I’m teaching a class this week and will be spending Saturday in recovery (aka hanging out on the couch with my two cats), and Chris is teaching a Peasant Coffer class on Saturday and Sunday. So, we’ve asked our friend John Cashman – whom you might better know through Instagram as Pragmatic Anarchist – to host Open Wire on June 8 from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. And he has kindly agreed.
I asked John to introduce himself and share some pictures of himself and his work, so you could get to know a bit about him before Saturday. Typically, we rewrite these short profiles … but John is far funnier than am I, so I thought he should say hello in his own words.
– Fitz
Standing desk.
I’m John Cashman. I live in eastern Massachusetts, and have been woodworking since about 1980. Hand-tool manufacturing was in its last gasp at the time. Stanley had stopped making pretty much everything, though Record still carried a decent variety – but not for long. The one Woodcraft in the country was about a 45-minute drive, so that was great. But there were no Rocklers, Lee Valleys or Lie-Nielsen. No internet. So when I first started working wood, most of my tools came from Sears. Now they’re gone too. Maybe it’s me?
Standing desk drawer detail.
My only stationary machines were a Craftsman radial arm saw and monotube lathe. But I made a lot of furniture. All sorts of styles. Sometimes there would be three or four styles in one piece! But over time I was drawn to Queen Anne and Shaker more than anything else. You can see a few samples from the pictures. I’ve given away much more than I’ve kept.
Fezzig, aka Fezzie (shown reflected in a Chippendale mirror).
Over the years I’ve acquired much better power tools. I do miles and miles of resawing. I’ve collected lots and lots of hand tools, both vintage and new, and prefer to use them whenever I can. I’ve done a fair amount of period carving. I’m still a really crappy turner. I’d like to blame the lathe, but if I’m being honest, I cannot.
Shaker work table.
The last few years I’ve been making mountains of Shaker boxes, most of which go to the wonderful Enfield Shaker Village in New Hampshire. Anyone who has an opportunity to go, should visit. They’ve made the original stone dwelling into a very nice hotel.
Queen Anne lowboy (a sturdy piece – still, Inigo,aka Innie, seems concerned by that stack of books.)
If anyone has questions on Shaker boxes, now is your chance. Likewise, questions on Queen Anne and Chippendale pieces, which Chris doesn’t write about. I have a million or so woodworking books, from building birdhouses to 17th- and 18th-century Spanish furniture in colonial Peru. I’m always happy to talk books. I was a historian back in the day. If you have questions on the U.S. Guano Islands, this is your moment.
The top Shaker oval box shown in this stack is shorter than a dime.
I am no chair expert. Not remotely. I’ve made a half-dozen or so, and half of those were of the Queen Anne and Chippendale variety. Aside from being seating, they bear no resemblance in construction to stick chairs. You can still ask, but if I’m not sure of the answer, I’ll say so.
The second of Krenov’s short stories to be published in Dagens Nyheter. This story, titled “The Singing Heart,” was published on Nov. 19, 1950, and describes one of his first trips up to the Härjedalen province in central Sweden.
After years of research and more than 150 interviews, Gaffney produced a definitive biography of Krenov, featuring historical documents, press clippings and hundreds of historical photographs. Gaffney traced Krenov’s life from his birth in a small village in far-flung Russia, to China, Seattle, Alaska, Sweden and finally to Northern California where he founded the College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program (now The Krenov School). The book brims with the details of Krenov’s life that, until now, were known only to close friends and family.
And we, who leave our offices and factories to spend a few days – or weeks – outdoors, what is it that we seek? Each of us has his or her answer. Not everyone wants to – or can – really “get away from it all” during any great length of time. Nor can we easily adopt a mode of living from which materialism is isolating us. Yet for the majority of us there exists this fact: by discovering for ourselves a blossom, or a drop of dew, or through sailing, fishing, climbing, skiing – or by just walking in the sun, we tap a new source of life. Partaking of it, we become more vigorous, confident and happy, more at peace with ourselves. Our mind and body are restored. In nature, free and waiting, is something fine and enduring, to which money and high-pressure entertainment can never bring us. The harder the way to it, the more of ourselves we have to give, the more skill, strength, will and understanding we put into the search – the greater our final reward. – An excerpt from an unpublished short story “For The Asking,” by James Krenov, written in March 1951.
Stockholm’s Gamla Stan (Old Town) neighborhood in 1947. Photo by Iwar Anderson, courtesy of The Swedish National Heritage Board.
[James] Krenov and his mother [Julia] arrived in Sweden in the winter of 1947-48, on the next leg of their life’s continued adventure. Sweden had maintained neutrality throughout World War II, and was relatively unscathed compared to the neighboring continental countries, which were still in a state of Allied occupation and reconstruction. Krenov’s passport bears a number of stamps from Norway, Occupied Denmark and Occupied Germany in his first year in Sweden; whatever stability he had in Seattle was soon traded for a renewed sense of adventure and independence in Europe.
“The war over, it was inevitable that I should go to Europe,” Krenov later wrote in “A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook.” “I come from a family of restless people.”
Krenov’s friends at the Port of Seattle had told him that it was easy to find work in Sweden; after a short time around the continent, Krenov found work in a factory. Sweden’s factories were a melting pot at the time – thousands of refugees had fled the continent and the strife of war-torn Europe for the stability of Sweden and its steady economy. Many of Krenov’s coworkers, especially those from Poland and Czechoslovakia, were awaiting visas to the United States. Krenov would later call the environment “memorable,” with a great degree of optimism and hope among his company of “peasants, professors, doctors, and common thieves” from the continent. Many were alone, some had come from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and a majority had suffered as soldiers or prisoners of the conflict.
Photos from 1948 of the Lumafabriken factory in Stockholm. Krenov never mentioned the specific factory he worked in, but the Lumafabriken factory was one of Stockholm’s largest manufacturers of electronics and lighting, and may well have been his employer. By descriptions of his work, it can be presumed that this factory resembles the one he was employed in during the seasons he wasn’t adventuring around the continent. Photos by Herman Bergne, courtesy of Tekniska Museet.
While he enjoyed the diversity of his coworkers and the “camaraderie that transcended the petty little rivalries and touches of nationalism or exaggerated patriotism,” the work was physically exhausting. The work was grueling and wore on the 28-year-old – he came to resent the “pace, the atmosphere, the lighting, everything.”
He knew, perhaps through his father’s experiences, that he could not survive a long-term jaunt in the factories, but the shortage of labor meant that Krenov could work through the long winters at various factories making “electrical equipment, radios, and neon-light fixtures,” and in the summers, he could venture from the city to the expanse of northern Scandinavia and the continent being rebuilt to the south. He would recall making enough money in his winters at the factories that he could take a “princely vacation” for a month or two and return to the factories in the autumn to work.
One of Krenov’s photos from his trips to the Härjedalen region in central Sweden. In his stories, he would recall his encounters with the rural farmers and the indigenous Sámi people with the same interest as the natural landscapes of the Swedish wilderness. Photo courtesy of the Krenov family.
Krenov’s adventures in the summertime brought him to the remote northern reaches of Scandinavia, an environment not unlike that of the Taiga his father had so loved and the Arctic of his youth. His descriptions of remote Norway and Sweden also take on a language distinctly similar to that of his mother’s own writings of Siberia and Alaska.
“When in summertime I tramped the hills of Härjedalen, I felt an affinity, a ONENESS with them,” he wrote in “The Searching Soul,” one of the travelogues he wrote in the late 1940s. “I lost myself in the peace and harmony for which they stood. What I experienced was simple, earthly, warm.”
Following in his parents’ footsteps, Krenov developed a fascination with the mountainous isolation of Scandinavia. And, like Julia, Krenov took to writing about these jaunts into the north. He would write dozens of vignettes over his first few years in Sweden, in “fictional” stories that sometimes switched the name of the narrator of the story but were autobiographical. Hundreds of miles north of Stockholm, he would encounter something akin to the Siberian and Alaskan north that had so deeply impacted his mother’s life and set the stage for his own.
This new character he inhabited in the summer, that of a traveler and documentarian, was no doubt deeply influenced by his mother, herself a self-described “adventurer” and writer. There is little doubt his mother encouraged his exploits, as they lived together during his first years in Sweden, and his writings would even come to describe the native peoples he met in the remote northern reaches much like his mother’s. Krenov encountered the “Lapps” (the indigenous Sámi people) on his backpacking adventures, and documented their stories and mannerisms in an anthropological manner similar to his mother’s. Krenov’s travels north also showcased his self-sufficiency and deep-seated sense of adventure.
“After a few summers I knew a large area of that part of northern Sweden,” he wrote years later. “I knew where there were places one could seek shelter if the weather was bad; where there were fish; where I could meet reindeer herders who, even if they were not my friends in the sense of sharing an occupation, were friendly and understanding of anyone who walked as I did.”
Krenov would continue these northern adventures into the 1950s. In subsequent years, he would return frequently to a small hut in Härjedalen with his young family, introducing them to the wild north just as his father and mother had done with him – though, in this case, there was no threat of revolution or war nipping at his heels.
In addition to these northern escapades, Krenov also made summer trips to continental Europe, where he encountered the strife and difficulties of war that he had first heard of from the sailors in the Port of Seattle. His passport shows an early trip through occupied northern Europe and into France only a few months after his arrival in Sweden in 1948, and in subsequent years he would travel through Germany, France, Italy and many other countries in between, by boat, rail, bicycle and on foot.
“Castle,” a short travelogue written by Krenov in 1952 about his trip to Pontivy, France, and its historic castle. These stories were written in English and translated for the Swedish newspaper’s audience.
These trips were seemingly motivated less by the excitement of the frontier instilled in him by his childhood in the Arctic but more so in pursuit of the culture and experiences of his mother’s youth some 40 years earlier. Where his mother would detail the operas, ballets and refined culture of the continent in her memoirs, Krenov became enraptured by the architecture, the people and complex political situation of a post-war Europe. Some of Krenov’s friends from Sweden would recall later that he and his mother had initially come to Europe in search of something Julia had lost when she first fled to Siberia, be that the refinement, culture or a sense of old-world belonging. What they found was not the continent Julia had left, but it was a world that fascinated her son.
During this early time in Sweden, Julia settled into life as an expatriate. She again found work as a teacher and language tutor, helping a number of distinguished expatriates learn English and French, two languages in high demand in post-war Europe. While she may not have found the aristocracy of her youth, she did settle into a life in the company of diplomats and the upper-class. Poor though she was, her abilities with languages made her a valuable person in the increasingly affluent and worldly Swedish city of Stockholm, and it would be her lifeline and income for the rest of her life. Her granddaughter, Katya, would later recall a visit she took with Julia to the apartment of a diplomat – the company drank plum brandy and had conversations in the luxurious Stockholm apartment. Julia would also take Krenov and later her granddaughter to all manner of ballets, operas and traveling cultural events that would pass through Stockholm.
The first page of Julia’s “Legends from Alaska,” published by the Journal de la Société des Américanistes in 1951. The French introduction, written by Marcelle Bouteiller (an ethnographer who wrote comparisons of indigenous American shamanism and French folk medicine), notes some of Julia’s background in Alaska, and carries out the promise to thank Palageya Adrianova that Julia had made to the Russian elder decades earlier in Sleetmute.
Julia did have some success with her writing in 1951. After two decades of letters and sending manuscripts to publishers, she managed to get a portion of her transcribed legends published in 1951 in the Journal de la Société des Américanistes, a French academic journal of cultural anthropology in the Americas. While a small success, her memoir did not see the same results; Krenov later remembered trips with her to various publishers in the years that followed, hoping to have her longer writings published. Her failure to publish the memoir was clearly a disappointment and may have further provoked her urging for her son to write and publish his own stories.
Like his writings about the northern reaches of Scandinavia, Krenov again fashioned his stories about continental Europe as both travelogue and fiction. While his short stories concerning the north revolved around the remoteness and humbling presence of a harsh natural world, his writings of France, Italy and the continent focused more on the people and how he related with their lives, struggles and humanity. Krenov made a determined play at having his writings published, and starting in 1949, he began sending stories to publishers in Stockholm, Paris and elsewhere. Among his papers, a number of the stories written in this period bear stamps and notes for publishers in Sweden. These documents, which also bear return addresses, dates and some biographical references, also provide the backbone for what little primary source information can be found for Krenov’s first years in Sweden.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in November 1940, an event Krenov witnessed firsthand and wrote about later in Stockholm. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-46682.
The stories Krenov worked at having published covered a swath of his own adventures in his first three decades. “The Bridge,” a short story about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse in 1940 that Krenov witnessed firsthand, was among the stories sent for publication. Others included “The Lapp,” a short story about a Sámi native man who Krenov met in his travels north; “Searching Soul,” a travelogue about the deep wilderness of Sweden; “Forgotten Stones,” a story about an indigenous man leading a settler to a hidden mine in remote Alaska; and other such stories that followed his biographic arc.
He did see some early success in getting his work published. Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish newspaper based in Stockholm, published five stories from 1950 to 1955. The first was a collection of three Alaskan fables, presumably ones he had borrowed from his mother’s collection of translated fables, which appeared on Aug. 27, 1950. The subsequent four stories were his own travelogues, written about northern Sweden and the European continent. In a short biographical blurb in the travelogue of his northern trip, Krenov is described as “a young American, in love with Härjedalen’s mountain world … he felt as close to home as you can in foreign lands. His hometown is Seattle, and he spent seven years of his childhood in southern and inner Alaska – hence his home feeling in Härjedalen.” This short bio draws the clear connection to his time in Alaska and northern Sweden, drawn in his own words.
Over the course of these writings from his 20s and 30s, Krenov’s tone shifted from poetic travelogues and short fiction stories to a decidedly more idealistic and philosophic set of stories about the strife and challenge of European life. Krenov not only recalls with great detail the characters and places he encountered but what he saw as the ailments of the industrial society. In “Italiensk Resa” (Italian Journey) written in 1953, he mourned the overworked lower-classes and made a reproach of the dehumanizing force of capitalistic pursuits. His shift in tone reflected both his difficult time working in the factories and the beginnings of his own personal soul-searching, a philosophy that cast off “productivity” for emotional and holistic pursuits. He would continue to develop and pursue this theme for the next several decades, through to the publication of his first book on the subject of furniture making two decades later.
The first page of Krenov’s manuscript for “The Searching Soul,” a travelogue detailing one of Krenov’s trips into the Härjedalen region. His writing style bears a distinct similarity to his mother, Julia’s, and the essay describes both his encounters with the flora and fauna of the mountains and his conversations with fellow travelers and locals in a rural inn. As with his other writings from the time, which rarely mention the narrator or even give a name other than Krenov’s, it’s clear that this story draws from firsthand experience. Image courtesy of the Krenov family.
One of the first countries Krenov visited as a traveler was France, in the summer of 1949.
“In France, he had known elation and a sort of mental sharing,” Krenov wrote in 1953. “But life there was not for him; he could not become a part of it. They knew too much, the French. And knowing too much, they believed in very little – hardly anything, really, except their right to disbelieve. Michael could not stay in France. He liked the people, their wit and verve … but something within him shrank from so much wishing – and so little doing.”
While he found no home among the French, this trip altered the trajectory of Krenov’s life. It was a chance meeting at a café with a Swedish woman two years his junior, Britta Lindgren, that would change his course and anchor him to Sweden and a quieter life. Britta would become his companion and dedicated partner for the next 60 years.
In addition to this Lost Art Press blog (long live the blog!), we also write three other blogs hosted by Substack. These blogs go deep into woodworking topics we are passionate about. They’re not for everyone. But they might be for you.
For the entire month of June we’ve removed the paywall from all three Substack blogs so visitors can look around, soak up all the information they like and decide if they would like more. All blogs offer both free and paid subscriptions. About one-third of the new posts on these blogs are free, so it’s definitely worth paying absolutely nothing to check them out for a time.
And, like this blog, you won’t be inundated with ads or spam on our other blogs. Here’s some links and three of the most popular entries from each blog:
The American Peasant This is my PG-13 unfiltered* writing voice. It’s always about woodworking, but it delves into the ethics, scams and idiocy that permeates the craft at times. It explores vernacular furniture, the business of making furniture and (of course) off-color animal metaphors. There are more than 270 posts to read, and 13,000 subscribers. Here are three posts readers liked the most:
Never Sponsored After almost 50 combined years in the business, Megan and I know more about tools than we know what to do with. “Never Sponsored” is our blatantly frank reviews of tools – some great, some despicable. We can write these reviews because we don’t have advertisers to please, and we don’t do affiliate marketing or any other quid pro quo stuff. This new blog has 22 posts so far and nearly 3,500 subscribers. Some popular pieces:
The Anarchist’s Apprentice This year we brought on Kale Vogt to learn the craft of woodworking. And this brand new blog consists of diary accounts from Kale, Megan and me about the training process. The ups, down and sore wrists that come from learning to make furniture for a living. These entries are fairly personal, but they give some insight into the day-to-day working of a busy workshop. This blog has 2,300 subscribers and 19 posts to enjoy. Some highlights:
I hope you’ll take a look at some of the writing. We try our best to keep it lively, pointed and useful. You don’t have to sign up for any free trial or give your name or email address to poke around. (You know we hate that stuff.) Just click and go.
Business Insider recently released a video on India’s shellac industry with amazing footage of how it’s made. You can watch it here.
While we think of shellac as a finish, it’s also used to coat candy and pills, preserve fruit, make bangles and more. Learn how the Kerria lacca insect secretes lac and see how it’s harvested using methods that originated 3,000 years ago. Follow along as the video highlights careful steps in production and watch as workers use their hands, feet and teeth to stretch large sheets of shellac. This video packs a lot in 10 minutes and is fascinating to watch.
Fig. 2. China cabinet door, late eighteenth century.
As a general classification some six general types of doors have been evolved over the years, though the variations on each are almost unlimited. Only a few can be illustrated here, but the reader should find the range useful when he comes to design or make up a piece of furniture.
The purpose of a door is clear and obvious enough, yet the variety of ways in which it has been made over the years is amazing. Consider, for instance, how far removed the delicate-traceried door in Fig. 2 is from the single slab oak door in Fig. 1, virile and spirited though the latter is. Of course, the two belong not only to different ages, but also to different techniques of construction. Obviously, too, the usage the two would have to face would be entirely different, the Gothic specimen standing up to everyday use, whereas the eighteenth-century door belongs to a cabinet intended for a drawing room, used only by genteel people.
Framed and panelled door. Second half seventeenth century. Shows several interesting features. The stiles are beaded with the scratch stock, but the beads run out at the rails so that the tenons have square shoulders. On the centre muntin no attempt is made at mitreing—indeed, there is no corresponding moulding on either rail. The difficulty is overcome by butting at the top and scribing.
At the outset it is interesting to consider the reasons for changes in construction, apart from the variations in form largely dictated by fashion. A single slab of wood is the simplest form but carries with it certain disadvantages, perhaps the chief of which is its liability to shrink. It might also cast, though both of these potential faults would be minimised by the use of quarter-cut timber. Possibly a more serious drawback is the limitation imposed by the widths in which timber is available. A wide door would have necessitated jointing and possibly using cross-battens at the back. A last undesirable feature is the single grain direction. Oak is a tough wood, but it does cleave easily, and such a door could easily break.
Framed door with turned spindles. First half seventeenth century. Frame is joined with mortice and tenon joints, the spindles having dowels turned at the ends. Turning appears to have been introduced in the mid sixteenth century and was quite commonplace in the following century. Most early turning was done on the pole lathe, the springy pole reversing the rotation after the power stroke.
It was no doubt a combination of these drawbacks that brought about the framed system of construction. The frame itself provided strength across width as well as height, the panel being more or less a filling. Being free to move in its grooves, there was no liability to split in the event of shrinkage, and the over-all width of the door could be increased—in fact it only needed centre muntins for the width to be increased ad lib.
Single slab oak door. First half sixteenth century. Pierced right through with Gothic tracery designs and with simple channelled moulding cut with the gouge. From a food cupboard. It is in a single piece of oak, and has suffered from woodworm, but is otherwise sound and has remained quite flat. It is the simplest form of door, but has certain constructional disadvantages (see photo [at top]).
The introduction of veneering made it desirable to have flush surfaces, and so the clamped and flush panelled door was used, not always with success owing to its liability to split due to resistance to shrinkage. Finally today we have veneered flush doors of multi-ply, lamin-board, or chipboard, in which many faults have been eliminated (though even here there are certain snags).
Framed and panelled oak door. Early seventeenth century. The craftsman has used the true mitre, and has overcome the problem of combining this with the grooving to contain the panels. Note how the mortice is set in at the inside since the tenon is automatically cut away by the grooving. At the same time the tenon has long-and-short shoulders because the front of the stile has to be cut back level with the moulding which is worked in the solid. The whole thing is assembled without glue, the joints being pegged. Mostly the oak was quarter-cut, sometimes being riven.
Framed door with raised panel. Second half seventeenth century. The main outer frame is grooved to hold the panels, but the moulding is separate and is mitred round. At the centre the main members are mitred and rebated to take the small raised panel, a bolection moulding being fitted to hold it. Sometimes quite elaborate patterns with mitred mouldings were made. One common pattern had diamond-shaped panels, in which case, of course, the mitre lines halved the over-all joining angle. Bolection mouldings giving a raised-panel effect were often used.
Flemish cabinet door. Seventeenth century. The moulding of the main framework is worked in the solid and is mitred at the corners. A characteristic feature is the wide use of channelling and flat recessed beads. Carving is in the solid, the background being cut back leaving the detail in shallow relief.
Long clockcase flush door. Late seventeenth century. Interesting in that it is an early example of veneering. The ends are clamped as shown and a strange feature is that the clamps are sometimes merely butted without any tongue. It seems a risky construction, but of course the veneer strengthens it considerably.
Clamped and veneered flush door. Second half of seventeenth century onwards. Most usual construction was of pine with clamped ends tongued on. The weakness was the liability of the main panel to shrink, and this showed itself eventually either in stress marks in the veneer towards the edges as shown here, or in cracks towards the centre. An alternative sometimes followed was to fit a flush panel in a framework, but there was still the potential danger of cracks or stress marks due to shrinkage.
Framed and veneered door. Early eighteenth century. Framework is veneered with walnut, and has an applied bolection moulding at the inner edge forming a rebate for the panel. Construction is rather unusual in that the top rail runs right through, and has resulted in slight stress marks, the consequence of shrinkage. The veneer is mitred at the corners, but was frequently butted, the joint lines vertical.
Barred door in mahogany. Mid-eighteenth century. The lattice moulding was usually of astragal section about 3/8 in. wide, the back grooved to fit over 1/8 in. bars. The glass was either beaded or puttied in. Note that the section of framework moulding is half that of the lattice. In all cases the mitre lines halve the over-all angle of the joining mouldings. Below are framework and moulding sections.
Framed door with fielded panel. Mid-eighteenth century. A costly door to make, especially by hand methods. A square-edged frame would be made first, and the inner shape bow sawn. The rebate would be largely chiselled. The scratch stock would be used for the moulding, though the carver would finish off the sharp inner corners. The fielding of the panel would again need the scratch stock.
Panelled and veneered door. Second half eighteenth century. Made in either of the two ways shown. The frame is assembled and the elliptical shape cut out. After veneering across the grain the small thumb mould is bent round and fixed, thus forming a rebate. The panel is veneered, dropped in from the back, and held with a bead.
Framed and panelled door. About 1770. The top curve is formed by making the top rail extra wide and packing the stiles locally, cutting to shape afterwards and veneering. The moulding would be either made up separately and applied, or worked in the solid. In the latter case the whole thing would have to be in mahogany, or a local edging of mahogany would be applied. Lower quadrant corners are set in separately.
Built-out door in mahogany. Second half eighteenth century. Here again the top is a wide rail cut to shape after assembling. The rebate is worked around the curve (that on the straight parts being done before gluing up). The panel is dropped in flush and the joint covered by a half-round sausage and berry mould. Tongues are used to hold the canted corners.
French type door, part gilt. Late eighteenth century. Rails are made wide enough to include the curves, and are put together with long-and-short shouldered joints, the stiles being rebated beforehand. After cutting the rails to shape the rebates are continued round the curves. The panels are dropped in and held by the face moulding which is mitred round. To form the carved details blocks are glued on and carved when in position, though in some cases the whole thing is carved in the solid, the groundwork being recessed.
Barred door in mahogany. Late eighteenth century. After assembling the framework, the bar mouldings are grooved and worked with the scratch stock at the shaped edge of a board, cut out, and assembled over a marked-out panel fitted to the door rebate. All mitre lines halve the over-all angle. Glazing bars are added at the back afterwards, being checked into the frame. Thin strong canvas glued to the joints in the bars strengthens them.
Framed door with raised panel. Early twentieth century. The framework is morticed and tenoned together, the inner edges being grooved to receive the tongues of the panel. The latter is grooved to enable the panel to project, and a wide rebate on the face gives a double stepped effect. The tenon is haunched, the end of the groove being thus filled in.
Raised and veneered door. About 1930. Here again the panel is raised and is tongued into the framework which is mitred and tongued. A wide, shallow chamfer is worked around the framework before assembly, and a corresponding local chamfer formed at each corner (see dotted lines). The panel corners are canted to line up with the chamfers.
Veneered flush door. Late eighteenth century onwards. Narrow straight-grained strips are glued side by side with heart sides alternately outwards and inwards. In best work this is counter-veneered across the grain both sides, and the face veneers put down lastly. In many ways this is the most reliable construction. Counter-veneers are frequently omitted, even in good class work.
Gothic oak door. Modern construction. The main framework is grooved to hold the panel, and the mould at the edge is stuck in the solid, the corners being finished with the mason’s mitre. To obviate extensive recessing, the tracery is applied, the whole fitting into the grooves in the framework. To avoid shrinkage complications the grain of the tracery is vertical and thus any movement in this is the same as that of the panel. Note that the groove in the framework is wide enough to take both panel and applied tracery.
Veneered flush door. Modern style. Both sides of the door should be veneered, and in the best work both sides are counter-veneered. Note that in any case the grain of the veneer which touches the groundwork is at right angles with the outer layer of the ply or laminboard. Unless this is done hair cracks may develop. Usually such a door has to be lipped. If this is done first it is concealed by the veneer. When done after veneering it shows but protects the edges of the veneer.
Framed and faced door. Modern. Usually the framework is dowelled and panels of plywood or hard board glued on, preferably on both sides. When the door is large it is advisable to bore holes through the framework so that the air contained in the spaces remains at equilibrium with the outside atmosphere. Such doors are usually used for kitchen fitments, etc., and are intended to be painted. The intermediate rails are desirable because otherwise the panels are liable to sink locally.
Folding-sliding doors. Modern. Invariably the flush-type door is used, the three members being hinged together as shown. Pivots are fixed top and bottom at the edge of the centre door, these sliding in grooves in the top and bottom. As it is difficult to fit the pivots at the extreme edge of the door, the width of the latter needs to be calculated carefully so that when opened fully it lies back flat with the door hinged to the cabinet side. The doors nowadays are usually veneered plywood or blockboard, in which case they are lipped.
Frameless sliding glass door. Modern. Although the glass can slide in grooves worked in the wood, it is more usual nowadays to use the special metal or plastic channelling made for the purpose—at any rate at the bottom. It is essential that the top grooves are double the depth of those below so that the doors can be lifted out.
Framed sliding door. Mostly twentieth century. Here modern practice is to use gliders beneath the door, these running on special fibre track. Bottom edge of door is grooved, but track does not engage with this. It is made to take the gliders and at the same time give clearance over the track. Top of door may slide in wide groove.
Bow-front door. Eighteenth century and onwards. Framework is rebated and moulded to receive the panel, an essential feature being that the stile rebates are parallel so that the panel can be inserted after assembly. Owing to the short grain of the rails, it is more satisfactory to use dowels than tenons as the last named would have little strength. An alternative is to fit loose tenons.
Serpentine doors. Eighteenth century and onwards. Here again the rebates have to be set out so that they are parallel, but usually there is no difficulty because the curves often cancel each other out. When curvature is only slight the panels are usually bent. Today all rebates and mouldings would be worked on the spindle moulder or with the electric router. For hand work the rebates would be part planed and part gouged and chiselled. For the mouldings the scratch stock would be used.
Bow flush door. Eighteenth century and onwards. Traditional construction was to cooper the doors and veneer both sides, preferably counter-veneering as shown. Present-day tendency is to laminate, gluing the layers between pairs of formers. The face veneer could be made up separately and put down with a curved caul, though care would have to be taken to ensure that the mitre lines coincide with the corners. Otherwise the centre panel could be laid, and the elliptical shape cut round the edge of a templet. Afterwards, the border is fitted up to it. To avoid a bad joint it is common to fit an inlay line round the edge of the ellipse.
French bombe door. Mostly eighteenth century. Expensive doors owing to the compound curvature. Setting out in both plan and elevation essential. By jointing pieces together and adapting their width according to their position, it is only necessary to level the joints to reveal the line at the fulness. At top and bottom a templet is used to show the shape. Some such procedure is essential as the doors are always made in pairs, and the two must obviously be alike. At the meeting edge another templet is used to mark the shape, but the blending of the curves becomes a matter of judgment. The work on each should be done in stages, and the two placed together in position for the final shaping. Parallel lines drawn horizontally enable further testing templets to be used in various positions, but the hand drawn lightly over the surface reveals any waviness. Veneering both sides follows, and invariably a built-up pattern is used to enable the veneer to be tailored to the curve. Reliable straight-grained wood is essential for the groundwork.
Tambour doors. Eighteenth century onwards. Consists of a series of narrow strips glued to canvas backing. Ends fit in grooves worked in top and bottom. As most tambours bend in one direction only it is necessary to cut a feeding channel at the back as shown by the dotted line, this being afterwards filled in. Strips may be of the same wood or in contrasting woods. In the former case they are often cut from a single board and assembled in same order, When a flat section is used (V), the joints are almost invisible. Narrow-bead sections may be worked in pairs (W), but wider ones need to be worked singly (X). When bending in both directions is necessary a similar section to either (Y) or (Z) is necessary, though only slight reverse bending is possible. This curvature is sometimes needed on serpentine shapes. It is necessary to assemble the strips on a jig as it is essential that they are put together square, otherwise curious complications can arise. For a bow-front cabinet the assembling jig would have to be correspondingly curved.
Chief types of doors. We show here in simplified form the main types, with all decorations and complications omitted. All doors are based on one of these, or combinations of them. 1. Slab or solid type. Has the advantage of simplicity but has some drawbacks such as liability to cast and to shrink leaving gap at closing edge. 2. Framed and panelled. Panel may be grooved or rebated in. Latter preferable for work to be french polished. Edge may be moulded or moulding may be applied. 3. Clamped. Suitable for flush, narrow doors only, and wood must be well seasoned. A combination of this and No. 2 is the framed and flush panelled type, the panel being tongued in and finishing level at the front. 4. Flush. Of laminboard or multi-ply. For polished work it is veneered both sides. Lipping may be added and an extra wide lipping fixed one side to take hinge screws. 5. Framed and faced. Used mainly for painted work. 6. Tambour. Useful alternatives for a wide, shallow space; also when hingeing would be impracticable.
