Coop Posted May 22, 2018 Report Share Posted May 22, 2018 9 hours ago, Chet said: This is some real amazing work and attention to detail. It is fun to watch. I totally agree! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted May 22, 2018 Report Share Posted May 22, 2018 24 drawers and one has a false bottom ? After all it is a apothecary cabinet...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post derekcohen Posted May 28, 2018 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted May 28, 2018 This weekend I spent time preparing to build the drawers for the apothecary chest. There are 24 drawers, which makes 48 drawer sides, plus 24 drawer fronts and 24 drawer backs. And then there are 24 drawer bottoms. And slips for the drawers. All this before building the drawers can begin. I wonder how long this would take if I did it all with hand tools? I've been reading the posts by Chris Schwarz about the forthcoming publication of John Brown's “Welsh Stick Chairs”. This was a seminal book in the same manner as James Krenov's "A Cabinetmaker's Notebook". I've not read John Brown's book, and I am looking forward to doing so. I have read Jim Krenov many times. It seems to me that they are similar in the way that they value the craft that is woodworking, and the importance of hand tools. However, they differ in the way they view machines. Krenov used his to prepare the way for hand tools. Brown would have nothing to do with them. It seemed he feared that craft would be lost if machines were used ... "The hand too maker needs the best bench he can make – or afford! You must know your tools, what they are made of, fine adjustments and sharpening angles. Everything must be clean and sharp. Tools talk to the craftsman, and will let you know when they are right. What the machine does by noisy, brute force, you will be able to do with quiet cunning" "I would not go so far as to say that there are no skills necessary to working machines. It is important to be able to read and interpret complicated instructions. What you end up with is engineering skills – precision engineering in wood". Link: http://tonykonovaloff.com/?page_id=54 What has this to do with the work I did this weekend? Well, I could relate to the role of engineer. Preparing the wood for the drawers with my machines was the work of a machinist. Would I have rather spent the time doing this by hand? Well, I have done this in the past - I worked almost exclusively with handtools and a few hand power tools for over 25 years before purchasing a tablesaw, jointer, thicknesser/planer, and bandsaw. I began upgrading these over the past 7 years. I would not go back. Machines do not replace handwork. The question is whether this compromises the work I do? The drawers have Tasmanian Oak sides and back. The drawer front will be Black Walnut to match the carcase. The oak has become harder to come by in Perth. I prize it because it is all quarter sawn, which is ideal for drawer sides as it is stable. It is light in colour and a good contrast to dark timbers. But I have so little now. Much of it is narrow boards - I grabbed everything that my local Bunnings store had a few years ago when I heard they were no longer going to sell it. These boards would be resawn and book-matched to become the drawer sides ... Where my jointer-thicknesser/planer excels is that I can cut the boards to short lengths, and still process them. Shorter boards will not lose much waste when flattening ... This was at the end of Saturday. Drawer sides taken to 1/4" and stickered. I have had good fortune with this method in the past. The wood is stable and cleaned up with a cabinet scraper. If there is any slight movement, it will be taken out when dovetailed. The black walnut is rough sawn. This board is 1" thick and will make all the drawer fronts. The tablesaw is new. The slider is magic to rip as well as crosscut. Here is a Frans and Fritz jig used to quickly rip the short lengths into two sections (= two rows of drawer fronts) ... This is just raw material. It does not replace the handwork in building the drawers. I have begun fitting the drawer sides to the drawer blades ... There is so much more still to do ... and I have not even made the drawer bottoms or slips. Regards from Perth Derek 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Tom King Posted May 28, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted May 28, 2018 There is plenty of "quiet cunning" involved before any machine is ever turned on. If you have to tell someone that some part of the process is all hand done, it doesn't matter to anyone, beyond the maker, whether it is or not. I tell people, all the time, that I can do anything that I do, on an old house, the way it was done originally, with the same hand tools, or I can do it for about 1/5 of that cost only doing the part that you see by hand, and saving time and money with modern tools. So far, I have not had the first client willing to pay 5 times the price to have the whole process done by hand. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted May 28, 2018 Report Share Posted May 28, 2018 Are you going to be able to batch out the drawer parts when it comes to cutting all the dovetails, such as using a dovetail jig and router or are you hand cutting them all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted May 28, 2018 Report Share Posted May 28, 2018 Great work as always Derek! Really enjoying the build. I also like your use of bricks for added weight while stickering i will use this going forward on thinner parts like this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted May 29, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 10 hours ago, Chet said: Are you going to be able to batch out the drawer parts when it comes to cutting all the dovetails, such as using a dovetail jig and router or are you hand cutting them all? Hi Chet No jigs or machines for dovetails. I do ALL joinery by hand only. Regards from Perth Derek 11 hours ago, Tom King said: There is plenty of "quiet cunning" involved before any machine is ever turned on. If you have to tell someone that some part of the process is all hand done, it doesn't matter to anyone, beyond the maker, whether it is or not. I tell people, all the time, that I can do anything that I do, on an old house, the way it was done originally, with the same hand tools, or I can do it for about 1/5 of that cost only doing the part that you see by hand, and saving time and money with modern tools. So far, I have not had the first client willing to pay 5 times the price to have the whole process done by hand. My feelings too, Tom. Regards from Perth Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curlyoak Posted May 29, 2018 Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 Derek. Thanks for showing your project in detail. Excellent work with an amazing presentation. Besides woodworking I also enjoy you journalistic skills. I have one suggestion. I also like to run shorter material on the jointer. But if real short like you drawer sides you could double up the length as the sides are short anyway. Production will be faster and maybe a tiny bit safer. With Q sawn flat looking lumber, the yield should be about the same. glue double length book match and cut later...All this has no affect on the overall outcome of your excellent work. A little bit of saved time... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post derekcohen Posted June 3, 2018 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 Part eight - I think that this is the 7th weekend of the build. The plan is to start building the drawers, or at least have a plan for the drawers. There is not as much time available this weekend as I would have liked. First, I needed to complete the drawer sides. About one half of the sides prepared were glued from two sections. The joins needed to be smoothed to leave each side appearing seamless. I started out using a scraper .. .. and ended using a smoother, which was quicker. The smoother was set to take extremely fine shavings - which came off like fine hair - as I did not want to remove any more of the 1/4" thickness than absolutely necessary (the boards began a smidgeon over 1/4", and so ended up close to dammit) .. The sides were jointed square on two sides ... ... and then fitted to the cabinet ... It took most of Saturday, but finally ... Sunday afternoon arrived and I was back in the workshop. The goal here was to see if my devilish plan for dovetailing curved drawer fronts would work. The following is a test, so let me know what you think and whether you can come up with an easier strategy. Each row of drawers with be made from a single black walnut board, and so the figure will flow without interruption. Actually, the boards used made two rows each, and all the drawer fronts will come from the same original board. For now I am using a scrap to test the method. Briefly, the drawer front will remain flat until the sides are dovetailed on, and the curve will be added later. The first task is to fit the drawer front into the drawer opening, and this requires that the sides are mitred. This was done on the table saw ... This is the fit into the drawer opening ... The curve can be added by sliding out the drawer front and tracing along the drawer blade ... That will be shaped later. For now the challenge is two-fold: firstly, the mitres complicate how the dovetails will join the two parts. In the photo below, what will happen if the walnut receives sockets (as in half-blind dovetails), the tails will extend over the drawer front and into the drawer. The solution I came up with was to mitre one side of the drawer front, and rebate the other side ... I concentrated on the mitred side today as this is the more difficult of the two. The first step was to mark the width of the drawer side ... The second was to use edge planes (these are by LN) to add a mitre that was square with the angled side ... The second challenge would be to secure and transfer the tails to the pin board, then to saw and chisel the sockets. Here is the first challenge ... Trying to hold the tail board at an angle, and steady so that it did not move while the tails could be traced to the pin board ... well, I needed another set of hands! I finally came up with a solution, recalling Alan Peters/Rob Cosman's rabbet trick. In this case, I added two layers of blue tape to create a fence ... This made it possible to stabilise the parts ... Using blue tape to transfer the markings ... Sawn ... Kerfs deepened at the baseline end with a kerfing chisel ... Clearly my chisels were not sharp enough as the walnut was crumbling ... It cleaned up enough to pound the drawer side on .. What was reassuring was the tight corners. The "drawer" was slid into the drawer opening ... A bit more practicing, and I will be ready for the real thing. Any thoughts how else this could be done? Regards from Perth Derek 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chet Posted June 3, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 Watching you deal with all those angles and curved drawer fronts makes my head hurt. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted June 3, 2018 Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 Looks great, but if it was me, I'd want a more substantial "fence" on the drawer side, for the marking, than a couple of layers of masking tape. For a few, it would be okay, but I'm sure I would tire to the point that I would mess up holding it at some point, especially with as many repetitions as will be required. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted June 4, 2018 Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 19 hours ago, derekcohen said: Any thoughts how else this could be done? Your way over my head already. I think this project and method looks great but i don't really know any better. I"m not sure i understand the miter and rebate on the front, but that seems like an added unnecessary step. I'd rather cut the base of the side dovetails on an angle but again this is from someone that's never done this. Maybe your way is better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post derekcohen Posted June 4, 2018 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 Quote I"m not sure i understand the miter and rebate on the front, but that seems like an added unnecessary step. I'd rather cut the base of the side dovetails on an angle but again this is from someone that's never done this. Chestnut, been there and done that. Trust me, your way adds so much more room for error - for example, you have to cut the baseline of the dovetails at an angle (slant). I have done this before. See here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/BuildingTheDrawers.html These were bowed and tapered drawers (compound dovetails) for the Lingerie Chest ... Regards from Perth Derek Today was a public holiday in Western Australia (WA Day), and so I managed a few hours in the workshop this afternoon ("arvo", which is afternoon in Australian). The morning was filled with writing bloody reports. Aren't I the lucky one! It was great to escape back to the build. I wanted to show some of the other preliminary tasks that are needed before one can begin dovetailing the drawers. Here are the collective drawer fronts. They have been sized for height ... The original rough sawn board of black walnut was cut into three sections, and each section is enough for two rows. The rows were separated, and will be used sequentially. This is shown above. The original test drawer front served as a template for width .. The plan is to work with one vertical row at a time, since each will have the same width. This will reduce set up time fitting each drawer blank. Here is the template drawer front fitted to the lower most drawer ... All the drawers in this row have the same width. Fitting the drawer front involves (1) sizing the height ... this was done (above), then (2) mitering the sides to fit the drawer opening. Begin by obtaining the angle across the opening ... That was for the first row. This is for the second row. Transfer the angle to a second sliding bevel (to set the blade angle on my table saw) ... Cut the angle on one end, and then set up the table saw for a repeat saw cut ... The first row is done ... A close up of some figure ... I was looking at the effect of the straight drawers fronts against the curved drawer blades. It was interesting ... no, I'm sticking to curved drawers. More next week. Regards from Perth Derek 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted June 4, 2018 Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 Looks great Derek! Just curious, regarding the DT's, why tape and not an actual shallow rabbit? I have used the Cosman technique for a couple years without issue. I would think a rabbit would give a more solid perch. Having said that your DT's look awesome so obviously what your doing is working for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted June 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 1 hour ago, pkinneb said: Looks great Derek! Just curious, regarding the DT's, why tape and not an actual shallow rabbit? I have used the Cosman technique for a couple years without issue. I would think a rabbit would give a more solid perch. Having said that your DT's look awesome so obviously what your doing is working for you The rebate is just one more thing to do. The tape is quick and works well enough. Regards from Perth Derek 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted June 4, 2018 Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 The sequential drawer fronts with the curves are going to be stunning ! I would love to know more about your shooting plane & the base for it . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted June 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 Steve, the shooting board is a Stanley #52. It came with a Stanley #51 shooting plane ... The Stanley #51 is the model for the LN #51. I have one ... However, I had tested the Veritas version for Lee Valley in pre-production form, and it came to stay ... There is a full review here: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/LVShootingPlane.html And an article where I restored the Stanley #51/52: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolRestorations/Restoring a Stanley 5152.html Regards from Perth Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted June 4, 2018 Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 Thanks ! I found your post online a few minutes ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted June 4, 2018 Report Share Posted June 4, 2018 4 hours ago, derekcohen said: The rebate is just one more thing to do. The tape is quick and works well enough. Regards from Perth Derek I'll have to give tape a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted June 5, 2018 Report Share Posted June 5, 2018 Man this thing is going to be awesome. Darek, how far forward out in a project are you thinking? I would say that most of us could look at a standard project and mentally go through the entire build step by step before starting. That's with mostly 90 degree angles and standard joinery. I'm looking at this project and know that I would constantly be running into an "oops, I didn't think of that before" Do you build this thing mentally a few times before cutting or are you constantly adjusting on the fly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted June 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2018 Those are good questions, Brendon. I have run through the whole build - design and joinery. There are not just the drawers to complete, but the final styling of the carcase, including design and making the knobs, and then the base and its design and construction. I have not touched on the latter, but it promises to be interesting. Regards from Perth Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted June 5, 2018 Report Share Posted June 5, 2018 I must assume that the ability to think so many steps in the future must come from your experience building complex pieces Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post drzaius Posted June 5, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 5, 2018 I must assume that the ability to do that must come from having a much better brain than mine. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post derekcohen Posted June 13, 2018 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 I was in two minds whether to post this, but since the method is a practice, it would be great to get feedback, since the strategy I have come up with is complex. Can you do this another way? Each row has 4 drawers, and these will be shaped to match the bow across the chest. At the start, the drawer fronts are to be left straight. This maintains the reference sides. The ends of each drawer front have been bevelled to match fit the bow of each drawer blade. This is a fitted (practice) drawer front (posted last time) .. The drawer side has been dovetailed to the obtuse angled side (again, details in my previous post: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/ApothecaryChestWeekend8.html) ... The need now is to dovetail the acute angle ... This is where it gets interesting. It you look at the lines drawn on the drawer side, if made coplanar with the drawer front, the dovetails will need to me cut at an angle. That is much too complicated, and likely to be a poor fit. Then, if the baseline is cut square (as usual), the dovetail will end up in the centre of the side (and not extending up from edge of the board). The only way I could come up with for a fit that simplified the tail board was to rebate the pin board, so .... The rebate needs to be as deep as the drawer side (for a flush fit), and square to the side (so the baseline of the tail board fits flush). The first step is to mark the baseline ... On the piece above, you can also see the rebate markings. The rebate is now cut parallel to the side ... Remove some of the waste with a chisel ... Now that rebate needed to be both straight and flat. It needs to be an equal depth along its length. It could have been chiselled, but that is less efficient. A shoulder plane as this would not ensure a square shoulder without extra work to create an absolutely square edge for a tight fit. In the end I came up with this idea to plane it using a LN Edge Plane. A spacer was attached to plane to the 1/4" depth ... The finish was spot on ... Transferring The rear of the tail board, with blue tape used to create a fence ... Tails on pins ... The socket shoulders are deepened to create a socket that undercuts the baseline .. Because the angle was so difficult to chisel, a trimmer router was used to remove most of the waste ... ... before the remainder was removed ... Coming together The fit ... The angle ... This is a rough idea of what it will look like once the drawer front is shaped ... The two sides that must be made for all drawers ... Regards from Perth Derek 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post RichardA Posted June 13, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 You're making my head explode. Excellent work young'un. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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