in Becoming a Nation is so small as to be of no real value.
Even a careful study of detailed photos, may not result in a true reproduction, because of course a photo will only get you so far, but often it is all that is available. When setting out to reproduce a piece from a photo, I always think of the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.
There is one error in it, which escaped the attention of Felix de Weldon and others involved in making the statues. By the time work started on the monument in 1951, M-1 carbines had been retrofitted with bayonet lugs, and these were used as a reference, during the sculpting. The original movie of the flag raising, shot by Bill Genaust, clearly shows the carbines carried by Ira Hayes and Michael Strank, lacked a bayonet lug. I bet the rear sights are wrong too, but enough of the obscure history. So, when I find a missed detail in my work, I feel better, knowing an important national monument isn’t perfect either.
The customer decided not to reproduce the Butler’s drawer. I can understand why, since it has limited usefulness in a modern household. I would have liked to make it, but it would have added considerably to the construction time. The original was built in only two sections, but I’m going to make it in 6 major sections; moving and shipping this behemoth is going to be difficult, not to mention expensive, enough without having it being any more unwieldy than necessary. This approach will cause its own set of issues, but those outweigh the alternative.
To prepare the drawings, I used a dial caliper reading to .001” to measure a part of the photo, for which there is a known dimension. Take that reading and divide it by the known dimension. This will result in a factor that can then be used, to determine any other dimension. For example, the photo of the breakfront in the Mussey book, measures 5.712” high, which when divided by 89.25(the actual height of the breakfront) is .064. Now this factor of .064 can be used to determine other dimensions on the breakfront. As an example, if some part in the photo measures 1.167”, its actual dimension is 18 ¼” (1.167÷.064 = 18.234 which is rounded up to 18 ¼”). Depending on the quality of the lens and how carefully the camera was leveled, there may be some distortion in the photo, so it is a good practice to determine a factor for both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. In this case they were very close, with the vertical factor being .064 and the horizontal .062. If the photo had not been taken straight on, the same method would have been used, but the horizontal dimensions would have been less accurate. In this case a certain amount of interpretation, would have been necessary, based on your sense of proportion; in other words drawing it out full size or to scale and seeing if things look right.
I make a quick sketch to set out the large overall dimensions. Depending on the complexity of the piece, this drawing may be enough to go ahead and start construction. The many components of this breakfront, requires more details and this is best accomplished with a full size drawing. The drawing doesn’t have to be a masterpiece; just good enough to get the details on paper, and have a document to take dimensions from. Here again, the dial caliper is used to pick out the fine dimensions. To achieve maximum accuracy I use a magnifying glass made for stamp and coin collectors, to insure the particular element is being measure precisely; even a small error in measuring will result in a large error when scaled up.
I make the drawings on brown kraft paper, which erases cleanly and holds up well during construction. I think the real benefit of the drawing is not so much the dimensions, which are of course important, but how the process of drawing them, fixes the interaction of the various parts in your mind, and allows you to “see” things you might not have otherwise. In the case of this project, I found the setback of the flanking cases, was somewhat dictated by how much the hinges for the full overlay doors project past the edge of the door. In a very real way, when the drawings are complete, you have already built the piece.
Despite, complicating the drawings to a degree, I wanted to have the plan show both the upper and lower case superimposed over one another. This means there are quite a few overlapping lines, so to keep things clear the lower case was drawn with a standard pencil and the upper case with a blue pencil. Thus drawn, there can be no discrepancies in the way the upper and lower cases align.
Now with the drawings in hand, I can move on to a creating a cut list; a necessary task, which I nonetheless despise.
In the next installment, I will tackle the stock selection and preparation for the lower carcass.
References sources:
Becoming a Nation
Jonathan L. Fairbanks
ISBN0-8478-2528-0
Treasures of State
Clement E. Conger
Alexeandra W. Rollins
ISBN 0-8109-3911-8
American Antiques from the Israel Sack Collection, Vol. 1
Details of publication unknown
The Furniture Masterworks of John and Thomas Seymour
Robert D. Mussey Jr.
ISBN 0-88389-126-3
In my opinion shellac is the king of finishes. It can create any sheen from an oil “in the wood” look, to the much vaunted high gloss of French polish. Repairs are easy and longevity is good. It does have a few drawbacks; scratch resistance could be better as could water resistance, and of course it can’t stand up to alcohol.
Just like its adaptability of sheen, it can be applied in several way; padding, spraying and brushing. For myself, brushing is by far the preferred way. Brushing is efficient, both in terms of time and coverage, resulting in 100% transfer. It works equally well on flat and curved surfaces and with care on carvings. Brushing does require a bit of a knack, but is quickly mastered, provided the proper brush and shellac mixture are used. You can view a video of the process here.
I have always mixed shellac from flakes. At first I used de-natured alcohol (DNA) of whatever brand was in stock at Lowe’s. Then I tried Bekhol, which is a high quality solvent made specifically for shellac. It worked well, but not well enough to justify the cost, so it was back to Lowe’s. I did this for years, but then I heard about using grain alcohol meant for human consumption. I found this wasn’t for sale in Ohio, at least not in the purity (proof) necessary for mixing shellac. Recently I learned it is for sale in Ohio, just down the road from me, at an Air Force Base, under the name of Everclear. It seems that the Base operates under Federal Law, and the sale of 190 proof grain alcohol is prefect legal. For once I like the usurpation of States Rights. I got it with the intension of using it while demonstrating shellac at the historic farm where I volunteered. The kids get a big kick out of hearing where shellac comes from, and I thought taking a swig of it would really go over well. Now we can debate the merits of consuming 190 proof alcohol in front of children, but that was my thought anyways. Well, that may have been my motivation, but it turns out Everclear is nothing short of miraculous for mixing shellac. It flows out beautifully, and can be brushed at a “cut” at least twice that of shellac mixed with DNA, meaning it builds faster. It also cures/dries much faster than DNA shellac. I now no longer need to add ShellacWet, at least not in cool weather, we’ll see this summer what happens. A piece can be easily rubbed out 24 hours after application, with no “corning” and great clarity. Usually there are as the saying goes no free lunches, but in this case, save the slight price increase, Everclear beats DNA and Bekhol in every measure.
I did try the Everclear sans the shellac. I’ve never been a drinker, but I am now a confirmed teetotaler. It reminded me of the Fourth of July scene in “The Great Escape” WOW! (said in a horse, breathless voice).
I’m not particularly interested in woodworking tool reviews, instead I’m far more interested in techniques. Still, once in a while a tool stands out and the Proctor Silex No. 17135YZ iron is such a tool, although it may not at first seem like a woodworking tool.
Building mostly Federal Furniture, has me doing a significant amount of veneering. I’m dedicated to hammer veneering. I first read about it in Jeffery Greene’s book “American Furniture”. Originally only the historical aspect appealed to me, but once I tired it, I was hooked. It is a simple, adaptable and dependable way to veneer nearly any wood surface. It is especially suited to building patterns, that would otherwise require laborious taping, and careful registering. On more than one occasion I’ve had people seek instruction on hammer veneering, after being disappointed with vacuum press veneering.
In addition to being adaptable, hammer veneering requires very little in the way of specialized tooling. A veneer hammer, iron and a way to melt the glue are the only things, you aren’t apt to find in any shop.
When I first tried hammer veneering, I used my Mom’s iron, which made me decidedly unpopular. Then, thinking expensive, equals quality (this coming from a guy with a $109 table saw), I bought a Rowenta iron. It was a thing of beauty, built to last and well suited to ironing clothes, but not hammer veneering. The hide glue stuck with a surprising tenacity to the stainless steel base pad. This made small pieces of veneer like cross-banding or parts of pateraes to stick to the base. The heat, caused the glue to harden into lumps on the base that damaged the veneer. I next tried irons with coated bases, from Black and Decker, Sunbeam, Rival and probably others. The coated bases worked far better than the stainless steel, but the coating wore off rather quickly. Between the coating failure and dropping the irons with regularity, I quit buying moderatly expensive irons and purchased the Proctor Silex at Wal-Mart for $9.95. It seems that iron models have short shelf life, so this particular model may not be currently available, but any coated base Proctor Silex iron will work equally well.
What a world of difference, the coating is nearly bullet proof, and nothing sticks to it. Another plus, is the temperature dial, clearly shows the setting; a feature not all irons share. Now, if only I can quit dropping them.
If you’d like to see a short, two part video on hammer veneering you can watch it here and here.
PS I can no longer respond to or approve comments. The spam is just overwhelming. As of now, I have nearly twenty three thousand , yes 23,000 comments pending, with more coming in every second.
I have a new DVD available. This nearly 6 hour DVD chronicles the construction of a Portsmouth, New Hampshire Gallery Table. Topics include turning and reeding the legs, making four inlay bandings, hammer veneering, drawer construction, and finishing.
You can view the details here.
Card scrapers are indispensable tools. It won’t replace a plane and it isn’t a substitute for sandpaper, but they do compliment both. Planes, no matter how well tuned can cause tearout; a well sharpened and properly employed scraper can quickly remove that tearout. Sandpaper removes wood rather inefficiently and with somewhat limited control, yet scraped surfaces, at least in my experience require sanding. Scrapers do have a few limitations. They have to be used with care, since they lack a guiding surface, making it all too easy to create a depression or a washboard surface. Finally, scrapers work poorly if at all on softwoods. Actually there is one more issue with scrapers, they have a reputation of being difficult to sharpen.
Ask 100 woodworkers about sharpening a card scraper and you’re likely to get 95 different answers. In some areas there is considerable agreement, in others not so much. Other than the “ruler trick”, honing seems to have the most common ground. By contrast, when it comes to turning the burr, there is little consensus. Some advocate light pressure, others heavy. The number of stages in forming and turning the burr also vary . Even the recommended tool used to turn the burr diverge, ranging from valve stems to the backs of chisels, but all do agree that the burnisher must be hard and smooth. Finally, some,unnecessarily complicate the process, or try to uncomplicated it by relying on jigs and specialized tooling. In truth, getting a good burr requires no specialized tooling, can be accomplished in seconds and is simplicity itself. This is a good thing, because even a well turned burr has a relatively short working life.
Purchasing a quality scraper will go a longs ways towards success. A scraper made with poor steel, won’t be able to take or hold a decent burr. An overly hard scraper will make it difficult to form a burr, and that burr will be prone to work-hardening, which leads to premature breakdown of the cutting edge. I have had excellent success with the thicker scraper sold by Lie-Nielsen. I have not found the thinner version to be very useful as a scraper, but it does work great as a blunt chisel, when making half blind dovetails.
With a file held in a recess routed in a scrap of wood the edges of the scraper are prepared for forming the burr.
Click on any photo to see a larger version
Sharpening begins with establishing a square cutting edge. In keeping with my philosophy of not relying on jigs for sharpening , the edge is cleaned up with a fine cut mill file that is housed in a recess, routed in a piece of scrap wood. Both edges of the scraper are passed over the file, while holding the scraper at 90 degrees to the file. It is essential that the edges be square, otherwise one side of each edge won’t cut effectively or at all. Two or three passes over the file, is all it should take to re-establish a good edge. Some time ago, I dispensed with honing the edge. Neither the cutting edge’s longevity or the resulting surface finish were negatively impacted by skipping the honing.
Use a fine diamond hone to remove the burr left from filing
The faces of the scraper, do need to be honed, and for this I use an inexpensive, fine diamond hone. The diamond hone cuts quickly without the need for lubrication. When the scraper is first purchased the faces are typically not polished well enough for optimum cutting, so it pays to spend a few minutes with diamond hones of various grits to bring the last ½” of the cutting edges to a high polish. The only key point to honing, is to never allow the diamond hone to tip over the edge. Doing so will round over the edge, destroying the essential sharp arris.
Years of working in a machine shop, gave me access to an endless supply of broken carbide end mills, which are perfect for burnishing. The end mill is simply shoved into an appropriately sized file handle. I follow a three step burnishing process; drawing, flattening and rolling.
Drawing the burr. Note the highly polished edges of the scraper.
Drawing is accomplished by laying the scraper flat near the edge of the bench and with firm pressure on the burnisher, draw it down the face of each edge several times. At various times, I have tried holding the burnisher flat on the face of the scraper or letting it tip slightly off the horizontal. I can’t say for sure, but holding the burnisher flat on the face, results in a more predictable burr and one that seems to last longer. This would make sense, in that going off the horizontal would have essentially the same effect as allowing the hone to tip over the edge. If viewed under a microscope the edges of the scraper would have minute projections of steel drawn out, resembling a C or U in cross section.
Flattening the projections, with no additional pressure on the burnisher than its own weight.
The next step in forming the burr is the one where there is the most divergence of opinion . Many woodworkers, go directly to turning the burr, but I have found that the resulting burr lasts longer, is more consistent and can be turned at least one additional time(re-sharpened it as it were) if an additional step is taken; flattening the projections.. With the scraper on its edge, draw the burnisher down the edge. The weight of the burnisher will supply all the pressure necessary to flatten out the projections of metal formed in the previous step. At first you will feel a slight drag as the burnisher is applied to the edge. After a few strokes the burnisher will glide smoothly over the edge. At this point you can make one additional pass with moderate pressure on the burnisher to ensure the projections have been flattened out. The reason for the light touch is to gently flatten the projections, which lessens work-hardening the steel, and prevents galling the edge. The extreme hardness of the carbide burnisher, also works to prevent galling.
Held slightly off vertical, the burnisher preforms the final step in rolling the burr.
The final step is to turn or roll the burr. Position the scraper flat on the bench with its edge extending a short distance past the edge ofthe bench. Using firm pressure on the burnisher, with it held about 8 degrees off the vertical, make two passes down each cutting edge. One pass is made pushing the burnisher away from you and the other drawing it towards you. This double pass, ensures a uniformly turned burr, because it is difficult to start the burnisher at the end of the scraper. The 8 degrees at which the burnisher, is not to be taken as an absolute. Much more of an angle than that will form a burr that is too aggressive and will require the scraper to be leaned quite far forward to make it cut. Leaning the scraper like this makes itdifficult to control. Conversely a lesser angle on the burnisher ,leaves a burr that will require the scraper to be held almost vertically, making the flexing necessary for proper use difficult. The edge of a scraper, no matter how well formed and despite the quality of the steel, will break down rather quickly. Producing just dust, is a clear sign that the edge has broken down, but it is best to recondition the edge before it has become dull. To re-condition an edge start by repeating the drawing step, but in this case, applying very light pressure on the burnisher for the first few passes. As with flattening the projections, at first you will feel a slight drag as the burr is “turned” over and made flat. Once the dragging disappears, the pressure on the burnisher can be increase slightly. Heavy pressure and too many passes should be avoided to prevent work-hardening the edge. From here on the same steps are repeated as with a freshly filed scraper. Depending on the quality of the steel, how far the edge is allowed to degrade, and the care taken to avoid work-hardening, the edge can be re-conditioned up to two times before needing to resort to filing the edge.
You can watch a video of this process here
Some of my favorite projects aren’t period furniture, but common household items and wooden knickknacks. I’ve made flyers and bobbins for spinning wheels, a weaving shuttle, a niddy noddy, chip boxes, a lazy kate , a variety of lathe turned toys and ornaments and perhaps the most unusual, a device to aid in braiding human hair to make jewelry and other fashion accessories ( apparently a common practice in the Victorian period).
I volunteer at an historic farm and I’ve been watching the homemakers crochet and knit on the bitter cold days we’ve had recently (the house has a better wood stove than the wood shop) This got me to thinking about making crochet hooks and knitting needles. At first I wanted to try a crochet hook, because I can remember in Junior High School, when I was first exposed to the wood lathe, my mother getting an ornate hand turned hook. I was impressed with the delicate turning and wondered how it were possible to do that. At the time of course I was still using scraping cuts and had no conception of how controllable a shear cut can be. Today, even with that knowledge, turning the long thin shaft of dense hardwood seems a challenging task. In the end I decided to go with a knitting needle, because even on larger turnings, a straight shaft is more difficult to turn than a decorated one.
I was pretty sure that turning a nominal 3/16” x 12” cylinder between centers on the lathe, was going to be a hit or miss affair. The whip on a table leg can result in barber polling and chatter, so I could imagine what would happen with such a small shaft. A steady rest would help, but even on a full size leg they are cumbersome. The answer came watching an all day marathon of “How it’s Made”. One scene showed an aluminum part being extruded. Somehow that image sparked in my mind the thought I could turn the shaft by working only in short sections, close to a chuck. This would all but elminate whip. This was made possible by the hollow drive shaft on the lathe.
When working in a machine shop, I got a firsthand look at the awesome power of centrifugal force. A relatively short length of the 3/4” solid copper rod, left cantilevered out the rear of a lathe, bent the instant the lathe was turned on and the resulting clatter and vibration were both startling and frightening. I often wonder what the guy who turned on the lathe was thinking. I believe he went on to build furniture; he certainly wasn’t cut out to be a machinist. Obviously, a 15” length of hardwood lacks the mass of a copper bar, but if left unrestrained it would contribute to vibration. To keep that from happening, I sized the blank to be a snug fit in the lathes hollow drive shaft. This worked out to be 27/64” square . I also milled the blank so that it was dead straight.
I looked at knitting needles at Wal-Mart and decided that a US No. 7 would be a good starting size. It is slender enough to pose a challenge without being intimidating. I decided on a 12” length, which was the middle ground. I also did a Google image search, to see how to handle the non working end of the needle. I wanted to make the needles from ebony, but its precious metal like price caused me to use a piece of Granadillo I’ve had collecting dust for 11 years. This proved to be a good choice, as the wood had an attractive mottled appearance, a beautiful natural luster and was well behaved.
At the heart of the process is the chuck. I recently purchased an inexpensive 4 jaw chuck from Grizzly. I bought it for making table legs in whip prone stock. My thinking was since the chuck grips the wood tightly at its end and doesn’t rely on axial force, this would lessen whipping. On a Windsor stool project, which will be the subject of a future blog entry, this proved to be quite true. The problem with the chuck is one of safety. The spinning jaw present a considerable hazard, because at speed they aren’t readily visible. It took only a couple of encounters with them to leave the knuckles of my left hand looking and feeling like I’d been in a bar fight, and to learn not to come into contact with the jaws. In the future, I’m going to use a guard made from a tin can to prevent this.
The shaft emerges, as if it were being extruded. The tail stock provides only support not pressure.
The actual turning proved to be anticlimactic. I found I could easily turn a 2 1/2 inch section at a time, and could have turned a shaft considerably thinner than the .177” (4.5mm) I chose. The section was roughly turned to size with a gouge and then using calipers and a parting tool the shaft was bought to size at closely spaced intervals. Careful use of the pressure applied to the calipers and the parting tool, dampened what little whip there was; in effect they worked together much like a steady rest. The shaft was cleaned up with a skew chisel. This was the only tricky part. A shaft that small requires considerable precision and the skew left a slightly (very slightly) undulating shaft. Drawing on my machine shop days, I used a mill file to accurately and safely smooth the shaft. The Granadillo has an almost waxy feel and this quickly clogged the file. A long angle lathe file may have worked better, but I was very impressed with the surface left by the file. After one section was finished, the blank was advanced and the process repeated. The tail stock applied only enough pressure to capture the free end. When the shaft was complete, it was sanded with 400 and 600 grit paper. Like the file, the paper was quickly clogged with the waxy Granadillo. A quick burnishing with wood chips left a deep luster. The plus side of the waxy nature was a silky smooth finish that did not require any wax or shellac. I had intended to turn the finial in a separate step, but I found it could be done with the same set up used for the shaft.
The shaft is sized with the parting tool and calipers. Adjusting the pressure on these tools will dampen any minor whip.
I was quite pleased with the needle’s appearance, but it seemed unwieldily. The finial I chose, left the needle unbalanced, and the 12 inch length was cumbersome. Why felt this way I don’t know, because I know nothing about knitting. I asked an expert knitter about the reason for the various lengths, and found she preferred a shorter needle. I somewhat reluctantly cut away most of the finial and 5 inches of the shaft. After doing so, I did not regret it, as the needles felt much more comfortable.
Making the reducing collet.The Beall chuck holds a section of dowel while a hole is drilled through its center.
I wanted to use the Beall Chuck and a wooden collet to turn the point, because its smooth exterior is safe to work around. The inspiration for the wooden collet came from a collet adapter I use for holding 1/8” shanks in the router. Unfortunately the Beall chuck lacked the gripping range to firmly hold the shank of the needle. This is not the fault of the chuck, but rather the drill bits I had available. Had, I had a No.16 or a 4.5MM drill bit, I’m sure it would have worked perfectly. I did use the Beall chuck hold a section of 1/2” dowel, while drilling a 3/16” hole. The dowel was kerfed longitudinally, so it could grip within a range of diameters.
A wooden reducing collet holds and protects the shaft as the point is turned.
I modeled the points on those I had seen at Wal-Mart. The tapers were formed with the skew. By pinching the end of the shaft and the skew, between the thumb and index finger, a smooth accurate taper was achieved. The skew left an impressively sharp point, but that needed rounding with fine sand paper.
The skew chisel, shear cutting the point. The wooden reducing collet is just visible to the left of the thumb.
The needles were a nice diversion from the normal woodworking, and I’d like to make more. Emboldened by the success I will certainly make at least one more pair out of ebony, but only after getting feedback on how these needles perform.
WIth the base units assembled it is time to focus on the upper cabinets. I took extra care to make the base units exactly to plan, so that I could build the uppers without having to refer to lowers. Instead, all I had to do was unroll the drawing. This is important consideration in my small shop, where having the base units ganged together would take up precious floor space.
The actual construction closely mirrored that of the base. The major difference was the material used, which unlike the lowers these were all mahogany. I had hoped to get boards in the 10 inch wide range, but instead I got boards around 18” wide. From an appearance standpoint this is great, but it meant I’d have to flatten and thickness all 18 pieces by hand. I have one rule that I never break, I will not let tooling limitations dictate material handling, joinery, molding profiles etc. so cutting the boards down to fit my planer was out of the question. I know that intellectually this makes no sense. If I were willing to use a two board glue up for the sides, why not fire up the Black and Decker and rip the boards to fit my planer? I don’t have a good answer to that one. I think part of it is a reverence for the wood. Wide boards took a long time to grow and who am I to saw them apart, just to save a few hours work. Another part is a fear of a slippery slope scenario; saw boards apart today and tomorrow you’re using a belt sander and MDF. Actually in this case I do have a fairly good reason, full width boards are pretty much the rule on period pieces.
Bringing a case component to final thickness with a 30" Clark and Williams Jointer plane. As always, Junior is on hand to insure quality.
The portable power plane made quick if messy work of flattening and thicknessing the boards. The boards were left about 1/16” over the desired thickness. This is a manageable amount to plane away with hand planes. I like to start with a fore plane going across the grain, but in this case doing so would splinter out the sides and leave the boards too narrow. To overcome this, I used a rabbet plane to plane down to the thickness line on the far edge so I could plane straight across. I followed the fore plane with a 30” Clark and Williams jointer, going with the grain. This plane leaves a very true surface and is so responsive, that each pass is a satisfying experience. Mahogany is such a pleasure to work with that even planing 18 boards was not too much of a chore.
A rabbet planed on the exit side of the board, prevents splintering when planing across the grain.
The nominal 18” width was not quite wide enough for the center section. Luckily, the wooden frame and panel backs will be hidden by a fabric covered panel, so I could add a narrow strip of pine to the back edge of the center section and later have it hidden.
Due to excessive splintering and other edge defects several of the boards came up too narrow. I kept these for the bottom boards and shelves. These pieces feature a pair of plate grooves and by carefully placing the glue line at the location of one of the grooves, the seam is all but invisible. I took this opportunity to use up those narrow offcuts that seem take over a shop. In a couple of cases even with the addition of the offcuts the board were left too narrow, so a strip of pine was added. Of course adding pine to a shelf is out of the question, since it is fully exposed. I don’t know if the original breakfront had plate grooves, but the customer wanted them. I formed them with a molding plane guided by a clamped on board.
Guided by a clamped on straightedge, a molding plane forms the plate grooves. Note the rabbeted dovetails, and the strip of mahogany and pine added to achieve the required width.
The joinery also mirrored the base units. Like before a rabbet was run on what will be the exposed ends of the top and bottom boards of the flanking units. This rabbet allows the use of the more efficiently cut though dovetails. At this step and indeed through the entire process of laying out and cutting the sides, you have to constantly be aware of the need to make rights and lefts. It is all too easy to slip up and end up with all rights or all lefts. The exposed ends of the through dovetails will later be covered by moldings. Having learned from my mistakes on the lower unit, I used stopped rabbets on the bottom boards.
Shop made clamps used to fasten blocks that form the grooves for the adjustable shelves. The dark bands are pre-finished areas that will be the bottom of the grooves.
I have a hard time coming to terms with the way the adjustability of the shelves is handled. It seems odd that such an elegant piece of furniture should have an inelegant series of dadoes to provide adjustability. Upon closer inspection of the photo of the original in Volume One of American Antiques in the Israel Sack Collection, it became clear that the dadoes weren’t dadoes in the classic sense. Instead of being cut into the case sides, the dadoes were formed with applied blocks of thin wood. The tipoff was a shadow on the upper tier of dadoes in the left hand unit, where a block had fallen off. After I saw that I also noticed the lower tier of dadoes on the right hand unit clearly show they were formed by applied blocks. While still not the most refined method, these applied block are clearly superior to cut dadoes. Using period tools it is difficult to create a cut dado with a smooth bottom, but an applied block makes for a perfectly clean dado. Another plus is the ease of obtaining an excellent rubbed out finish in the bottom of the of the groove. As the saying goes, there are no free lunches. The blocks were easy enough to cut, but gluing them in place wasn’t. After planing the sides with a smooth plane and very lightly hand sanding them, I laid out the spacing of the blocks, using a story stick to insure uniformity among the individual sides. What will be the bottom of the dadoes were pre-finished with lime and tinted shellac (more about the finishing in a minute). I also pre-finished end-grain edges of the blocks. With the need to maintain accurate spacing and proper clearance for the shelves to slide in and out easily, I did a dry run before the edges of the blocks were finished. Once I was satisfied with the spacing, the blocks were numbered. To glue the blocks in place, I mixed up a batch of hide glue with a touch more of urea than I normally use. I didn’t measure it exactly, but I guess I was getting closer to15% urea, rather than the 10% I usually use. The glue was mixed fairly thick, to provide a good grab, but this shortens the open time, hence the higher urea to glue ratio. In the end, even the thicker glue wasn’t sticky enough to grip the block in place as the clamping pressure was applied. A pinch of fine sand sprinkled into the glue over the back of the block prevented the blocks from sliding around as the clamps were tightened. I used a series of shop made clamps to apply the pressure. These clamps are made from ash and threaded rod. The clamping edges are planed with a slight camber so as pressure is applied it is spread evenly along the length of the clamp. These clamps are effective but cumbersome. Pieces of scrap wood were used as clamping cauls. The blocks were applied one at a time from the bottom up, in each section. When one block cured sufficiently to remove the clamps, the next block up was applied. An off cut of the shelf material, wrapped in several layers of packing table insured the shelves would fit with some clearance and the spacer would not inadvertently become a permeant part of the side. During assembly, I had to trim a couple of blocks and refinish their edges to maintain the spacing.
Once the glue had cured the blocks were lightly sanded and had lime sprayed on them. The crotch mahogany veneer dictates the color of the entire piece. When the drawers were finished, it showed that the color was going to have to be more brown than what lime alone is capable of producing. I do not want to just dye the mahogany, because the wood will continue change color over time. By contrast, the lime is very color stable over time. Using lime as a base will result in a stable platform, from which the proper color can be built. From basic color theory it is known that the way to make red more brown is to add green. A quick shot of green dye revealed this wouldn’t be enough to counteract the red. In addition, the green dye would have been somewhat difficult to control around the inlays. I finally settled on using shellac tinted with Trans Tint brown mahogany and a dash of lemon yellow. It would be easy enough to mask off the inlays with tape, while applying the tinted shellac. Out of fear of leaving application marks, I decided to spray the shellac. This is not a decision I take lightly, because spraying in general is not my strong suit and shellac has proven to be particularly challenging for me. In the past I had used a conventional spray gun, but encouraged by the result I get spraying water based lacquer with an HVLP gun, I went with it. The gun doesn’t deserve any of the blame for the less than stellar job I did spraying the shellac. The only real difference between the HVLP and the conventionally sprayed surface, was how the HVLP did not bloom or cloud from the moisture in the air. The sprayed surface still had the typical (for me) frosted appearance, but at least the color was consistent. To avoid a muddy look the color was built up with several light coats. Sized strips of scrap wood protected the already finished grooves from over spray.
Once the color was achieved, I switched to my trusty brush for applying the remaining coats of shellac. I did not bother to fill the grain on the interior. When ready the shellac was rubbed out and a thin coat of wax applied.
Glue up was a breeze and unlike with the base units, I didn’t waste time trying to get them perfectly square. Out of the clamps, the cases were positively flimsy. The back panels were again of a frame and panel construction. The panels were pre-finished with a couple of coats of de-waxed dark shellac, as were the grooved edges of the stiles and rails. The assembly was done with urea depressed hide glue and extreme care was taken to insure the panels were square. After the glue cured the joints were planed flush. As the back panels won’t be visible I didn’t sand any part of them. This left behind a pleasing period accurate texture. The contact areas were taped off and a couple of coats of de-waxed dark shellac were brushed on. When it had cured the panels were scuff sanded and the backs were glued and nailed in place. In theory with a perfectly square back panel, the case opening should be square too, but theories don’t always work out. To guarantee the cases were dead square on the face side, I glued and nailed off bottom edge of the back and placed the unit on the leveled assembly base. The cabinet was racked until the front diagonals were equal and a clamp was used to hold the alignment while the remaining nails were driven home. I was very satisfied with the outcome; the openings were very square and sighting across the vertical sides showed they were in the same plane. All of this is going to pay big dividends in the next step, building the glazed doors.
A few weeks ago, I read an entry on the Popular Woodworking Editors’ blog by Bob Lang, where he noted how some woodworkers are more concerned with shavings, the waste material than they are with the finished product. I tend to be one of those woodworkers. I have made tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of shavings, and I still marvel at them. Thick ones, fluffy ones, ones you can read a newspaper through; I like them all, but my favorite are the ones made when planing inlay bandings, which make beautiful geometric shavings.
The living history farm, where I volunteer has an Independence Day celebration. I wanted to demonstrate woodworking, celebrate the holiday, and make a shaving the project and not the waste. To do that, I glued up a stack, of the following:
2 layers of red dyed veneer
1 layer of holly veneer
2 layers of blue dyed veneer
1 layer of 1/16” holly veneer
2 layers of blue dyed veneer
1 layer of holly veneer
2 layers of red dyed veneer.
The stack was glued together with white glue between boards covered in packing tape, using plenty of clamps to ensure a good bond. I used extra glue, so the clamping pressure would impregnate the veneer with glue, giving it a more homogenous nature. I also oriented the veneer so the grain in all the layers were running in the same direction to facilitate planing. When dry, one edge of the stack was planed and glued to a piece of scrap, so the piece can be clamped in the vise and get the maximum yield out of the stack.
Planing the shavings calls for a perfectly sharp blade, a steady hand and a bit of trial and error in setting the chip breaker and cutting depth. If the chip breaker is set too close to the cutting edge, the shaving will be fractured and too delicate. Set too far back and it will not form a nice curl. The depth, needs to strike a balance between being so thin that the layers tend to separate and so thick the shaving won’t withstand being manipulated. The shaving is planed off and worked into a nice spiral shape. The 2″ wide stack, yielded over 250 shavings.
Most adults and many children have seen plane shavings, but very few have seen multi-colored ones, which made for a fun day handing them out and demonstrating how they were made.
