Unbuilding Furniture
John McGaw
Well, I finally killed it! A long time ago, probably 14-15 years, I started a misguided project -- my own version of a Shaker tall chest. I got as far as making the back and side panels, both rail & stile with raised panels, the drawer-support structures dovetailed into the sides, some dust panels, and the front and sides of the 9 drawers with half-blind dovetails. Overall the beast would have been around 6' 8" high had I gotten as far as the base. Then, well, I can't really recall what happened but I got burned out or made a difficult-to-cover mistake or something metaphysical happened and I just stopped. The frame and bits and pieces got hauled from the shop and were put in the storage room in the basement to gather dust.
A few days ago I decided that, to make room to better organized the other junk in the room, the beast had to die. A lot of it came apart well although the drawer supports were glued in place and had to be taken out with a sawzall. The drawer parts are probably recoverable but the sides and back are probably a loss. That brings the problem of how to store the recovered clear pine stock but at least that doesn't take up as much space as it had. Still don't know if it is worth the effort to disassemble all of the hardwood runners I had added to the drawer structures just to recover all of the nice brass screws that were holding them in place (but I probably will since I have a hard time disposing of anything vaguely usable).
Clearly failed furniture is is more trouble than failed turnings. At least those can transition straight to the fireplace.