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.

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.

As built now, the drawer has many of the features of a conventional Butler’s desk. It pulls out a short distance, being stopped by a cleat fastened to its top which strikes the upper drawer blade. The hinged fall front is supported by quadrant stays and is held in the up position with a Butler’s catch. You can view a  3 part video, documenting the installation of this hardware at the following links.

Part 1

Part 2
Part3

Where the as built pullout differs from the original, is instead of the typical Butler’s desk interior, it has only four equally sized drawers in two tiers. These drawers are more functional than an actual gallery type interior, which is why the customer chose to go with this configuration.

The carcass of the pullout section has a bottom board of 3/4” thick material; mahogany where visible and transitioning to pine where hidden by the drawers. The top is 1/2” pine with a thin strip of mahogany glued to the front edge. The sides are 3/4” mahogany at the front, and 1/2” pine where hidden by the drawers. The transition from the thicker mahogany to thinner pine sides, creates a lip, The lip allows, if desired for the fabrication of an insert with pigeonholes, document drawers and a prospect door, matching the original to be slipped in at a later date. The case is joined with through dovetails at top corners and a combination of through and half blind dovetails on the bottom corners; half blind on the visible front and through dovetails from there back.

The drawers in the pullout section are roughly the same size as the drawers in the flanking base units and are veneered and inlaid in the same manner. The central drawer blade is housed in a routed dado in the pine portion of the side. Cherry drawer runners are also housed in those dados, and are held in place with screws driven in over sized holes, to allow for expansion and contraction. The case is not that deep, so just a small amount of play is enough to allow for seasonal changes. With the difference in thickness of only 1/4” between the mahogany and pine sides, a very thin drawer guide is required. Screwing this guide in place would be problematic from the standpoint of a getting the screw heads flush in such a thin piece and allowing for movement. I took a lead from the Seymour’s  and cut the pine guide with its grain running the same as the sides and glued the guide in place with hot hide glue. The lower drawer blade is 3/16” thick; just thick enough to clear the knuckles of fall front hinges. This lower drawer blade is fastened in place with flat head screws. The runner and guide for the lower drawers being thin, have the same challenge as the guides for the upper tier drawers and here again I followed the Seymour practice, by cutting the pieces with their grain running in the same direction as the surface to which it is glued.

Details of the drawer guides and runners. The lower drawer guide is not installed at this time, so the lower drawer blade can be removed to facilitate rubbing out the finish.

The 1/2” thick vertical center divider is housed in dados cut in the top and bottom boards and fastened in place with screws.  Because the grain in the divider runs the same as the top and bottom boards, no allowance has to be made for expansion and contraction. The divider is notched to accept the drawer blades. The runner for the upper tier of drawers on the other hand does present a cross grain situation. Given the thinness of the vertical divider and the need to have runners on both sides, a full depth dado to house those runners was out of the questions, so the dado is only 3/32” deep. Even such a shallow dado, provides more than enough strength to support the drawers. To overcome the cross grain issue, two long wood screw were driven through one runner, the divider and into the opposite runner. Then the runners temporarily removed and the holes in the divider elongated to allow for seasonal movement.

The vertical divider is notched to fit around the drawer blade.

The fall front is constructed exactly the same as the doors in the lower case, i.e. a core of narrow poplar boards with their growth rings arranged in a quartersawn configuration.  The core was planed to precisely fit the opening; both the perimeter and to sit flush in the opening. The core was then crossbanded with quarter cut cherry veneer.

Hammer veneering the quarter cut cherry crossbanding. Note the growth rings on the core.

Also like the flanking doors, the ribbon stripe mahogany frame around the oval was hammered down first and a template was used to route out the oval shape.The same template was used to trim the crotch oval to shape.

Mitering the ribbon stripe crossbanding. The straightedge holds down the already cut miter and the scalpel is guided by the edge of the veneer.

The oval was made from a butt end, book match of crotch mahogany veneer. In the how dumb can a person be column, I reversed the core, veneering the outside as the inside face and making the accurately planed outside face, the inside face. Fortunately, the carefully constructed base unit, meant the opening was so square that only a minor amount of planing was necessary to properly fit the fall front to the opening.

The butt end book match crotch oval after trimming to shape with the template and laminate trimmer.

The inlay surrounding the crotch veneer oval presented quite a challenge. Being made from 2 layers of 1/16” satinwood, enclosing a layer of 1/16” black dyed veneer, if glued up as a straight section it wouldn’t be flexible enough to bend to the relativity tight radius at the ends of the oval.

Sanding the satinwood layer of the inlay to thickness at the drill press.

The 1/16” satinwood, was sawn from solid stock and brought to thickness with a drill press mounted thickness sander.  The layers were just under a 1/4” wide. This is far wider than necessary or even desirable from the standpoint of inlaying, but the width made them easier to form. The form was made from 1/4” plywood, using the same template used to route for the veneer, but instead of the reduced diameter bit, a 3/16”  bit is used. This leaves the form the exact shape and size of the finished veneer oval. I originally thought I could steam the pieces, and bend them around the form.The problem is the three layers proved too cumbersome to manipulate before they cooled. Then I used a clothes iron to supply the heat and a spray bottle for the moisture. This worked perfectly, but when released from the form, the pieces of satinwood tended to spring back. This made trying to glue the three layers together somewhat frustrating. Adding to this frustration was the fact that the total length of the inlay was around 8’ long, requiring each layer to be made from 3 individual sections (9 pieces in all). The joints in the sections were staggered. In the end I bent the layers around the form using moisture and the iron, taping the layers to the form. After everything was in place on the form, a band clamp was applied to really chinch things down tight.

Taping the layers of the inlay to the form.

To install the inlay, the groove was made to a depth of about 3/32” with the router against the template. The inlay was released from the form. Hide glue was brushed into the groove and the individual sections were carefully pushed into place, using the iron to liquify the glue and help persuade the satinwood to bend. The seam in the inlay is made at the top center, where it will be hidden by the keyhole escutcheon.

Using a razor to trim the inlay to length at the overlap. The overlap is placed the location of the keyhole escutcheon.

Now, with the inlay in place I went back and applied thinned down glue to the inlay. I did this, because I was concerned that the glue might not have gotten between the layers, but the thin glue and heat from the iron ensures good adhesion. With the groove being only 3/32” deep, this left a considerable amount of the inlay proud of the surface. I did not want to go any deeper, because that would have put additional stress on the bit and contributed to a less precise groove. Making two passes is out of the question, because of alignment issues between the bit and guide collar. To remove the bulk of the extra inlay, two strips of wood were taped to the base of the laminate trimmer so it could straddle the inlay and trim it very close to flush. A block plane flushed up the ends of the oval, where the router couldn’t reach. All that was left was some light scraping and sanding.

The laminate trimmer fitted with taped on riser blocks, flush trims the oval inlay banding. Chipping is minimized by using a climb cut.

A rabbet was run on the inside bottom edge of the fall front.  A corresponding rabbet was run on the bottom front edge of the pullout section. The rabbets are as wide as the thickness of the bottom board/fall front and as deep as half their thickness. The rabbets allow the the fall front to lie flush with the bottom board of the pullout, when open and still have a full height “drawer” front.  The hinges came from Horton Brasses and are very well made, but were deeply stamped with a company logo; not something I wanted on a period reproduction, so I filed the logo away. To ensure the proper alignment between the pullout and the fall front, they were placed in the opening and a registration mark was made on them from the inside. The fall front is clamped in the down position to the pullout section with the registration marks aligned, and the hinges are scribed in place. It is critical that the hinge pin be centered on the joint between the fall front and the pullout section. To keep my options open, only one screw per leaf is used durning the fitting phase. After the hinges are in place and working properly, the unit is placed in its opening and its fit is noted. The fall front was carefully planed to have about a 1/16” gap around its perimeter. This requires unscrewing the fall front several times  and planing until the gaps are perfect. Once I was satisfied with the fit, I used a 3/16” rabbeting bit followed by a flush trim bit to accurately remove 3/16” from the perimeter of the fall front (the same procedure used on the doors). The rabbeted bottom edge didn’t leave enough material to allow me to comfortably use the flush trim bit after the rabbeting bit, so after using the rabbeting bit, I hand planed the rabbet away. The perimeter of the fall front is covered with 3/16” solid mahogany, in the same manner as the doors with one difference, the side edging has to have a recess cut to fit over the quadrant stays.  The same procedure used to install the satinwood perimeter inlay on the door was used on the fall front. I had to do some minor trimming of the rabbet in the pullout section to relieve some binding.

The fall front is right at 48” wide and given the potential weight of the upper cabinet, I became deeply concerned that the weight would deflect the upper drawer blade and bind the pullout section. As added insurance, I removed the drawer blade, which was made easy due to the use of hide glue, planed 1/8” off its inside face (remember the dovetailed ends were rabbeted) and reinstalled it. A 1/8” thick, by 1” wide strip of mahogany was glued to the bottom front edge of the drawer blade to replace the material planed away, thereby returning the opening to its original size. At the rear of the drawer blade, I screwed on a 3/4” piece of angle iron. I noticed the angle iron was not straight, so like a floor joist, I put the crown up, so it would flatten out under weight.The angle iron added considerable rigidity, but really not as much as I thought, still it was worth it.

The pullout serving slides have a core similar to the drop front, but it is made of pine and I wasn’t as careful when arranging the growth rings. The panel was planed to a thickness, so the baize would sit below the surface of the mahogany edging by 1/32”. The panel was planed to fit the opening and a 1” wide by 1/4” thick tenon was run on each end. Except for the last 2”, the tenon was cut to a 1/2” wide. The front mahogany edging is mitered and rubbed in place. The side pieces have the front end mitered and a groove is run on the edge. The groove has to be placed precisely, so the baize will be 1/32” below the face. At the rear of the side pieces, a notch is formed to accept the tenon on the panel. The side pieces were dry fitted and 3/16” hole drilled through them and the  tenon. The hole in the tenon was then elongated to allow for seasonal movement of the panel. The side pieces were only glued for about 4” at the front; the pinned tenon held the rear.

The pullout slide showing the combination tougue and tenon. Note the elongated hold made in the tenon to accommodate seasonal movement

After the glue had cured the slide was planed to fit the opening, which required only a few light passes. Like the drawers below the slide, a 7/64” wide by 1/16” thick solid satinwood perimeter inlay was applied. On the drawers, I did this in the router table with a 1/8” down spiral, but I was unimpressed with the quality of the cut. On the slides, I used a 7/64” end-mill in a laminate trimmer fitted with a clamped on guide. Running the trimmer with a climb cut, left a perfect chip free rabbet.

Using the laminate trimmer fitted with a clamped on fence, to route the rabbet for the satinwood edging on the pullout slide.

The slides were dyed, shellacked and rubbed out and then the baize could be installed.The high quality baize came from Londonderry Brasses. I have tried using spray adhesives to adhere the baize and they work well, but I really prefer the traditional hide glue. Gluing down baize can be frustrating; it is all too easy to have the glue seep through the baize and ruin it.

Adhering the baize with hide glue and a clothes iron.

The mahogany edging is taped off and a glue sizing is applied to the panel. The sizing is allowed to dry over night and then hide glue is applied, being very careful to get full coverage and not allowing it to puddle. The edges and corners require particular attention to see that they are covered evenly. The the glue covered panel is allowed to sit for about 30 minutes. Rough cut the baize to size and lay it in place. Mist the baize lightly with distilled water and with a clean iron set on medium high, adhere it in place. As with applying the glue, the edges and corners, are where you need to concentrate. You can’t let the iron touch the wood or the finish would be damaged, nor can you let  the iron sit in any one place for too long, or you risk getting the glue too liquid, bleeding through the baize and ruining it. Also, too much pressure will cause the glue to bleed through the baize. The excess baize was trimmed away with a new blade fitted in a scalpel and a straightedge. The goal, of course is to have a prefect cut, but sometimes a bit of the substrate will show. In those cases, if the amount showing is not more than 1/32” or so, you can heat the baize and push it over to close the gap. Stretching the baize to close a gap wider than that risks having it shrink back later. After all the excess is trimmed away, I like to go back an heat the edges and corners to ensure they are completely adhered.

Trimming excess baize with a straightedge and scalpel.

The next installments will follow the building of the cases for the upper cabinets.

The first step in this “journey”,  is to plane the doors to precisely fit the openings. By precisely, I mean without gaps of any sort, but not forced into place. Of course this and every subsequent step in fitting the doors has to be done with the base unit assembled on its leveled platform. Fitted this way, the hinges can be easily laid out, ensuring perfect alignment and leaves a margin of error for the final fitting after the hinges are installed. To my horror, I found the center doors came up with a gap of almost 1/8” between them. This made necessary a few extra steps to correct that mistake, which will be explained later.

The hinges I chose to go with were the precision butt hinges sold by Horton Brasses. These lack the hand cast look of the hinges from Londonderry Brasses, but unlike the Londonderry hinges, each one is exactly the same as the next and are free from any play between the hinge pin and knuckles. That last aspect of their construction is the more important one, any slop in the hinge itself translates into a sagging door and inconsistent fits, or consistent “fits” when installing the doors, depending on how you look at it . When installed, they are not so modern looking as to draw attention to themselves. The hinges are made so when in the closed position there is a slight gap between the leaves; a desirable feature for inset doors, but not for overlay doors. The hinges were made from such heavy gauge brass, that I couldn’t swage them in the vise, to close the gaps between the leaves. I routinely do this with the hinges from Londonderry Brasses because they have a huge gap between the leaves in the closed position. Not being able to close the gaps, necessitated chiseling a hinge mortice with a tapered bottom. I thought of making a jig to route the hinge mortices. I ended up laying out and chiseling them by hand, but I did use a laminate trimmer to remove the bulk of the waste. The hinges were installed with short screws durning the fitting process, because they will be taken on and off several times. Later during the final assembly, full length screws will be used. Even with that precaution, I tried not to use more than one screw per leaf, so each screw would have its maximum holding power.

Now with the doors hung, they can be planed to have a uniform gap. For doors of this size a clearance of just over 1/16” is appropriate. At this point I found another problem; the flanking doors struck the hinges of the center doors. It seems that although I drew it out and was confident the projection of the center section was such there would be clearance for the flanking doors to swing closed, this wasn’t the case. It missed by about 1/32”, but that’s a lot when your shooting for a gap of just over 1/16”. The reason for this is the hinges were considerably heavier than I expected and I probably should have set the center section forward of the flanking cabinets by 1/8” more. It was a little late to do anything about those factors, so I sawed a small amount off one leaf, which allowed the hinge on the face of the case to be positioned more towards the center.

Sawing hinge leaf to fix clearance issue.

This of course required re-cutting the hinge mortices in the door. This whole episode pointed out how using one screw per leaf during the fitting process is a good practice. Had I drilled all the holes, my options would have been more limited, or the fix more complicated.

With the hinges moved, everything worked as it should, I was especially happy that the center doors lined up in the same plane where they met. I had expected to have to make minor adjustments with a plane and chisel to the faces of the cabinet sides in order for the doors to meet properly. The doors may have fit properly, but they had the raw poplar core, and the breadboard ends showing. To hide that, 3/16” thick strips of mahogany where glued to the edges of the door. I thought for a long time on just how to precisely trim 3/16” from the perimeter of the doors. In the end the solution was easy and painfully obvious; use a 3/16” rabbet bit, followed by a flush trim bit.

A 3/16" rabbetting bit followed by a flush trim bit, accurately trims the door to size.

This would not work where the center doors came together because of the oversized gap there. With the center doors still hung, I used a strip of scrap wood planed to 7/16” thick to scribe a trim to line on each door. The strip was centered on the gap between the two doors and a line scribed along its edges. When trimmed to this line, there will be a 7/16” gap between the doors. When the 3/16” strips are applied, to both doors, this will leave a nice even gap of about 1/16”. The original has an astragal at the joint between the two center doors, but this appears to be a later addition to compensate for shrinkage. It just looks stuck on. A detail like this isn’t in keeping with the high caliber of the Seymour’s work, but perhaps they made the same mistake I did and corrected it with an astragal (highly unlikely, I know, but it makes me feel better, thinking it could have happened).  Another bit of collateral damage from the oversized gap between the center doors, was the mitered frame of ribbon stripe mahogany veneer. Because the amount trimmed off wasn’t even, the miter on the veneer no longer landed at the corner. I had to re-cut one miter and replace the adjacent piece of veneer. The miters are no longer true 45˚ but that is unimportant; what is important that the miters fall on the corner. Those who question hide glues resistance to water, should try to remove some. I think they will find it quite able to stand more water and heat than they thought possible. The last step was to take one pass with a hand plane on each edge of the door to leave a prefect glue surface.

Solid mahogany edging strips are held in place with painters tape while the glue cures.

The mahogany strips, used to cover the edges of the doors, were ripped slightly oversized from a piece of rough sawn 4/4 mahogany. Between each cut, the edge of the board was planed by hand to remove the saw marks. This planed face was placed down on the bed of the surface planer when the strips were planed to thickness and later against the edge of the door. The strips were mitered to fit neatly around the door. In theory, since I’m using hot hide glue, the strips on three edges of the door could be rubbed in place and not need clamps, but I like to use 3M painters tape as clamps, just to be sure. The fourth strip, can’t be rubbed in place so here the tape is essential. If I felt that any strip took too long to get into place, I heated the strip with an iron to liquify the glue.

Two doors clamped together with scraps between, provides a stable platform for the router while the edging is trimmed flush.

When the glue had cured the strips were trimmed flush with the router. Acting on a tip I saw on Woodsmith Shop TV, the doors were clamped together face to face with two pieces of scrap between, which left a gap for the flush trim bit,  and gave a more stable platform for the router to ride on. In situations like this, don’t let the flush trim bit project below the base anymore than necessary. Every fraction the bit hangs below the router base is just that much more that could dig in, should the router tip. To reduce tearout, the router was run in a climb cut fashion. Dried bits of glue prevented  the bit from getting the strips flush in some areas, so I had to use a block plane in those areas.

After chiseling the waste from the hinge mortices where the strips were applied, the doors were hung yet again, and the gaps checked. I was very pleased that only a few plane strokes were needed to have everything prefect, and I was glad to finally be in Philadelphia!

Routing the groove for the inlay against a plywood template.

Inlaying the doors was fairly straightforward.  The same templates used to size the veneer panels was again laid in place making sure the veneer nails were placed in exactly the same holes as when the veneer was trimmed. This will ensure the proper registration, so the groove for the inlay aligns perfectly with the junction between the veneers. In the case of the center doors, with their quarter circle indents,  the  groove couldn’t be done in one continuous run. The laminate trimmer must not be allowed to run around the corners, because doing so would leave a small radius on inside corners. The only real difficulties are getting the router bit accurately centered in the guide collar, which in the case of my trimmer requires some fiddling, and seeing what you are doing with the restricted visibility afforded by the laminate trimmer and guide collar.

The inlays surrounding the crotch veneer, is composed of two 1/16” layers of satinwood, with a layer of 1/16” black dyed veneer between. I measured the circumference of the oval and added 2” to arrive at the length to make the inlay. The individual strips of satinwood were sawn from solid stock, and sanded to a precise 1/16” in a drill press mounted thickness sander.  The inlay was glued together with white glue, between boards covered in packing tape. I have a fairly large collection of C-clamps, but this 62” long inlay used each one and a few more would have been helpful. The individual strips were sawn off on the band saw using a thin kerf blade to minimize waste. Before the inlay was placed in the groove one end was cut with an acute angle as the first step in forming the scarf joint where the ends meet.

By some standards 3/16” is a narrow banding, but not when it is made of satinwood and has to be bent. I sawed the strips for the ovals to about 1/8” thick. This is far thicker then normal. Getting a inlay wider than it is thick to bend is difficult, because it wants to twist as it is bent. Due to the size of the oval, I didn’t expect too much trouble, but it took considerable effort to convince the inlay to cooperate. Start by brushing the hide glue on the inlay, and then work the banding into place. The starting end had to be held in place with a clamp. Using the iron and the veneer hammer the inlay was slowly coaxed into the groove. Strategically placed clamps helped to hold the inlay in place until the glue grabbed, which wasn’t very long.

Sawing the end of the inlay at an angle where it overlaps, to create a scarf joint.

Where the ends overlapped, a line was drawn showing the angle cut on the end and a razor saw was used to trim the end. Fortunately scarf joints on both doors fit perfectly, but if they hadn’t  some careful trimming with a chisel would have made them fit.

The center doors were a little more problematic. The tight radius of the quarter circles in the corners would be nearly impossible to do with straight sections of inlays, so they were made as detailed here. Also the June 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking features and article on making the bent inlays. Popular Woodworking also has a video of the inlays being installed on the center door, which you can view here

The rings were cut free on the band saw and the waste in groove where the laminate trimmer couldn’t reach, removed.

The end of the ring has an angle cut to ensure it fits fully in the corner.

To ensure the rings fit fully into the corner a slight bevel is cut on the end. Glue is brushed into the groove and the inlay pressed into place. A clamp helps to hold the starting end in place while the ring is worked into the groove.

With the end clamped in place the ring is tapped into its groove.

The end is trimmed with a razor saw, again at a slight angle to ensure it fits fully into the corner. when the glue is dry, the ends of the rings are mitered with a narrow chisel. I would have liked to miter them before installation, but they were so rigid that it proved difficult to accurately determine where to miter the ends. Mitering in place isn’t difficult but I had to be careful not to damage the groove with the chisel. The straight sections were easy. The miters were again cut with a chisel, but this time the back of the chisel was used as a mirror to judge the proper cutting angle. It usually took a couple of trimmings with the chisel before they miters fit properly. I purposely left banding long, both to give me a few tries to get the proper angle on the miter, and when left slightly long the ends will be forced to a tight fit as the banding is pressed into place. This is much like a a sprung joint employed by finish carpenters.

The banding around the perimeter of the doors are solid satinwood 3/16” wide by 1/16” thick. These are laid into rabbets cut with the router, which was again was done with a climb cut. The miters on these pieces have to be sawn, because the chisel always undercuts a bit and this would show on the exposed edges. They are glued in place in much the same way as the mahogany strips surrounding the edges of the doors and when dry were also trimmed flush like before.

The locks can now be installed. As is almost always the case, the locks weren’t exactly what I wanted. A lock with the pin set 1” away from the edge would have been prefect, but the far superior double lever locks with screwed together cases do not come in that size. There, are so called “distance to pin” locks, which are available with a 1” offset, but these are somewhat inferior to the locks mentioned above, and they don’t come in lefts and rights. Even if they had, I would have probably opted for the double lever locks. The reason for this is the doors require the locks to stay shut, so they will be used frequently and the extra durability is important. I did use the distant to pin locks on the drawers, but here the drawers do not have to be locked, so they may never be used. I’m going to provide the customer with both a right and left replacement lock, in case one would fail down the road. When inlaying the locks you have to keep in mind that left and right configuration, so you don’t end up with a mis-cut mortice. The keyhole escutcheons are the flanged type, so they are easy to inlay .

Door stay bolt, which will be inlet into the upper righthand corner of the left central door, to hold it closed.

Inlaying the drawers follows exactly the same procedure used for the doors, the only difference is the inlays are 7/64” wide versus the 3/16” used on the doors.  Lacking a 7/64” rabbeting bit (do they even exist?), I used a 1/8” down spiral bit in the router table to form the rabbet for the perimeter inlay. I had hoped the down spiral bit would cut smoothly, and for the most part it did, but I had one small chip taken out of the veneer. I would have been happy if that was the only veneer/router issue I had, but that wasn’t to be. While routing against the template for the inlays in the field of the drawer, the laminate trimmer snagged on a protruding veneer nail and I routed an arc in the drawer front; it was a nicely routed arc, just in the wrong spot. You can see a video whole ugly scene here.

Once the inlays had dried, they need to be made flush. This is probably my least favorite part of the process. The scraper would seem to be the best tool, but it tends to tear the inlays, especially the curved sections and at direction changes.  Taking a slicing cut with the chisel will nicely flatten the curved section and the intersections. Take light cuts to determine best cutting direction, because the satinwood is prone to splintering.

Using the chisel with a slicing cut to flush trim the ring.

The straight sections of the inlays are planed close to flush with the block plane and then the scraper can be employed.

A sharp block plane, carefully employed is used to bring the inlays close to flush.

With the grain of the veneer and inlays running in so many directions, a sort of diagonal slicing cut usually produces the best surface. Now with the scraping complete, the doors and drawers are ready to sand and finish.

A finished corner.

The next installment will chronicle making the fall front drawer in the center section and the pull out serving slides.
Thanks
Rob Millard

On some of their larger pieces, the Seymour’s used a frame and panel back, so this is what I used. The frame and panel is ideal, because it provides considerable racking strength at a minimum weight. I’m not sure what configuration the back panels took on Seymour pieces, but I chose to go with three horizontal  rails; top, bottom and one at the level of the lowest drawer blade.  On the center section, the lower panel was divided in two, with a vertical stile.

To keep the weight down and save material, I re-sawed the panels from 4/4  rough sawn clear pine, which by time they were planed to thickness, ended up being about 3/8”. The frame was also made from clear pine, planed to 13/16” . Except for the exposed vertical edges of the flanking cabinets, which are rabbeted, the back panels overlap the edges and are flush with the outside edges of the cases. It may be a minor point, but I decided to size the rails and stiles so when viewed from the inside they are of a uniform width.  I was coming down with the flu when cutting the stiles and rails, and I think I got one piece right; never work when you’re sick. I thought it would be cost effective, to use the table saw to make the cheek and shoulder cuts on the rails, but it proved no faster than using a mortise gauge and a tenon saw. I did use a router to make the mortices. I did find it a time saver to make the shoulder cuts on the table saw.

The inside faces of the panels were planed with a smooth plane for appearance, and the outside faces were planed with a scrub plane, also for appearance, that is to appear like period pieces. The beveled edges necessary to fit into the grooves, face the back, leaving the flat face on the interior.

I pre-finished the panels before assembly  with a couple sprayed on coats of de-waxed dark shellac. Spraying shellac is not my strong suit, but these flat panels were within my capabilities. The dark shellac gives an aged appearance and seals in the pine scent, which in an enclosed space can be overwhelming.

The frames were glued together with hide glue, depressed with urea. I measured and remeasured the diagonals to ensure the panels came out square. After the glue had cured, I resisted the urge to belt sand the joints flush and planed them with a No. 3 smooth plane. With a joints flush, I brushed on a couple of coats of shellac on the stiles and rails. If I had to do it again, I would have masked off the contact points, so I could have glued and nailed the back on.

At the last minute, I decided to add a dust panel between the storage area and the lower drawers. These dust panels were also made as frame and panels. The dust panels were glued to the rear edge of the drawer blades. Since the frame and panels create a cross grain condition they were sized to leave about a 1/4” gap between it and the back, so if there is any shrinkage, the dust panel won’t force the back off or crack the sides. In all honesty, I think this is somewhat unnecessary, but better safe than sorry.

"Forged" nails attach the frame and panel back.

With the dust panels in place the back panels were nailed in on with hand forged nails; it is necessary to pre-drill in the hard birch. Traditional cut nails, are oriented with the long side of the head with the grain. The forged nails I make, tend to rotate as they are driven, so I keep a pair of pliers handy to align the head properly. See here for more information on making forged nails.

A stable and level surface is essential when fitting the drawers and doors. A frame of construction lumber is built precisely level. Working under the careful watch of Junior ensures perfect results.

Before any fitting of the doors and drawers can begin, it is essential to have a stable, flat and level surface to rest the base unit on. I screwed together a frame from construction lumber. I believe I may have gotten the only two perfectly straight 2×4’s ever sold at Lowe’s, but I expected to have to plane them straight. I bought 12 footers but cut them to fit in the car, so they overlap in center.  I hadn’t used a water level in nearly 15 years, but I dug it out for getting the frame perfectly level. I always liked using a water level for any distance longer than my longest level, because of its absolute precision. You’re probably thinking what is the chance that the place where the breakfront will be used is so perfectly level, well it is slim to none, but I have to have some standard to build to. I’m  certain where it will be placed will be more level than my garage floor, which it turns out slopes 1 1/8” in 8’.  For repeatability, I marked the floor with a permanent marker, so the frame can be placed in exactly the same spot each time it is needed.

I started with the drawers in the flanking cabinets ( a later installment will discuss the center drawer). I made a DVD of the entire process of making the drawer from stock preparation to installing the hardware, you can see the details here. I also made a two part YouTube video on hammer veneering which you can view at the links below.

Hammer Veneering Part One

Hammer Veneering Part Two

Elongated slots allow the case sides to move while still holding the runners securely in place. Note the pre-finished raised panel on the back of the cabinet.

The first step in the drawer construction is the installation of the drawer runners. The dust panels act as the runners for the lower drawers. The upper drawer and the pull out serving slides (also detailed in an upcoming installment) need to have their runners installed in such a way that they do not constrain the sides, but are still firmly attached. On the sides that won’t be exposed, this is a simple matter of driving screws through the sides into the runners. The screw at the front is driven into the standard hole, but those in the rear has to have an elongated slot to account for any expansion/contraction.

A picture hanging bit forms a groove then the drawer runner, which accepts the head of a pan head screw driven in the case side. The result is a secure drawer runner but one that allows for unrestricted expansion and contraction.

The exposed sides represent more of challenge, but a clever method shown by Norm Vandal in his book on Queen Anne Furniture, neatly addresses the shrinkage and solid attachment issues. A picture hanging bit, forms a T-shaped slot in the runner and pan head screw driven in the sides, engage the slot, allowing for movement, but firmly attaching the runner. It takes a bit of trial and error with the screws, to get the runners firmly in place, yet still allow the runner to slide in place. As with the dust panel the runners stop short of reaching the back by about a 1/4”. To keep the runner front sliding back, I toe-nailed it to the drawer blade, with a small cut brad.

Period drawers typically have fairly thick fronts, with comparatively thin sides. In the case of these drawers, I made the fronts 15/16” thick and the sides are 11/32” thick.

The fronts are made from cherry, which is a typical substrate material used by the Seymour’s. The sides and bottoms are of clear pine, re-sawn from 4/4 rough stock. I like to make the drawer sides from bland looking lumber, for the reasons of appearance, workability, and stability.  Re-sawing thick stock into thin stock can do funny things; nice flat lumber can be turned to spaghetti. Much of this has to do with how straight the grain is, which you can of course see, but unseen forces also play a part. How the lumber was dried can have a significant impact on stability, and I know of no way to “see” it or predict which boards will have problems. In the case of this lumber, it was well sawn and dried, and it remained true after re-sawing. Still, I stickered it for a day just to be sure any distortion took place, before planing to thickness.

When it comes to structural elements, I’m kind of a fanatic about stock preparation. Well flattened and squared stock sets the tone for the rest of the project, making for a hassle free, faster build. I flattened the stock in the same way as detailed here.

Much has been written about dovetails, so it seems almost redundant to add more. I was somewhat influenced by the Frank Klausz video, I say somewhat, because for me cutting the pins first, seemed unnatural. Cutting the tails first reduces the amount of layout and cutting, by allowing stacking alike sides and cutting them at once.

To me, the real heart of dovetailing, isn’t cutting a single dovetail joint well, but cutting multiples in a timely manner.  Stock preparation is the start of this, and having a system of marking the pieces, so it is immediately clear  which part is which, is the other. After that, it becomes rather tedious repetition. I start by plowing the groove so what was the outside of the tree, is the inside of the drawer. This, I believe is a minor point, but the concept is, if the drawer sides were to cup, the top and bottom would be forced in,  at the half pins, where the joint is the weakest.

At the shooting board the ends of the drawer front are sized to fit the opening.

Despite very careful construction, there are inevitably minor variations in the drawer openings. The actual building of the drawers begin with sizing the drawer front to fit its opening. To keep things straight each drawer is given a number, as is the drawer blade below the opening. The openings were quite square, but to ensure a prefect fit, they were carefully sized with planes. With the bottom edge of the drawer front resting on its drawer blade, one end is planed to fit the vertical side of the cabinet. With that fit, the other vertical end is marked  in place with a pencil from the inside, and sawn at the bandsaw, cutting away the line.

One end of the drawer front is planed to fit the opening and the other is scribed in place for length. Sawing away line and removing the saw marks with a plane, will leave a drawer front with the proper clearance.

When the saw marks are planed away, the resulting side gaps will be very small but uniform.  Now the drawer front can be planed for width, which at the same time will remove any minor chipping left from planing the ends. At this point, you will have a drawer front with the very small gaps at the sides and a heavy 1/32” clearance at the top, but no gap at the bottom. For now, you want to maintain consistency with the position of the groove for the drawer bottom between the drawer sides and front.

The jointer plane mounted upside down is used to quickly and accurately plane the drawer sides to width.

Sort the sides so you have matched pairs. It is surprisingly easy to make all lefts or all rights. I mark the front ends of the sides with the number of drawer it will become. Now the sides which were ripped about 1/16” over size, can be planed to match the drawer front. I like to clamp the jointer plane upside down in the vise and use this to plane the sides to width. Mounted this way, the planing goes very quickly and accurately.

The drawer back was ripped to width at the same setting as the rest of the stock, and when the grooves were ploughed the blade was raised to cut completely through backs.  This leaves the back slightly too wide, but this can be addressed after the glue up. So that the backs perfectly match the fronts, the back is laid inside face to inside face with the front and the bottom edge of the back aligned with the groove in the front. Scribe, around the front, transferring its “shape” to the drawer back. Carefully saw and plane to that scribed line. I like to leave the back, ever so slightly bigger than the front. so after assembly I can plane for a precise fit. To keep track of its place and orientation, the back is numbered on its outside face.

Even masterpieces of period furniture can have dovetails of variable quality, but the Seymour’s were experts at fabricating elegant and precise dovetails. I carefully laid out the dovetails to match their best work, but before any layout can begin the inside faces of all the components are planed with a finely set smooth plane. The dovetails were sawn with an inexpensive Stanley dovetail saw.

Stack cutting makes quick work of sawing the dovetails.

Stacked, the sawing goes very quickly, and at this stage precision isn’t terribly critical except in one important area; here as durning the entire process, the base line has to be maintained. Lately, I have been using a fret saw to remove most of the waste between the tails, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I came to this after seeing a video on the Popular Woodworking blog, on speed dovetailing. I even tried my hand at speed cutting half blind dovetails, which you can see here. In a way this speed cutting is kind of useless, but it can point out areas where your technique could use improvement at normal speed.

Stacking also leads to efficiency when chopping out the waste.

The sides are stacked in a stair step  fashion, and the waste is chopped out, working half way from each side. To preserve that all important baseline, a knife is used to deepen the line left by the cutting gauge and a small chip is raised with a chisel. Raising that chip, creates a shoulder to rest the chisel against and prevents the wedging action of the chisel from setting it back. I find the fairly inexpensive Japanese dovetail chisels, to be indispensable for this. Their sharply tapered sides can reach into the corners and clean out the waste, without marring the edges of the dovetail. Care has to be taken not to stab the drawer side below when the waste is freed, but I have seen evidence of this happening on period pieces.

Due to the thin necks a fine knife bladed knife is needed to scribe the tails onto the drawer front.

Now is where having a clear, almost foolproof system to differentiate the components, pays off.  With the drawer front clamped vertically in the vise, the proper side is laid in place and carefully scribed to transfer the tails to the drawer front. I’ve been using a scalpel for this but care has to be taken, because of its highly flexible blade. Here is the one place I can see the advantage of sawing the pins first. The very narrow necks of the pins makes it somewhat difficult to get in there and scribe. The dovetails at the rear are wider and present no problem with scribing.

Sawing outside the scribed lines by a few thousands of an inch will ensure a tight fitting joint. The scribes lines were deepened to show the offset, but in practice doing so would show on the finished joint. The rule gives and indication of the offset.

When sawing this time, not only must the base line be maintained, but the sawing has to be perfect. Not following the angle will result in gaps. When working with certain combinations of woods, you can saw a tiny fraction of an inch outside the scribe lines to ensure a tight fit. In this case with a cherry to pine joint, that amount of offset can be fairly generous, but less so at the half pins, for fear of splitting them off. On many pieces of period furniture, the saw cuts extend well past the baseline on the inside face of the drawer, which eases chopping out the waste. Apparently this was not the case with Seymour furniture, so I stopped the cuts on the base lines. This leaves a lot of material uncut, but using a card scraper as a blunt chisel will carry the cuts down to the base line, making the chiseling much easier.

Chiseling the waste from the drawer front is kind of brutal.  Here again the chip is raised to provide a shoulder to work against. From here until you are about 1/16” away from the baseline, the chopping can be quite aggressive. That final 1/16” is removed with the widest possible chisel, using only hand pressure, placing the chisel carefully in the scribed base line. Most of the waste between the pins on the drawer back was sawn away with a coping saw, and the rest chiseled away as before. At this time the drawer front had a small amount planed off its bottom edge, so the gap around the front will be uniform all around its perimeter.

A slight beveling on the inside face of the tails will allow the pine to compress without tearing, when the joint is driven together.

The inside faces of the components were lightly sanded with 320 grit paper to remove handling marks and two coats of de-waxed dark shellac were padded on with a paper towel. I took care to keep the shellac away from the glue surfaces. When dry, the shellac was scuff sanded. The last step before glue up was to cut small chamfers on the inside faces of the tails.

Tightening the clamps while checking for square.

I don’t like to test fit the dovetails before assembly, instead I rely on careful scribing and sawing to ensure a proper fit. I use an interior hollow care door as the work surface  when gluing, because they are very flat and it is important to have a flat assembly surface. To allow for more working time the hide glue has urea added. Even with the urea additive, time is of the essence, so have everything needed close at hand. I apply the glue to the front dovetails and tap in a side. You have to drive the side home evenly and stop at the slightest resistance and correct any problems. The back goes in more easily, and then the drawer is positioned on the bench and the glue is applied to the other two joints. Here, since you are working on two joints at once you have to work with particular speed.  I like to quickly place a clamp across the front and back to drive the sides fully home, these clamps can be immediately removed. In theory clamping shouldn’t be necessary, but in practice it helps to close any gaps between the front end of the side and the half blind recess in the front. To prevent the clamping force from distorting the thin drawer backs, a piece of scrap is cut to span across the back. I begin the clamping by squaring the drawer and then place the clamps on, keeping the bars parallel with the sides. More often than not, applying the clamping pressure racks the drawer out of square, requiring you to reposition the clamps to force the drawer into square. I left the drawers in the clamps for  several hours and out of the clamps over night before planing and fitting.

Hooked over a padded board, the drawer sides are planed flush.

As the drawer came from the clamps it is just barely able to fit in its opening, so the sides have to be planed. To plane the sides the drawer is hooked over a padded board cantilevered off the bench. Despite not cutting softwoods as cleanly, I like to use the smooth plane with the high angle frog, because it can handle changing grain well. Of course you have to plane in from the ends so at some point you’re going to be planing against the grain and the high angle frog helps here too.  The back is more difficult, because it can’t be planed on the hook, due to the dovetails not having any strength in the side to side direction. I have to clamp it in the vise and I use a low angle plane to place as little stress on drawer as possible. It took a few tests to get the drawer to slide properly in its opening, because the back prevented me from seeing where it was rubbing and I had to proceed cautiously. Don’t worry if at this stage the drawer seems to bind. When the outside of the drawer and the inside of the case are finished and waxed, the drawer will glide like it is on ball bearings.

The drawer bottom was made from re-sawn pine which was planed to about 7/16” thick. I never use more than two boards in a glue up for drawer bottoms. I picked the boards for appearance, but most important I wanted the growth rings going in the same direction. Having the growth rings so oriented results in a uniform cup, whereas alternating them would have a wave like cross section, which is more difficult to plane. I like to use a rub joint for drawer bottoms, because applying clamps to thin stock, tends to cause it to fold up, plus there is just something kind of magical about creating a strong joint just by rubbing two glue coated edges together. Rub joints do require perfection when it comes to planing. After the glue cured the inside face of the drawer is planed with a smooth plane and the underside is planed with a scrub plane, which leaves behind the period accurate tool marks. It is easier to smooth plane the convex side if the bottom develops a cup.

Lacking any kind of beaded edge and featuring a veneered front, it is essential that the drawer sit perfectly flush in the opening.  A minor amount of projection can be planed away, but anything more than a 1/32” will require altering the shape of the drawer. Only one of the four drawers did not sit flush, and it was out by around 1/16”. My standard practice is to lay a drawer that is known to fit properly, on its bottom board and trace around the inside transferring its size and shape onto the drawer bottom. Then I measure over the depth of the groove from that line and saw out the drawer bottom. Working this way ensures the drawer bottom won’t distort a properly fitting drawer. In the case of the ill-fitting drawer, the same procedure is used, only this time the cut lines are skewed to alter the shape of the drawer. The sides and front of the bottom are beveled to fit into the groove. I set the marking gauge to about 1/64th less than the width of the groove and strike a line with it. From there it is a matter of planing to that line using a well sharpened fore plane and skewing it, to get a smooth cut. It usually takes at least 2 test fits. It is this test fitting the presents the greatest danger to the drawer. Getting the drawer bottom skewed or jammed will almost certainly split the drawer sides, which are quite fragile due to the groove.

I once again test the drawer in the opening, but this time with the bottom in place to be sure it still fits flush at the front. If it passes muster then the bottom can be nailed in place. Minor adjustments can be made by placing a block behind the end of the drawer that goes in too far, and firmly striking the protruding end. This will rack the drawer so it will fit flush.

The drawer bottom showing the configuration of the glue blocks. Also note the texture left by the scrub plane.

The next step is one that isn’t in line with the best modern practices, that is to apply glue blocks to lock the bottom in place. Locking the bottom in place with glue blocks can lead to the bottom cracking, but it does provide extra bearing surface and adds considerable stiffness to the drawer. I used a sliding T-Bevel to establish the cutting angle, and the glue block was bevel ripped on the band saw, so it stands proud of the drawer side by a strong 1/16”. The saw marks were planed away to provide the best glue surface, and the glue block is checked to see that it fits tightly,  to both the beveled bottom and the drawer side. The glue blocks that run along the sides are kerfed at approximately 4” intervals. These kerfs stop just short of cutting completely through the glue block. The front end of the glue block is mitered. With plain hot hide glue, the side glue blocks are rubbed into place. When dry the blocks are planed flush with the sides making the one glue block into a segmented block. The rear of side glue block are sawn off with an angled cut at the rear. The front is handled differently; here the blocks are individual pieces rubbed in place with rather large gaps between blocks. The front blocks are mitered where they meet the side blocks. They too are planed flush.

The drawer stop is screwed and glued in place. Note the gap left between the runner and the case back to account for shinkage

The last step is to install the drawer stops, which are small blocks glued and screwed to the drawer runner.

The next installment will feature the inlaying of the doors and drawers.

1. There is an inlaid banding around the perimeter, so trimming to fit after inlaying is out the question

2. The lowers doors fit flush along the vertical edges and the top, so even the slightest warping or twisting will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb; heaven forbid the door developing a convex warp on the outside face.

3. The edges are covered with a thin strip of mahogany to conceal their composite construction.

4.The inlaid crotch veneer panels extend very close to the edges of the doors, making even a slight misalignment in centering of those panels, readily apparent (this is really an extension of number 1).

Of these considerations, number 1 and 2 are of the most concern.

Can't find wide quarter sawn stock? Make your own. Narrow boards glued together with the growth rings arranged in the quarter sawn configuration makes for a very stable core.

To insure stability the doors begin as strips of poplar roughly 7/8” square in cross section, which are then glued together so the growth rings are arranged in a quarter sawn configuration. This is admittedly a time consuming method, with the many joints to  plane, but the result is worth the effort. The strips are laid out on the bench with the growth rings positioned correctly, so you can determine which edges need planed. The edges are planed with the jack and jointer plane. Instead of clamping and un-clamping each piece in the vise, a block is clamped in the vise and used as a stop to plane against. I’m not too particular about getting the joints prefect; as long as the joints can be closed with hand pressure alone and stay flat on the bench, that is good enough. My fondness of hot hide glue is tested when making panels like this, because the many joints and the quick gel time, even with the addition of urea, means only 4-5 strips can be glued together at one time.

Flatness is essential. The door blanks rest together with glue quality joints under just their own weight.

My surface planer can’t handle stock wider than 12”, so that limits the width of the blanks. The center doors are just over 24” wide, meaning they have to be made up in 3 sections, while the end doors only need 2 sections. The sections are carefully flattened with portable power plane, straightedge and winding sticks, and then run through the planer. The now the sections can be joined. Unlike the individual strips, great care has to be taken joining these sections, because the panel must be flat and the finished thickness uniform. Keeping the panel flat is simply a matter of planing both mating edges at the same time, so any deviation from square is canceled out. With the sections being so carefully flattened, getting the joints flush along their length was easy.

After the glue had dried, the faces were planed with a smooth plane.

Planing the core. The smooth plane levels the joints, removes the planer scallops and leaves the perfect surface for gluing.

The original doors were made with breadboard ends, but in general breadboard ends make me nervous, especially under veneer. Still, they do add rigidity, and as noted warping would be disastrous. Given the built in stability of the panels, being essentially made from quatersawn stock, and the veneer cross-banding that will follow, the breadboard ends present little risk. To size the door panels, I used the same techniques as for the sides of the base unit, that is using the router and a flush trim bit to size and square the door blanks.

I used the shaper to run the tongue the door and the groove on the breadboard, which was made from birch. Just to be sure there wasn’t any mis-alignment, the breadboards were planed slightly oversized, and then planed flush after the glue dried.

The veneering as always, is my favorite part. The process began by preparing the substrate and the crotch mahogany. Both were coated with thinned down hot hide glue. On the veneer, this glue acts to both soften the veneer and to stabilize it by completely saturating the veneer with glue. This glue saturation won’t eliminate the fine crazing, typical of aged crotch veneer, but it will lessen it. With the application of the glue, in a minute or so, even an extremely distorted sheet of veneer will become as pliable as a wet noodle. The sheets of veneer are wrapped in plastic food wrap and pressed between boards. Even though considerable moisture will be introduced when hammer veneering, I still like to let the veneer dry before applying it.  To accomplish this, the veneer must be taken out of the plastic wrap occasionally over the period of about a week.  While the crotch veneer is in the clamps, I worked on the substrate. The hide glue size applied earlier will lessen the absorption of the glue used while hammer veneering and this allows for a thinner glue, which in turn flows easier, meaning less force has to be applied to the hammer.

No press or clamps needed. Hammer veneering the crotch panel allows a clear view of your progress.

Just to be sure no grit or bristles from the brush were imbedded in the size, the substrate is sanded lightly, otherwise these could telegraph through the veneer. A layer of quartersawn cherry veneer with its grain running at right angles to substrate is hammered down. When the face veneer follows, the doors will essentially be made from lumber core plywood. This is hardly a period detail, but since it can’t be seen, and adds greatly to the stability why not do it?  The cross-banding, of course won’t be seen, but I still took care to make tight seams between the individual sheets. When the glue had dried, the veneer was carefully examined for bubbles, by running fingernails over the surface; loose places will have a hollow sound.Those loose places are easily repaired by wetting the spot and heating with the iron and pressing with veneer hammer.  I followed this with a light sanding, to remove any slight variations in the veneer thickness at the seams, which if left, could telegraph through the face veneers. Like the raw substrate, the cross-banding was coated with the hide glue size.

The face veneering on the center doors, began with hammer down the crotch veneer. Because of the hide glue sizing, this hammer veneering is not as mess free as I’d like. In fact the base of the iron became so throughly coated in glue, I had to stop several times to remove the glue with vinegar. Steaming hot vinegar is a smell you won’t soon forget, but it is the best way to clean off the glue. Despite the glue sizing taming the crotch veneer, it will still have a few problem areas, but at this time I couldn’t fool around getting it perfect, because the moisture and the “pull” of the glue will start to warp the door. With that in mind, once the face veneer was hammer down, work began on the back. As noted before, the original has breadboard ends and I replicated that look in veneer on the inside face of the door. With the backs veneered the doors were now stable, which allowed me to stop working at such an accelerated pace when fixing any bubbles on the face.

While the glue on the face still fairly soft, I attached a template made from 1/4” plywood to route the crotch panels to shape. These templates are held in place with veneer nails placed in an asymmetrical patten, so the template can later be repositioned exactly to route the groove for the bandings.  The cutting is done with a .040” end-mill installed in a laminate trimmer fitted with a guide bushing. The waste veneer was warmed with the iron and pealed off.  Now the ribbon stripe cross-banding could be hammered down. There is one important, but often overlooked consideration when working with cross-banding and that is the orientation of the veneer. Highly reflective woods like ribbon stripe mahogany, must be installed with a consistent orientation, or the variations will adversely affect the finished appearance.  In this regard  the ribbon stripe veneer is much like carpet, which depending on the viewing direction the intensity of the color changes. To keep that orientation, I marked the veneer with  arrows at  intervals along its length, with a white crayon.

Orientation is critical. Marking the ribbon stripe veneer so the reflectivity of the veneer is uniform on all the doors.

The central doors have a detail that I don’t believe I have seen before, and that is quarter circles of figured mahogany veneer with the grain running at 45 degrees, inlaid at the corners. In another oddity, this detail is not outlined on the straight sides with an inlay. This requires careful positioning of the quarter circles in relation to the bandings which outline crotch veneer panel.   I used a cutting gauge to accurately slice the cross-banding veneer in the corners to make way for the quarter circles, and then they were hammered down.

A mitered frame of ribbon stripe mahogany veneer, frames the area where the crotch veneer oval will go.

The flanking doors were handled differently, in that the ribbon stripe cross-banding was hammered down first. The cross-banding was not allowed to extend any farther into the center of the door than necessary because, the door can’t be veneered all at once, and covering the whole face, at this stage would have introduced an irreversible warp. Once the glue had cured sufficiently a template was used as before, and the crotch panel hammered in place. Now the back was veneered to mimic a panel with breadboard ends.

Template does double duty. The same template is used to cut out the crotch and the area where it will be inlaid. oval

The next installment will discuss making the back panels and the drawers.

Recently I was asked about inlaying letters and numbers. While I had seen this on some Pennsylvania furniture, I had never tried it. The closest I had come was inlaying knotted bows on a Seymour card table. What those bows and letters/numbers have in common is that if made from a single thickness of  wood,  they would be hopelessly fragile, due to short grain. By making them from two layers of veneer with the grain direction of the plys at right angles to each other, the finished inlays are only somewhat fragile.The plys were glued together with hot hide glue, pressing them between warmed boards covered in aluminum foil. The glued together veneer plys are unstable, so it should be restrained by clamping it between boards when not being worked on.

Because of the fragility of the letters/numbers trying to saw the unsupported built up ply would be at best difficult, especially  those characters with internal cuts. To improve the stability, the glued up ply is sandwiched between sheets of thin plywood. I use 1/8” luan plywood, which may be difficult to find, but ¼” luan would work just about as well and it seems to be getting thinner all the time, so the difference in thickness isn’t all that great. The stack is nailed around its perimeter with small brads driven into pre drilled holes. The brads are clipped off with diagonal cutting pliers, and peened flush.  A print out with the desired characters is glued to the stack. I had a hard time deciding if I should have the grain in the characters, running vertically or horizontally. In the end I went with horizontal so the grain in the characters would run the same direction as the piece into which they inlaid. After viewing the finished inlays I think it may have been better if it would have run vertically. This may not have been an issue with holly and its nearly invisible grain, but with the maple used here or with satinwood, it is something to consider.

Sawing the letters from the stack with a scroll saw.

My variable speed scroll saw is sort of an entry level model, but it does a good job after a few modifications, and the addition of a couple accessories. I discarded the hold down, which did little to aid in the cut. I also fitted an auxiliary table, with a replaceable throat plate to cover the huge throat opening in the factory table. A foot switch allows me to have complete control over the work piece as I start and stop the saw. The last accessory is a magnifying light that facilitates making super accurate cuts.

I used a No. 5 blade; this seemed a good balance between a fine enough blade and one that made an accurate cut. Of course the order of the cuts is important, with the first cuts made being the internal ones.  The downside to using the No.5 blade is it can’t turn a very sharp corner, so internal  corners should be approached from both sides, instead of trying to “turn” the corner. Outside corners are much easier; you can just pivot in the waste to turn the corner. Even with the thin plywood to stiffen the stack, it becomes quite prone to chatter as the piece nears being sawn free, which requires placing your fingers very close to the blade. This isn’t particularly dangerous because the scroll saw is pretty sedate as saws go, but it robs you of dexterity. The preferred grip is to have a relaxed hold on the stack with your fingers at the edges, where more controlled movements are possible.

Supported by a "birds mouth" the individual characters are refined with needle files.

Despite my best efforts at accurate sawing, the characters as they came from the saw needed some refining, to have smooth, even profiles. As I said before the ply construction makes characters that are only somewhat fragile, so care has to taken not to fracture the pieces as they are being refined. To support the pieces while they are filed, I used a “bird’s mouth” more typically used for fret sawing. It was more comfortable, to have this birds mouth clamped vertically in a vise. A very fine needle file was used for these detailed refinements. Larger outside curves can be refined, by pinching the piece with the fingers and running it against a smooth cut mill file. This method has the advantage of being fast and safer, because the force is in line with the thickness of the inlay, with very little chance of fracturing it.

Scribing around the character with a scalpel, being careful not to over cut at transition points.

With the characters refined, it is now time to inlay them. Positioning of the individual characters is critical for the proper appearance.  The most difficult aspect of the whole process is holding the characters in place while scribing around them. I just held them down with my finger being careful not to let them shift or cut myself with the scalpel. Some of the tighter radiuses are best scribed by making a series of light stab cuts, as opposed to trying to draw the knife around the pieces. After a light scribe is done with the characters in place,  they are laid aside and a deeper scribe is made to fully define the edges of the inlay. I took extreme care not to over cut at the corners, which will seriously detract from the finished product.

Routing the recess for the character with a Dremel tool fitted with a 3/64" carbide end mill.

The recess is routed with a Dremel tool fitted with a carbide end mill. The size of the end mill is dictated by the narrowest part of the inlay, which in the example shown was 3/64”. The depth setting is critical; there is very little margin for error when working with veneer. When routing the recess, I wore a magnifying visor, which made an accurate cut easy, although, I had to stop frequently to blow the dust away. The end mill can only go so far, so the edges of the recess have to be cleaned up with a scalpel and various gouges.

The recess for the characters are cleaned up to the scribe line with the scalpel and various gouges.

After a test fitting, to be sure they will fit, the inlays are glued in place with hot hide glue. Hide glue is ideal for this, because it will fill the inevitable small gaps without interfering with the finish. I used a veneer hammer to force the inlays into place and then placed the warmed board/aluminum foil combination used before, to keep them in place while the glue sets.

Once they are dry, they can be carefully scraped flush, and finished. The example shown here is maple inlays into cherry. To finish it, I applied lye  which darkens the cherry but not the maple. Once dry, some white vinegar was applied, which is supposed to neutralized the lye, but I never had any problems when I skipped this step. What the vinegar does unify the color left by the lye.