Chris’s photo from his current class in Munich, Germany.
I woke to a text this morning from Chris: “Found this tip for making our carving vises lower.” (See above.)
“Put the base on the underside. Works great. Might be helpful for you.”
Even though he’s off teaching in Germany, he’s still looking for ways to improve our shop here in Covington.
It’s no secret that I’m the most vertically challenged person in the shop (with Megan just a few inches taller). Megan’s two benches are 30″ high; the other six are 33″ and 34″ – and because I want the larger surface and good window light of the Holtzapffel (34″ high), this forces me to finagle myself into some awkward positions when performing certain tasks.
When building my first chair with Chris, I had block planed only half of my first long stick against Chris’s carver’s vise before my shoulder nearly gave out. Chris quickly corrected this by bringing the low Roman bench into the shop from the back room. Using my body weight, I propped the long stick against the Hulot block with my chest to plane. Instant relief.
So needless to say, I was elated to wake up to this little spark of ergonomic hope from Chris. I was eager to give it a go.
I mounted the carver’s vise to my bench. First with the base on top, in its typical location. Then with the base underneath. I measured the height of the base beforehand out of curiosity. 1-3/8″. Could it really make that big a difference?
Block planing a short stick with the vise base in its usual location on top of the bench.
Block planing the same stick against the vise, this time with the base located underneath the bench.
Now the difference in the photos may not look dramatic to you, but I truly could feel a difference. The ability to lower my hands nearly 2″ allowed my shoulders to relax. This immediately relieved tension and allowed my arm muscles do most of the work.
I also noticed the stick’s placement against my body. With the base located underneath the bench, the stick was able to sit lower on my chest, nearly against my belly. Lowering the stick’s gravity and having the stick land in an area that has more cushion than my sternum was more comfortable overall.
I know what you’re thinking and sure, this trick may not be the be-all and end-all solution to short-person-on-tall-bench carver’s vise issues. But I think this is a great start. My shoulders will be thanking me for this technique after planing seven long sticks.
Note the vise handle on the right making contact with the bench.
There is one problem with this arrangement, however. Because the vise is flush with the benchtop, the handle used to tighten the jaws bumps into the bench. You have to have the handle hanging fully off the edge, which limits the vise position.
All in all, though, I’m pleased with this simple modification. I plan to keep my vise in this position while working to continue feeling it out and work out any kinks along the way. What do my fellow shorties think?
When Chris Williams was visiting from Wales, he extolled the virtues of “drawing salve” – an ointment that pulls splinters out of one’s hand or what have you. And I’ve heard the same praise from other friends from across the Atlantic – the stuff is certainly more popular there than here. So what is this stuff, and does it actually work?
Christopher Schwarz bought some, got himself a splinter (possibly on purpose?) to find out. He reports that it did indeed help to express the bit of wood that was lodged too far beneath his skin to remove it with tweezers. What I don‘t know is how long it took for that to happen – and might it have happened in the same time span without the salve application?
We also don’t know is if there is any scientific proof that this stuff works, so we asked our friendly medical expert, Dr. Jeffrey Hill, to weigh in. He’s the author of “Workshop Wound Care,” an emergency room physician and an avid woodworker (and gardener). I’m sure he’s had plenty of his own splinters (almost certainly not on purpose), and removed more splinters from others than most of the people reading this. Below are his thoughts on drawing salve.
The term “drawing salve” somehow conjures impressions of both comfort and trepidation. Is it a soothing medicinal ointment that has been healing boo-boos since the times of Galen and Hippocrates, and is still around due to centuries of successfully treated patients? Or is it snake oil, still around because someone can make a buck or two off it? As with most things in life, the answer is probably: it depends.
A good first question might be: why is an article on medicinal ointments showing up in a woodworking blog? Well, working with sharp objects, we all tend to get nicks, scratches, and – often most maddeningly – splinters that seem to only get more painful as time goes on. In my book, “Workshop Wound Care,” I cover approaches to removing splinters. The basic approach is to first determine the direction in which the splinter fragment is oriented, take some sharp, pointed tweezers, grasp firmly, and pull with axial traction (pull in the direction the splinter is oriented).
Push the splinter in the same direction it traveled in, and there isn’t additional pain. Push it in the opposite direction, and you’ll feel it.
An 18-gauge needle can be used to enlarge the splinter opening. Then use tweezers to pull it out in the correct direction.
If this is successful, and the splinter is wholly removed, you’re likely in great shape. Just wash the wound, maybe cover it with a bandage, and move on with your day. If, however, some tiny bit of the splinter remains (maybe it was too small to grasp initially or it broke off under the skin surface), you might be in for a painful couple of days as your body reacts to the foreign invader that breached the protective shield of your skin. In response to the splinter, your body sends inflammatory cells to the site to try to wall it off and kill any bacteria or fungi that might have hitched a ride on the piece of oak.
If all goes well, the inflammatory cells stream in and destroy any bacteria and fungi. The splinter is, however, far too big for a macrophage’s mouth, so the body and this inflammatory process will slowly push the splinter out past the skin. If things don’t go well, the bacteria win the day, besting the inflammatory response, and forming an abscess (perhaps more commonly known as a boil) around the splinter that will eventually need to be incised and drained. Whether things go well or poorly, the inflammatory process a splinter causes is a painful one.
Enter the drawing salve.
Drawing salves (and salves in general) are not one monolithic thing. They are, at their base, an ointment (a thick viscous liquid) often supplemented with chemicals with varying degrees of real or purported medical benefits. One should use appropriate caution and reason in interpreting the stated medical benefits of these preparations. Because these salves often get classified as cosmetic products, they may not undergo the rigorous testing or standards required of medications (in the eyes of the Food and Drug Administration). The FDA, in fact, specifically cautionsagainst salves with potentially corrosive ingredients (graphic images warning at that link) or salves that claim to be able to treat or cure skin cancer, moles, warts or boils. Even salve preparations containing known medical benefits (such as the ichthammol discussed below) should be used with caution and careful attention to how your body is responding. Should your symptoms of pain and redness worsen, or should you develop fever, pus draining from the wound or streaking redness from the wound, you should, of course, seek the care of a medical professional.
The 10-percent ichthammol salve is the one Chris tried.
Ichthammol, or ammonium bituminosulfate, a common ingredient in drawing salve preparations, is derived from sulfur-rich shale oil and has theorized antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties. It has a weak recommendation by expert consensus for the treatment of the terrible skin condition Hidradenitis Suppurativa (subtext here is that this means there’s no good evidence of its benefit, but smart people suggest it, so we sometimes do it). There’s no direct evidence that it would help get a splinter out of your body more quickly. However, its inclusion in a drawing salve makes sense from a pathophysiological standpoint. It has a sticky, thick consistency ideal for inclusion in an ointment where the goal is to hydrate and soften the skin. Its likely antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory effects might lessen the pain associated with the process of expelling the splinter from the body and may lend a hand in the eternal battle of the human immune system vs. bacteria. If the skin is soft and hydrated, it should be easier for the body to push out the tiny splinter fragment. And, if the inflammatory response (which is often overly robust) is held slightly in check, it should lessen the pain associated with having a sliver of oak under your skin.
So what’s the verdict on drawing salves? Are they snake oil or helpful, healing ointments? Should you slap them on every splinter you have and save yourself the pain that comes with pulling one out with a sharp pair of tweezers? They may have a benefit for those splinters too small to pull out, or those splinters that fracture and stay under the surface of the skin as you try to pull them free. In general, the best course of action is to get the splinter out as soon as possible, but if you can’t, a drawing salve (like ones that contain ichthammol) might help the body rid you of the splinter (and probably will make the process less painful).
This one smells nice. I might try it on my cuticles (the lid says its good for dry skin).
The following is excerpted from Peter Galbert’s “The Chairmaker’s Notebook.” Whether you are an aspiring professional chairmaker, an experienced green woodworker or a home woodworker curious about the craft, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth guide to building your first Windsor chair or an even-better 30th one. Using more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations, Galbert walks you through the entire process, from selecting wood at the log yard, to the chairs’ robust joinery, to applying a hand-burnished finish.
Turning is a form of carving, and as such, there are many similarities to the tools you might use in standard carving, although the sharpening geometry is different. Whenever my turning skills seem to let me down, I often look to the shape and condition of my tools. The correlation between well-tuned tools and turning success cannot be overstated. I usually see this when I hand a well-tuned tool to a student who has been struggling with a poorly tuned one. The improvement is usually immediate. This chapter covers the tools that I find most helpful in turning and the way I maintain and use them.
Tool Condition New turners often underestimate the dulling effect that cutting will have on the tools. Turning tools show a distinct change in their usefulness as they dull. The dull tool will resist taking a light cut. The extra pressure required will tend to increase vibration while limiting the range and fluidity of motion. This is a recipe for a bad experience.
Most modern turning tools are made from high-speed steel. High-speed steel retains an edge longer and is less prone to losing its hardness during grinding. The downside is that high-speed steel is more difficult to get as sharp as regular high-carbon steel. But for me, the extra edge life is worth it. High-speed steel encourages grinding because it isn’t damaged by overheating until it reaches red-hot. If it does get red-hot, take that as a sign that you are being too aggressive. Let the tool cool (don’t quench it in water because this stresses high-speed steel) and, as remedies, lighten your grinding pressure and perhaps dress the wheel.
Fig. 13.1 The dulling effect on turning tools.
Many production turners conclude their sharpening process at the grinder. They use a light touch and frequent grinding to keep a sharp edge. I like the idea of this because it encourages grinding and sharpening in general. It stresses getting back to work instead of fussing with honing. But I hone most of my tools after grinding to get the edge as smooth as I can to leave a scratch-free surface on the work.
The dulling effect can be difficult to imagine; after all, sometimes you use the tool for only a minute or two. That’s hardly a problem with a plane or a chisel. But would you ever consider carving hundreds of linear feet with a carving gouge between sharpenings? Many turners ignore the length of their cuts and do just that. Imagine a 2″-diameter round spinning at 800 rpm; after 30 seconds of cutting, more than 210 linear feet have passed against the edge! Of course, by using different parts of the cutting edge, the tool can go longer between sharpenings. But for the new turner, focusing on getting one part of the tool to cut is usually tough enough. So tool maintenance becomes even more imperative.
Oftentimes a slight burr or a damaged edge on a tool won’t just leave a dull spot, it will send the tool skittering down the work or chew it up. This is especially evident when using the skew. When entering a V-notch or any cut where the skew starts cutting immediately upon contact, the slightest deformity on the edge will prevent the tool from taking a bite.
Also, when the skew gets dull, taking a cut when the tool is presented straight on to the work becomes more difficult, so the turner usually shifts the handle far to the side to get more of a slicing cut. This makes it tougher to resist the force of the turning piece. Because the support for the tool is too far to the side, the skew is easily dragged down the work, resulting in a catch.
Fig. 13.2 The position of the skew is important in order to maintain control.
One essential tool that is most often neglected is the tool rest. A pitted or dinged-up tool rest will make smooth turning nearly impossible, and most new turners assume the problem is with their technique. A well-polished, smooth and waxed tool rest is essential to good turning. I take a smooth file to my tool rest and hold it perpendicularly as I draw it along, taking a fluid cut. After the surface is level and free of defects, I polish it with stones or fine sandpaper. Then I wax and buff it. The tool should glide easily. Any tools that have sharp corners, such as parting tools and skews with rectangular cross sections, should be eased with a buffer or sandpaper.
Fig. 13.3 A smooth and polished tool rest is essential.
Turning Tools As with most woodworking, it is easy to confuse having more tools with having more ability. More important than having lots of tools is knowing when and how to use them. Talking about tool choice and shape can be contentious in turning circles, much like discussing politics at a holiday dinner, but here is my take.
My basic turning kit contains a 3∕4″ roughing gouge, which does most of the heavy shaping; a 1∕8″ diamond parting tool for sizing diameters; a 3∕4″ oval skew for finishing all of the surfaces except the coves; and a 3∕8″ detail gouge for getting into coves and roughing out beads. The size of these tools can vary with personal preference and the scale of turnings that you are making. Getting the most out of each one and limiting the number of times that you switch tools helps to achieve consistent results. With these four tools I can perform all of my turning tasks; more importantly, by limiting my collection, I keep all my tools in top condition with ease and know exactly which tool to turn to at each step.
Fig. 13.4 Basic turning tool kit.
I also use a couple of other tools that make my life easier (I’ll mention those as we go), but to make these chairs, the four core tools more than suffice.
The techniques you use at the lathe will dictate the shape of your tools’ edges. Every turner has favorite shapes; I am no exception. I’ll share my angles and shapes below, but keep in mind that the key to turning tools is the degree of sharpness and maintaining flat bevels. Any rounding over of the bevel will encourage you to over-rotate the tool to engage the cutter, which makes the tool difficult to control. To aid with the flat bevels, I use hollow grinds on all of my turning tools. The only exception is on the inside of the gouges, where a slight rounding can be tolerated.
For all of my sharpening, I like to keep the process fast and simple to encourage me to do it. Ensuring that sharpening is fast and easy is vital to actually stepping away from the lathe to do it. Further information on the techniques in using these tools is in the Turning Practice chapter and information on the lathe and its accessories can be found in The Chairmaker’s Workshop chapter.
The roughing gouge I use a 2″ gouge for turning blanks to round and a 3∕4″ gouge for roughing out my shapes. The larger gouge isn’t necessary, but it does make roughing more comfortable.
Before I reshape a new gouge, I polish the inside to remove any milling marks. I use a diamond cone-shaped hone, sandpaper on a dowel and diamond paste on a dowel to polish the flute. I grind a 35° bevel (or so) on my gouge. Just as important as the angle and condition of the edge is that the profile is straight. This keeps the cuts fluid and predictable. If the edge is crowned, rotating the tool during cutting will advance or retract the cutting edge, which adds another variable.
While grinding the gouge is possible to do freehand and with a simple tool rest, I use a jig to get consistent results. The set-up time with the jig is quick and doesn’t deter me from grinding.
Fig. 13.5 Sharpen a roughing gouge.
Once the bevel is ground, I use small diamond-impregnated paddles to hone the bevel, then I remove the burr with the diamond hone. Sometimes I turn the burr from the inside of the flute with a leather strop.
This isn’t a finishing tool, so I don’t go too far with the honing. I always like to keep the flat at the edge small to prevent rounding during honing. I hone only three or four times before going back to grinding.
The diamond parting tool I like a diamond-profile 1∕8″-wide parting tool. The tool is widest at its cutting edge, which reduces binding, and the tool’s small kerf reduces vibration. I don’t hone this tool because I use it only for sizing diameters, and I grind it too often for honing to be practical. To grind it, I don’t even set up a tool rest. I shoot for about a 50° inclusive angle. First, I set the tool on the top edge of the tool rest and lower it until I make contact with the heel of the bevel, then I lower the tool on the wheel until it makes full contact. I repeat this for both sides, taking care to keep the edge at the widest part of the tool’s spine and straight across. When I have turned a burr, I stop grinding and tap the edge into a softwood block to knock the burr off and get back to turning.
Fig. 13.6 How to grind a diamond parting tool.
The oval skew I prefer an oval skew, which seems to move more fluidly and doesn’t ding up my lathe’s tool rest. It’s a personal choice. I sharpen it at 30° inclusive (15° on each side) using a standard tool rest on my grinder. I don’t have any trouble grinding it this way, even though the shaft of the tool is an oval. I simply focus on keeping the edge horizontal; once it is hollow-ground, it registers on the wheel. I also shape the edge to a subtle curve. I like the exceptionally light cut that this curve allows, plus the toe and heel of the edge are somewhat pulled back, making catches less likely. I achieve this curve by pivoting on the tool rest while grinding.
Fig. 13.7 Grind and shape the oval skew.
It’s important to keep the two bevels ground equally. Once I’m satisfied with the grind, I hone the tool by pulling it on my stones just as I would a chisel. If the edge is curved or you are using an oval skew, you will roll the tool slightly to make sure that the entire edge is honed. Don’t confuse this with lifting the tool so that the back edge of the hollow grind loses contact. This is the worst result and will round the cutting edge over, dubbing it like a drawknife. Having a flat facet behind the cutting edge is essential to good skew technique. I never strop this tool, and I hone it on my finest stone in between turning each chair leg to keep it at peak sharpness.
When the facet behind the cutting edge gets wider than 1∕16″, I hollow grind again.
The detail gouge I first polish the inside flute of the detail gouge (as I mentioned above) before regrinding it to a fingernail profile with a commercial jig. The jig comes with instructions for grinding the correct shape. For a long time, I avoided investing in a jig to make this grind, but after using one, I realized that my results doing it by simply rolling the tool on the tool rest while swinging the handle side-to-side did not give as consistent a result. I usually resist sharpening jigs, but I’ve found the consistent results worth it in this case.
The shape of the curve at the end of the flute should be even. I grind the detail gouge at 35° and finish the honing the same as with the roughing gouge. I keep this tool in top shape to reduce chatter and the chance of catches. Like the skew, this tool performs best when most of the bevel is made up of the hollow grind, so I grind again after only a few honing sessions.
Fig. 13.8 Sharpen a detail gouge.
To those new to turning, there are many details to consider, such as the speed of rotation, the size of the workpiece, the heft of the lathe and the details to be turned. Tool condition is one variable that you can always control. To achieve this, you must become proficient at the grinder. In the last 15 years, I’ve had the same iron in one of my favorite spokeshaves, but I’ve replaced most of my turning tools at least once. While they aren’t cheap enough to think of as disposable, I never confuse their cost with the value of a pleasant turning experience.
We had great fun hosting Peter Follansbee and six students this week! (I’m always gobsmacked by how much Peter’s students learn and how good they get with just a few days of instruction and practice!)
Update: Comments are now closed. Join us next Saturday for more Open Wire fun (and check the schedule at the bottom for the OW dates for the rest of 2024).
Due to a minor “oops” earlier this week when we mentioned we’d have Open Wire this Saturday (and the fact that I’ll be in the “office” anyway) – I decided to hold Open Wire today. But I will not start answering before 9 a.m, and possibly not even before 10 a.m. (Eastern). It’s been a deightful but busy week…so I plan to sleep in a bit on Saturday morning.
Comments will close at 4:30 p.m.-ish (Eastern)
And a reminder that we’ll be doing Open Wire – where you can ask all your woodworking questions and we’ll do our best to answer them – on the following Saturdays for the remainder of the year:
July 20 (Chris will weigh in if he can – but probably not until after comments close for the day) August 10 September 14 October 19 November 16 December 14
I did not build this for the cats. But I’m not sad that Olivia likes it.
I have a small flower garden in front of my house, and after years of being annoyed by having to sit down on my porch to don an old pair of running shoes for weeding (and checking them for spiders first, because they lived on the porch), I finally broke down and bought myself some garden clogs. They’re easy to slip on and off as I walk in and out the door, which is great, but I don’t want to leave them on the porch (they are much more likely to take a walk than my nasty old running shoes). But then I got annoyed by the amount of dirt I was tracking into the house, and bought myself a galvanized steel boot tray. But…just inside my front door is an HVAC return, so the boot tray had to go across the hall, and well…that was a good excuse to build a piece of furniture* to hold it – something that could fit just inside the door to make it easier to stow my clogs, and provide enough space underneath to allow for air flow.
Before all I built was tool chests, my M.O. was to find a Shaker piece that I like and modify it to suit my space, needs or both. So I went back to my old ways and spent a few days leafing through the various Shaker books in the Covington Mechanical Library.
I had almost settled on a washstand when Will Myers dug up a photograph of a piece illustrated in “The Encyclopedia of Shaker Furniture” by Timothy D. Rieman and Jean M. Burks (Schiffer, 2003), and in volume 2 of Ejner Handberg’s “Shop Drawings of Shaker Furniture and Woodenware” (Berkshire Traveller, 1975) – a “Bake Room Table” that was in the North Family Dwelling House at Mount Lebanon. I liked the drawings, but didn’t fall in love with the form until I saw the (unique) table in a photo.
Will found this photo (by William F. Winter) in “Shaker Furniture: Craftsmanship American Communal Sect” by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews (Dover, 1950).
The shelf that cuts across the side cutouts was, according to Handberg, probably added later. And what are those round cutouts at the back? Maybe it fit around a pipe of some kind?
The original, at 66″ long and just more than 28″ high, looks lighter and more graceful than what I made, but I didn’t have the space to copy its size. And I chose to make the cutout at the feet a bit shorter so that I could fit the shelf (my entire reason for building the piece!) above the void. I also skipped the support at the front between the drawers; the overhang on my top wasn’t enough to require it. Still, it was the starting point I needed – that, and the size of the boot tray it was destined to hold.
I also changed the construction, with a 3/4″-thick solid dust board (or perhaps it should be called a drawer support, given there are no drawers below it?), dadoed below the drawers instead of the nailed-on 2-1/4″-wide rails front and back, and nailed-on runners (if Handberg is correct). That last decision was a tactical error; the wider board provides more protection against racking…so I ended up pocket screwing (go ahead – come at me; there are period pocket screws in plenty of Shaker and other period work) a rail behind the drawers and under the back of the shelf (likely overkill, as I am wont to do).
I don’t typically do “proper” drawings/models (notice the lack of dados). I want to see just enough of the form to be able to decide if the proportions work for me. (The height is 30″.)
And instead of classic Shaker wooden pulls, I used iron ring pulls, to match the iron nails that attach the top. As a result of its almost-square form, size and metal hardware, I think my result skews a bit Arts & Crafts.
It’s a simple build for a simple customer. Were I building this for a more discerning end user (i.e. one that is paying me), I’d probably use sliding dovetails to attach the dust board/drawer support (and possibly use a web frame instead of solid wood there) as well as the drawer divider, and inset the back rails in grooves. And my drawer dovetails would be better.
The Build I started by gluing up the side panels and drawer support. All the wood that shows is cherry, but I glued up the drawer support from a 5″-wide or so piece of cherry on the front, and poplar behind. (I guess it does show at the back to the cats, but they don’t care).
This side and drawer support are all approximately 3/4″-thick…but I don’t know for sure. Once it was flat and close enough to 3/4″, I called the pieces ready for glue.
Then I marked out the dado locations, and played around with the curved cutouts at the bottom – and I ended up with curves that are slightly higher than what I drew. I cut them out on the band saw, then cleaned up the cuts with a combination of the spindle sander and sandpaper (#120 and #180) wrapped over a piece of the cutout (a sanding “fid”) to clean up the rough spindle-sander scratches.
The bottom curve is what I drew on the screen – it was too round. To my eye, it looks better with an 1-1/2″ or so of a straight line at the feet.
Then, I sawed the walls of the dados (which are a 1/4″ deep), knocked out most of the waste with a chisel and cleaned up the dado bottoms with a router plane (there’s a video here of this process, should you care to watch).
With one side arranged dados-up on the bench, smear a bit of glue in the dados, then put the shelf and support in place. Brush glue in the mating dados then put the other side in place on top. If the shelf and support are held tightly in well-fit dados and not moving around once they’re in their housings, it makes glue-up a lot easier to handle by yourself. If your fit is too loose, knock a wedge or two in on the underside to push out any gap and tighten things up. After the glue is dry, you can use a chisel so cut off the protruding end of a wedge (or, if it’s below the shelf at the bottom where it won’t show, just leave it).
Then, lift the assembly to get clamps across it front and back at the dado location and check it for square … then foolishly move the now-quite-heavy assembly off your bench and onto the floor by yourself because it will look better in a picture that way. Be sure to then complain that your back hurts.
If you do move it, check it again for square. If things aren’t quite square, a foot at one bottom corner and a bit pulling or pushing at the opposite top corner can easily shift things (usually). Once it’s square, walk away until the glue is completely dry.
After I took the clamps off, I realized I was being boneheaded; the piece needed some wider horizontal members to keep it from racking. So, I pocket-screwed 3″-wide rails between the sides at the back above the drawer support (poplar) and below the shelf (cherry). Then, the right side developed a slight cup at the top front – and I was afraid it would get worse. So, I pocket-screwed a 3/4″-thick x 3″-wide piece of cherry about 1/2″ back under the front of the drawer support. Uh … it’ll create a nice shadow line.
Tangent: I should have known things would go at least a little bit wrong. Some of the cherry I used for this piece is cursed. I’d bought the 5/4 stuff in mid-2017, with plans to build a Stickley 808 server for a Popular Woodworking article. I was seduced by the wood’s curly grain and remarkably low price … even though I knew curly cherry could be a right royal pain in the butt at the best of times, and that the low price indicated it was already misbehaving. But … so pretty!
I commissioned reproduction hardware from John Switzer at Black Bear Forge, and stickered the wood to acclimate for a month or so in the PW shop. Then I surfaced it to 7/8″ and glued up my panels. It all looked fabulous. For about a week. Then all the panels developed a gentle cup. OK – I could flatten it again, and build the piece out of 3/4″ instead of 7/8″. It happened again. So I put the panels aside and decided to build the server out of white oak, just like the originals. I bought the oak … then I was no longer employed at PW.
Those cherry panels left PW with me, and they’ve been in the basement at Lost Art Press ever since. (John’s gorgeous hardware has been in my basement ever since.) Chris recently used one of the panels as a desktop across trestles. And after flattening it and putting heavy stuff atop it, that panel has remained flat; I thought the curse had been broken. Chris says he’s protected from it there is no joinery involved in his setup.
The curse was not broken – but the addition of a front rail seems to have at least overcome it. For now. But never forget that wood hates you.
After the clamps were off, I marked centerlines on the drawer support and 5″-wide drawer divider, then clamped the divider firmly in place, and countersunk screws to hold it in place from underneath. It is simply butted tight to the underside of the top.
Use a square to align the divider to the front, then clamp it in place before drilling pilot holes for screws (I used three screws, though two would likely suffice).
I had a beautiful wide piece of cherry from C.R. Muterspaw for the top that I sure wish I could have used at full length. Not only was cutting it painful, but I think a longer overhang to either side added lightness – but rendered it not fit for purpose.
IWally liked the longer top, too – more real estate for treats.
I cut a small roundover on each end of the top’s back rail, sanded it, then glued it in place to the back of the top. I could have gotten away with leaving it off from a functional POV, but I wanted the extra overhang that offered for the front edge.
I then dithered over best to attach the top, and after considering the use of traditional buttons (which would require 1″ shorter drawer sides and backs to accommodate their attachment), had decided on figure-8 fasteners (which would require drawers sides and backs only 1/8′ or so narrower than the fronts), when Chris talked me into using blacksmith-made nails. I liked the way they looked on the cupboard in “American Peasant,” so…
The only great-looking nails we had (they were made by Mark Kelly, a blacksmith at Mt. Vernon) were 2-3/4″ long; I really should have used 2″ nails. It was a bit scary to drill so deeply into the cherry sides. But I got away with it… or so I thought for about 14 hours. I did a test drilling setup for tapered pilot holes, and after successful tests drilled my pilots and hammered the nails in place. They looked great. Whew! By the next morning, a small split developed at one location. But you can’t really see it without bending down and looking closely. And I’m not showing you.
The customer is dismayed but accepting of the flaws. (I blame the curse.)
Further adding to the flaws count: It turns out I didn’t get the divider perfectly centered; the left opening is 1/16″ smaller than the right. So I fit each drawer front and back to its opening with a No. 51 shooting plane. For those who don’t already know, a tightly fit drawer is key to smooth movement. These have maybe a 1/32″ reveal side to side. (And wood movement won’t be an issue, as that will be top to bottom, where I left about 1/16″.)
Another tangent: Years ago, I erred on the side of too loose, and those drawers bug the bejeezus out of me to this day. It’s this piece – the drawers, which have just under a 1/8″ reveal on both sides, rack every time I slide them in. Yes, I have some thin UHMW tape…no, I have not yet applied it even though I know it would likely solve the problem.
A smart person would have made the sides of a length to allow that back rail to serve as a drawer stop. I need to glue in 3/4″ thick blocks.
The drawers are half-blind dovetails at the front and through dovetails at the back (the tailboards are on the side, so that the drawers can’t be pulled apart in use). The only advice I have on cutting drawer dovetails is to run the grooves for the drawer bottoms before transferring the tails to the pin boards. That way, you can stick a shim of the right size in the grooves to help align the pieces (a trick I’m pretty sure I learned from a Chris Becksvoort article in Fine Woodworking).
The drawer back is 3/4″ narrower than the front, to allow the bottoms to slide in underneath it. The bottoms are 1/2″-thick paint-grade plywood, rabbetted to fit the 1/4″ wide x 1/4″ deep grooves. I cut a slot in the center back, then nailed it to the underside of the back to keep it from moving. (A more discerning client would get solid wood, sized to allow for expansion and contraction – but that’s not an issue with the plywood.)
I cut half-blinds so rarely that I can’t remember if I prefer to secure the board vertically in a twin-screw vise or flat on the bench to make the cuts. These were cut in the vise – but I think my overcuts end up longer – thereby making the waste in the corners slightly easier to remove – when I clamp it flat to the bench. (Yep, I know lots of folks pooh-pooh overcutting. “Whatev,” as the kids haven’t said for some time, now. There are plenty of period drawers that employ overcuts; I’m in good company.)
Regardless of how you make the saw cuts, chiseling out the waste is a matter of working back and forth between the baselines and creating square surfaces on both faces. And a fishtail chisel can help you get into the corners.
And to finish things off, instead of leaving blue-tape pulls in place for years, I decided on traditional iron ring pulls (32 mm). Simply drill a hole where desired to fit the staple legs, then bend each leg back with a pair of pliers, and hammer the staple legs in place. I decided to locate the pulls slightly above center. I taped off the location, marked the hole, then drilled it over a backer board so as to avoid blowout on the backside.
The finish is soft wax 2.0 – easy to make, safe to use and simple to re-apply if it proves necessary. You’ll find directions for making and using it in Chris’s latest book, “American Peasant” – a free PDF download (see pages 65-7).
Now that my new piece is at home and in use, I’m confident the Curse of the Curly Cherry is finally broken … as long as the drawers and tray stay in place, covering up that cursed wood. (But I remain leery of using the two panels still in our basement!)
I admit it’s a bit of shame to cover up that lovely curly cherry on the shelf…but it was the only way to break the curse.
And if I ever get to make this again, well, I’ve identified all the problems! If I call this one a prototype, maybe the mistakes won’t bother me as much. (They will. That is my curse.)
– Fitz
*aka a procrastination technique to put off building a pantry cabinet or the bookcase for the bottom of my staircase.
