WALNUT WATCH CABINET

Featuring several timely design elements.

SHOP OWNER: Alan Young

LOCATION: Ypsilanti, MI

I designed this cabinet to hold a collection of 300 watches. The cabinet contains ten drawers. Each should hold approximately thirty watches. The Cabinet features walnut, maple, and pine. It is approximately 47" high by 36" wide by 23" deep. Beginning at the top, the front legs have a turned section, which end in a Cabriole foot with an accentuated curve.

The small detail in the bottom brace is an hourglass. After the initial drawing, I made a few more to experiment with the hourglass detail. I decided to use the design in the upper left with one hourglass in the front. The base features three hourglass elements, including one on each side.

As I found this an interesting detail, I decided to make them first. The "glass" is maple, which I turned on the lathe. They measure approximately 4" high, just under 1 1/2" in diameter at the top and bottom, and about 1/2-inch at the center. The walnut frame has octagon shaped tops and bottoms. The pen and CD give some idea of scale.

The cabinet opens to reveal the ten drawers. Each is from select pine with hand cut dovetails in the front and dadoed at the back with a plywood bottom fitted in a grove. I cut all the parts to size, cut the joinery, and assembled the drawer boxes. After sanding, I completed the drawers by attaching pine drawer fronts to the boxes.

For drawer pulls, I decided to use chains, which is reminiscent of the chains used with pocket watches. For a final touch, I lined the bottoms with felt.

Separating the upper carcass from the base is a maple frame, which acts as a boarder.

A simple design using a French curve and a turned pediment completes the top at the back of the cabinet.

I stained the cabinet with an undercoat of Minwax Ebony followed by Minwax Dark Walnut. The Walnut frame pieces would have been fine with just the Dark Walnut but the mahogany plywood needed the Ebony as a base. I finished all the maple trim pieces with dewaxed shellac. Once the stain dried on the cabinet and base, I applied several coats of shellac.