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Fine Hardwood Furniture

by

Andrew Pitts ~ FurnitureMaker

Work in Progress
Cherry, Walnut, and White Oak Pedestal Cabinet

Article Completed 13 November 2008


Disclaimer: This discussion chronicles the making of a piece of furniture in my workshop. My intention is to bring the reader virtually into my shop to generally see how I do the work and share in my thought processes. Although I try to point out how the tools work and the applicable safety considerations, this discussion is not intended to be a text on how to work with tools, nor how to execute operations with the tools shown. I am not providing instruction in woodworking methods. Woodworkers attempting to imitate my methods do so at their own risk.
Click on images to enlarge and see details



                I was preparing for Pearls in the Oyster, a show that a group of four artists put on at the Urbanna Oyster Festival, and I wanted a piece that would be simple in style, but very nice. And, I was sensitive to the price of the piece, since a very expensive piece would probably not find a buyer! So, I thought that a different style of plant stand, one that contained doors and shelves to store small things would be just right. I sat down to the computer and using my DesignCad came up with a nice little piece.
Rendering

             I wanted some contrast in the piece, so I selected some nice walnut with the light sapwood intact for the top and bottom, a full grained piece of white oak for the sides, and a nice pinkish piece of cherry with some sapwood that I could bookmatch for the front and back. I used some beech for the two interior shelves, as well.

Base
            I started work on the base. The piece was to have a basic box with doors mounted on top of a base consisting of four legs, four pairs of stretchers, and a pair of cross pieces doweled front to back on the top stretchers. The box would be attached to these cross pieces. You can sort of make out the arrangement in the rendering above, but the photo to right shows the assembledDomino Stretcher base without the two cross pieces that will attach to the bottom of the box. This base uses a very simple mortise and tenon construction, but I used the Festool Domino tool to make the mortises. This tool, shown in use to the left, simply cuts a very nice mortise in both mating pieces of wood, and then I glue a floating tenon, called a Domino into the mortises. This machine cuts the mortises very accurately and the Festool supplied domino fits snuggly. The domino is high quality wood, so the joint is strong and fast to make. I never sacrifice quality, but I am not married to all the old ways and if a new way is of equal quality to the old but can save my client some money, I'll try it out! I've been happy with the Domino system. End of uncompensated commercial.


                After all the joints were cut, I sanded all the unassembled parts to P400 grit and started to apply shellac polish, which is simply 1/2 pound cut shellac. The shellac you buy at the hardware store is 3 pound cut, so mine is 1/6 of that concentration. I mix my own shellac from flakes, dissolved in denatured alcohol, and this was to be blonde shellac, a light shade. By mixing my own, I can extend the shelf life of the material. Mixed shellac can go bad after about six months and might not dry properly, but the flakes last much longer. I have found, though, that the blonde flakes can become hard to dissolve if kept too long. Anyway, I apply about six or seven coats with a cotton pad, sanding up to P600 grit between coats. The sandpaper I use is Norton 3X for grits though P400 (the yellow paper) and 3M Open coat, fre-cut for the P600 (the light brown paper). Make sure you use such a paper, because they tend to clog with finish less due to the non-stick coating they have.


             With the base completed, I started on the basic box. A basic box need not be plain nor boring. I used spectacular domestic hardwoods that I had milled with my WoodMizer sawmill. One of the many advantages of living where I do is that there are lots of hardwood forests. Occasionally a storm blowsResaw back through and some trees come down. Also, occasionally I get a call about a tree that is dying or has to come down to protect a building (before the tree blows down), so I get some very nice wood to mill. Well, this cabinet used a very nice piece of walnut with sapwood intact, and an equally nice piece of cherry for the doors and back. I made the doors and back from the same piece of cherry, so there is great symmetry front to back. Ditto with the top/bottom and the white oak on the sides. I like it when a piece obviously has careful grain selection Back mortise tenonbecause it speaks to high quality. So, after selecting all the wood I started machining it. First I cut the pieces to rough size and resawed the cherry to book match the doors and back, as seen in the photo at right. I made the back to be a mirror of the front, complete with a small opening between the two pieces making the back. I didn't do this for completely artistic reasons, though. Because wood grows and shrinks seasonally across the grain, but almost not at all in length, I had to be careful that the top and bottom did not restrict the back from moving. So, I cut a pair of long mortises in the back of the top and bottom and cut matching tenons in the two pieces that made up the back, as seen at left. The idea Dowel centerswould be to dowel theDowel Holes top and bottom to the sides, keeping the grain orientation the same so the entire case would grow/shrink in the front to back direction, but let the two halves of the back and the two doors on the front 'float', gluing only the edges of the back pieces to the respective sides. The shelves would be doweled to the sides with matching grain direction, as well. The photo to right shows me using the ShopSmith horizontal boring setup to drill dowel holes in the shelves, and the photo to left shows the drilled shelf with dowel points having just made marks in the sides for the mating dowel holes. With all the dowel holes cut, dry assembling the cabinet was a breeze!

Vines layout
             The dry assembled cabinet seemed to lack something, though. Since this was to be a pedestal for plants, and since in my mind Carving topI always think of flowing vines on a stand, I decided to carve some flowing vines into the top and sides. This was somewhat of a gamble, but I felt in my bones that it would look right. So, I got on the internet and found some clip art of vines, enlarged it on my copy machine, taped all the papers together and onto the standing cabinet, as in the Dremel on vinesphoto at right, and traced the outline of the leaves and vines using carbon paper. Then, I disassembled the cabinet and broke out my carving chisels. At first, I carved all the parts in the traditional method, as seen in the photo to left, but a piece of a leave broke off so I decided I needed to 'score' all the lines before carving with a burr bit in my Dremel tool. After scoring,  I did not have any more breakage. The photo to left shows me using the Dremel tool. Now, some folks may ask why I did not use an electric impact type carving tool. Well, I'd never seen one till a friend of mine asked that same question. So, after the carving was complete he saw me again and let me borrow his carver. I tried it and have to admit that it does a nice job. But, and this is a big but, it makes a very smooth flowing cut, and frankly I think the more faceted cut that hand chisels makes is more of the look I wanted. I think the electric carver definitely has a place, but in this case only the vines themselves, not the leaves, might have been a little easier with that tool, but again, I'd lose the faceted look. Just my opinion.

Mortise hinge
             With all the carving done, I shellac polished the case pieces, applying extra polish to the carvings to give them just a little 'shine', kind of like the subtle shine on leaves of a vine. Then I glued up the cabinet and attached it to the base with screws in large holes spaced only a couple of inches apart (remember the wood movement problem). Left to do was to fit the doors and make the pulls. I used very nice Brusso solid brass knife hinges, mortised into the doors as seen at right (I mortised the top and bottom before the glue-up, though), then fit the doors. Fitting doors takes me a while, because I want perfect alignment, so I dedicated a morning to that task. I also installed small 1/8" rare earth magnets in the doors and the face of the shelves so the doors would close securely but gently. Then I set to the door pulls. I had decided that instead of making pulls as I normally do, I would make 'negative space' pulls, simply holes in the doors. But after doing all the carving, I had to make the holes actually look like leaves to keep the look going. So I cut the leaf holes with a jigsaw and then finished and installed the doors.


                And here is the finished pedestal cabinet! I love this piece! See more at this link.
Pedestal Cabinet