Woodworking with Rob Millard

As noted earlier, the large center “drawer” on the original breakfront is a Butler’s desk. This is an attractive feature, but one the customer wasn’t interested in reproducing. Although it will almost certainly never happen I decided to make the center pull out section in such a way that it could easily be retrofitted to match the original. This added almost no time to the construction.

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.

In entry four of this series, I spoke of the difficulties of fitting the lower doors, now it’s time to detail the steps taken to accomplish that task. Fitting the doors was a little like driving from Boston to Philadelphia by way of Los Angeles; you get there, but man does it take a while.

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

As I said in an earlier entry, I was somewhat shocked that despite careful joinery the cases were quite flimsy. I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked, because the sides are comparatively thin, as are the drawer blades, meaning the tenons are short and have no shoulders to speak of to resist racking. With that in mind, before any fitting of the drawers or doors could begin, the backs had to be made and installed.

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.

With the lower cases glued together, attention can now turn to the doors.  The doors on this breakfront are troublesome. At first glance the lower doors, the focus of this entry, would appear to be easier to make than the upper doors. After examining them more closely, and giving the construction considerable thought, I believe they will certainly equal or even exceed the upper doors in complexity. Obviously the upper doors have several technical challenges, but fitting them to the opening will be considerably easier than the lower doors. There are several reasons for this:

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.

Despite my enthusiasm for Federal Furniture, I appreciate other styles as well; chief among these is the furniture from Newport Rhode Island. I lack the carving skills to do justice to furniture from this region, so when I saw this pipe box in the Book, Hidden Treasures by the Keno Brothers, I found a piece I could make and it even featured a bit of inlay. Of course it lacks the drama of a Secretary or a Kneehole Desk, but it is still a beautiful piece. I don’t recall ever seeing a pipe box in person, so when I checked some reference sources for their dimensions, I was surprised at how large they are. Having noted the range of typical sizes, I proceeded to make drawings of the pipe box. You can download a full size PDF drawing of the box by clicking here . The pipe box shown here in the photos, is made from 3/8” thick stock, but upon examining the finished piece, I felt it was too “heavy” looking, so the drawings show 5/16” thick sides. Given that the typical piece of Newport Furniture is made from superb stock, and this pipe box requires very little material, I chose high quality mahogany. The pieces were re-sawn from 5/4 rough lumber. For some reason 5/4 mahogany is cut more generous than domestic stock, so this allowed for three thicknesses to be comfortably obtained from one piece. The well known stability of mahogany left these re-sawn pieces dead flat, but I still let them “relax” for a day before, milling them. After milling to thickness, the pieces were dimensioned to the finished size with a combination of the bandsaw, jointer plane and shooting board. Particular attention has to be paid to having the edges dead square, so the glue up will go smoothly. The faces that were destined to become the inside were surfaced with a finely set smooth plane.

The full depth satinwood inlay, is applied to the sides with a rub joint, but masking tape provides added insurance.

The front panel has the inlays, which may have been maple, holly or satinwood, but I chose satinwood, because I like the way it looks with mahogany. From the photo it is impossible to see if this inlay was just laid in a groove, or if it were glued on the edges of the front panel. Because it is clearly visible, I chose to go with an inlay the full thickness of the front panel Thin pieces like this are difficult to clamp, so I used hot hide glue for a rub joint, but just to be sure masking tape was used as a clamp.

Planing the inlays flush.

When dry the inlays were planed flush. With the inlays in place and the components to net size, it’s time to saw the profiles with the scroll saw, fitted with a No. 7 blade.The sides were taped together and sawn at the same time.

Scroll sawing the profiles to shape. Shown is the front panel. The side panels were taped together so the profiles would match perfectly.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to stay on the line when cutting these large pieces, so some filing was in order to refine the profiles. The profiles were then carefully sanded, to remove the file marks, (leaving behind a few file marks wouldn’t be the end of the world, since it is quite common to see these on period pieces) When sanding, I backed the paper with the file or wooden blocks to maintain the crisp edges; nothing looks worse than mushy details.

Various files, and sandpaper are used to refine and smooth the profiles.

The back is dadoed and the front rabbeted to receive interior bottom board. It is critical that the rabbet dado be accurately located so the interior bottom is “level” when it is installed later This bottom board is only butted to the sides, to avoid having to make a stopped dado in the sides. It looked to me that the original had its sub bottom nailed on (3 nails in each side). This seemed a little crude, so I opted to use half blind dovetails to join this piece to the sides. Cutting half blind dovetails in 5/16” thick stock is a bit dicey and the resulting joint is not the strongest, but it possesses plenty strength for this application.

This is a somewhat difficult piece to glue together. You can’t have a lot of glue seeping out on the inside where it would interfere with finishing, the pieces are thin, and there is nothing to register them to one another. I used hot hide glue to rub the back to the left side and the front to the right side.Any glue squeeze out is easily cleaned up. These were allowed cure and the two haves were joined with hide glue with urea additive to extend the gel time.

Many clamps, but light pressure are need to glue the case together.

I used plenty of clamps but only light clamping pressure. Neither the sub bottom nor the interior bottom is installed at this time. Hide glue is ideal because it is nearly transparent to finishing and at that magic moment where it is no longer liquid but not hardened it is easily cleaned off. After the case is out of the clamps the exterior surfaces can be scraped and sanded.

The exterior of the case is scraped smooth and then sanded.

At this point I finished the box, including the sub and interior bottoms, using lime to color the wood (see the May 19th 2008 entry on this blog for more information on using lime to color mahogany ) After the oil has cured the filler was applied and allowed to cure. Finishing the interior is a difficult task made somewhat easier by leaving out the sub and interior bottoms, still brushing shellac in that confined space isn’t ideal, so I brushed only one coat of de-waxed dark shellac. This was followed by padding lacquer to bring up the proper sheen, on the interior. I left the exterior with only a coat of shellac over the cured filler. Now the interior bottom is worked in and a small cut brad is driven into the rabbet to hold it in place; here is an instance when pre drilling in essential. This is followed by the sub bottom, which may need light clamping pressure to get everything to come together, which is why I didn’t complete the finish on the outside.

Chiseling the waste from the door front half blind dovetails.

The drawer is pretty much standard construction, with a few differences. Instead of being housed in a groove the way I’m accustom to, the bottom fitted into a rabbet in the front and is nailed on, I was sure to set these nails below the surface so they did not rub.  Also, the grain runs from front to back, instead of side to side as on full size drawers .The other fairly typical feature of Newport furniture is the drawer sides are slightly rounded on their top edges and are about 1/32” narrower than the drawer front.

The molded edge of the drawer front begins as a rabbet and is then rounded over with a gouge.

The molded edge on the drawer front could be made with a router, but I used a combination of a rabbet plane and a gouge to shape the molding. This same method was used to make the molded edge on the bottom. After applying the padding lacquer to the exterior of the case, and knocking the gloss down with extra fine steel wool using mineral oil as a lubricant, the bottom was glued on. A pinch of sand in the glue will keep the bottom from sliding around as the clamping pressure is applied.

I’m not sure what you can do with this piece when it is finished, but it was fun to make and looks very nice.

Walnut ranks as one of the premier hardwoods. In my opinion, it comes in a very close second to curly maple and well ahead of cherry. Walnut possesses an outstanding combination of strength, workability, a naturally beautiful color, with a variety of grain patterns. Yet, the typical steamed walnut has a cold gray cast to it that isn’t all that attractive. Walnut can also have a purple cast. I was quite disappointed with the first few pieces I made of walnut, as far as the color was concerned; one was dyed with a homemade concoction of walnut husks and ammonia, which turned out far too dark. Another was oiled, and this was perhaps even worse than the dyed piece. The oil resulted in a sort of overly dark, dull, splotchy finish that did nothing for the cool color. Later, I learned this outcome with oil was fairly typical, as I see it quite often on oiled walnut pieces (oiled gunstocks are an notable exception). Walnut is one of those rare woods that lighten over time and no doubt given time, the color imparted by the oil would  have improved, but I wanted a way to help it along. Several years ago I was asked to make a William and Mary Lowboy, and I knew I’d have to find a better way to finish walnut. Since I wanted to warm the walnut, I first tried yellow dye, but this lacked the reddish tint of aged walnut, so I used orange aniline dye. It takes some faith to coat your carefully constructed piece of furniture with what appears to be orange Kool Aid, but that is where the testing comes in. I should be more meticulous with weighing and documenting my finishing recipes, but for some reason I don’t seem to be able to do that, so I can’t give an exact ratio of water (distilled) to the dye powder (Transfast), but I can say that dye to water ratio is quite low.

The subject used in demonstrating the finishing schedule is a miniature blanket chest, based in large part on an example shown on page 58 of Miniature Antique Furniture by Herbert F. & Peter B. Schiffer. The stock used for this, while kiln dried, had aged for quite some time, and had taken on a decidedly warm tone, but still showed some of the objectionable coolness. I wouldn’t have done anything different had it been mill fresh, steamed lumber.

Like all finishing, the first step is surface preparation, and here I followed my standard procedure, starting with 220 grit paper (never go lower than 180 grit) followed by 320 grit paper, raise the grain with distilled water, sand very lightly with 320 grit paper and check carefully for any surface defects. On a side note, I have recently been reading on various woodworking forums, about how this grain raising step is unnecessary, and perhaps, you could use the orange dye to raise the grain, but skipping this step and using the top coat to raise the fibers, isn’t something I’d do with any finish that includes a coloring step.

The addition of orange dye instantly transforms the cold walnut.

With the surface ready, lay on a coat of the dye; I just use a paper towel. The dye will work with the natural tone of the wood and it will instantly take on a superb color. As the wood dries, the orange color will appear too intense.

De-waxed dark shellac reveals the true color of the dyed walnut.

A thin brushed on coat of de-waxed shellac will restore the color and actually improve it, because the golden brown color of this blend of shellac, really brings out the highlights in the wood, without being splotchy like the oil can. Your brushing technique has to be nearly prefect, because the dark shellac, even in a thin cut, can leave lap marks or the dreaded fat edges. With this in mind, I aim to apply the shellac in one careful stroke, with no going back and brushing it out. I’m not a fan of padding on shellac, and the sharp corners at the intersections of the moldings to the base would make padding fairly difficult.

I allowed the shellac to dry overnight and scuff sanded it very lightly with 400 grit paper. I then vacuum or blow the dust off; this step is important, because you don’t want any sanding residue in the pores.

Grain filler goes on for an elegant finish.

Unfortunately filling the grain has the reputation of being difficult, and
degrading the final appearance; neither is true. After just a short learning curve, filling the grain is simplicity itself. The clarity issue comes from two sources, applying the filler to raw wood, and or, not fully wiping the filler from the surface. By applying the filler over the shellac, you will have a barrier to prevent the filler from muddying the finish.

I have only used oil based fillers. Of those I have used, I prefer the filler sold by Constantine’s. As the filler comes from the can, it is very thick; far too thick to be workable. Depending on the working conditions in the shop, I will cut the filler with mineral spirits (for a longer open time) or with naphtha (for a faster set). I aim for a consistency of latex paint. Brush the filler on and let it set until it turns quite dull. Until you get comfortable with the process, you should only work in easily manageable sections. In the photo here, it was so ungodly hot in my shop that even as small an object as this miniature blanket chest nearly got away from me. Having said that, I find I get the best results when I wait what appears to be too long, as opposed to when I rush it. Scrape the excess filler from the surface with a plastic putty knife, going across or diagonal to the grain (be sure to check the edge of your scarper for nicks or anything that would mar the surface before use; don’t ask me why I offer this precautionary advice).

Again wait a few minutes and then wipe across the grain with burlap, using moderate pressure. You’ll have to change to a clean piece of burlap as it loads with the excess filler. Moldings can’t really be cleaned effectively with putty knife, nor can they be wiped across the grain, so here you’ll have to wipe gently with the grain, to remove the excess filler. After yet another short wait while the filler sets up, wipe the surface completely clean with cheese cloth, going with the grain. Look carefully, for any traces of filler left on the surface. When you’re satisfied the surface is perfectly clean, let the filler dry at least 3 days.

A dark reddish brown glaze adds depth and age to finish.

I like the look achieved with a glaze, it gives some depth to the finish, can tweak the color a bit and accentuates the moldings. I usually use Minwax mahogany gel stain as a glaze, but my can had dried up. A little experimentation found that Bartley dark brown mahogany gel stain mixed with a touch of their Pennsylvania cherry, resulted in a nice color. The glazing is very simple, just slap on a thick coat and wipe the excess until you get an effect that pleases you. Like with the filler, you should work in small sections until you get the hang of it.

I let the glaze dry 12-24 hours, and top coated with super blond shellac. Since I wanted an “in the wood” look, I applied only two very thin coats. Here again, your brushing technique has to be nearly prefect, because when rubbing out, the film is easily cut through, but the color is not easily repaired. Shellac Wet, from Homestead Finishing, really helps ease the brushing. Let the shellac cure/dry 2-3 days, before rubbing out.
The rubbing out goes very quickly, but its impact on the finish is astounding; nothing beats a well done shellac finish. Since the film is so thin, I very lightly sanded with 600 grit wet and dry paper, using mineral spirits as a lubricant. To bring up a nice soft sheen, I used 4/0 steel wool, saturated with mineral oil and dipped in 4f pumice. Run the steel wool in long straight strokes, lifting it when shifting to another track (this keeps the scratch pattern even, whereas shifting the steel wool sideways while on the surface causes a distortion in the scratch pattern, making the ends appear duller). Wrapping the steel wool around a block of wood, will help in getting an even scratch pattern at the intersection of the moldings and other sharp junctions.

I cleaned the surface with paper towels to remove the majority of the mineral oil, and then I used warm soapy water to remove all traces of the oil. At this point I waxed the piece with brown Antiquax.

Rob Millard