Side board

The Struggle

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

was more than well worth it!

A striking piece.

Hope you don't need the middle leg. With that design, I'd have made the bottom into a concealed torsion box to handle the weight.

Thanks for sharing.

Re: The Struggle

Barry Irby

I agree with Mark. Well done! I'd like to see some details. Are the ends dovetailed into the top? That's a beauty!

Detail and question

Svante Nilsson

Here is a close-up. I must confess that I have fallen deeply in love with ash. The shadings between the light and dark areas are so beautiful....

Question: Next cabinet will also be in ash but I am hesitating to finish it with shellac/wax as it do makes the wood a bit amber colored. Any suggestion of any cristal clear finish that preserve the wood feeling?

Re: The Struggle

Don Stephan

". . . concealed torsion box." Thanks for reminding me of this versatile method.

Ash color is fleeting

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The sapwood will darken to brown and the heartwood will loose its reddish hue and lighten.

The most water white finish is a waterborne acrylic. Details of appearance vary among manufacturers. All I have tried are not as bright as shellac. A CAB lacquer would be a good choice but you need to spray it.

Struggle was worth it

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

Love it. Carrying that wide board all the way thru speaks volumes. The details are great. The irregular door frames are a nice touch. A really outstanding piece.

T.

Re: Side board

Yonak

That looks fantastic, Svante. Great job.

Finishes

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Several waterborne acrylic lacquers will go on and stay water-white. Target's EM6000, and General Finishes' Envirolac or Enduro Clear Poly come to mind. However, for best results, using sanding and sealer coats of 1.5lb Ultra Pale or Super Blond dewaxed shellac will improve your results with increased clarity and visual depth of the topcoats. Waterbornes tend to pucker the wood grain and/or pull loose fibers and dust into the finish film making it look dull even if a gloss finish is used. The shellac prevents this problem which is especially bothersome in open pore and ring-porous woods.

Examples

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

7' Vanity with slab marble top

6' A-V center with slab maple top

Any Difference

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

'tween KD and air-dried on the color change? I have some a-d ash in the shop that was cut 15 years ago and still shows the light(er) sapwood with a dark(er) heart.

Re: Any Difference

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I didn't mean to imply that the heartwood would become equal to sapwood. Mainly the reds, isn't it always the reds, fade and the heartwood becomes browner.

Re: Side board

JOE MOHNIKE

I hope you do not have to add a central leg, but having worked on many old buffets, I have found the ones without the center supports/legs will sag in time and will have to be repaired and reinforced. I have have made legs in the back and continued the support to the front and avoid legs in the front.

Very nice piece in all aspects.

Outstanding! Most creative!

Reds

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Have a bud (who's a PHD research microbiologist) and had him run a piece of red box elder through his lab to see if there was a way to preserve the flaming red color. Came back no-can-do as the reds are phenol compounds that are very "fragile" in that they break down in UV or IR light and go to browns that will also fade over time.

questions

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

" It was fun to do the irregular frame and mirrors." don't understand this statement. Is the front, do you mean, book matched? How was the front assembled? The result looks like it is made from one unusually wide board.

"I have not loaded it with plates yet, perhaps i need to make a supporting leg in the middle." What is the framing inside? If it is simply a box it could sag. A horizontal board mortised into the back and attached to the bottom would stiffen the bottom. So would a tight fitting back glued in pace so as to be structural.

"Finished with 4 coats of blond schellac and wax." How does wax do on a porous wood like ash. Does it accumulate in the pores, and if not, how to avoid accumulation? I have a ash table I would like to wax but have been afraid to.

The doors are large, and presumably heavy. How hinged?

I would not have exposed the dovetails. They are distracting to my eye. But I may be the only person left on earth that doesn't regard dovetails as a visual design element.

Spectacular....

Barry Irby

That front is fabulous. The thought and effort it took to keep it together and lined up is amazing. Congratulations.

I would have done a few things differently. I would have notched the legs slightly so the ends would have direct bearing. When I built mine out of heart pine (not nearly as spectacular) I used a torsion box or stressed skin panel for the bottom, flat on top and curved on the bottom.

On yours, while I am impressed by the dovetails on the drawers I would not have extended them through the front and interrupted the grain of that front.

I suspect it will sag over time. Consider a set of legs, perhaps lined up with the ends of the drawers. They could e front and back or maybe a single pair centered front to back. Recessing the legs might help to avoid the spider look.

Take none of this as criticism. Hopefully its constructive. Maybe one day I can build one that spectacular.

Sagging....I think not

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Unclear how long this pieces is , guessing 6'. Also guessing bottom is 13/16" thick and depth 20". A piece of wood of this dimension will be boggling stiff. I can't imagine 50 pounds centered would flex it a perceptible amount. I doubt 100 pounds would flex it much. If it doesn't flex it won't sag over time.

No idea the internals of this piece. But if I had made it it would have a horizontal piece on edge, top and bottom across the back that the back would fasten into. These pieces would add substantial additional stiffness. Then if the back was tightly fit and glued in place there would be even more stiffness. Krenov used this engineering in his otherwise frail looking cabinetry to provide a robust result. It works.

Bottom line I am not concerned this piece will sag in the middle in typical use. The huge door on the other hand does concern me. It needs to be supported on its bottom when closed. Search for how Krenov handled door support for I think it a good idea that I implement on doors.

Come on Svante Nilsson, give us some more

Barry Irby

details.

While I agree with Bill that if the bottom board is 13/16" and the same hardwood as the rest of the case and does not have a couple of heavy rabbets across it for the internal partitions, it's unlikely to sag, if its something like white pine it might. And, forever is a long time.

And I agree with Bill on the doors. I don't see any evidence of hinges. I am old fashioned and would have used a piano hinge or butt hinges. Are there Euro hinges hiding in there? I know they are all the rage, but I am not fully on board. At least, they are adjustable and replaceable. Still, some support while the doors are at rest would be good.

Some more details

Svante Nilsson

Thanks for all comments! Sorry for Iate answer - I have been travelling.

Dimensions of the piece: L: 170cm/67inch, H: 80cm/32inch D: 40cm/16inch

The top/bottom and sides are bookmatched.

The doors are not heavy. The overall size is 50*50cm/20*20inch. Normally I prefer knive hinges but due to the irrigular shape, I have used ordinary butt hinges. The floating mirror/panel is one piece (bandsawed with a hight of 37 cm/14,5 inch).

Took a close up of the grain, but I can not see that the pores of the wood get filled with wax. I make my own wax from an old FWW recipe; boiled linseed oil, beewax and white spirits.

Regarding through or half blind dovetails I think both are decorative, but in different ways. I only manage through dovetails so the choice is easy….