Recent project 'completion'
CJ in MPLS
Hello all.
I recently posted about a new project I'm working on. I have time for that new project because I am finally getting around to finishing the project pictured below. Last fall I was lucky enough to spend about 10 weeks in Toronto at Tom Fidgen's Unplugged Woodshop. The curriculum for the 10 week course included designing and building a wall hanging cabinet with a coopered door and a Roubo style parquetry decorative element. The entire project was hand tools only.
The cabinet I built is 10" wide and 22" tall and has a red oak coopered door with each strip ripped from a flat sawn board to obtain quartered grain on its surface. The carcase was made from red elm. The door is mounted on knife hinges from Lee Valley.
The parquetry is a design taken directly from one of the Roubo plates and includes walnut, mahogany, canary wood, cypress, and a border made from holly and leopard wood. The parquetry panel is in a red elm frame.
The small gallery of drawers has a red elm mitered carcase, roasted maple drawer fronts and holly sides and backs. The pulls are from Brusso. The shelf and each drawer are lined with red pigskin suede.
The only remaining things to be done are to install a couple of hooks for hanging items and to install a small oval mirror over the parquetry, which is a shame but part of the plan. While the door closes and remains closed on its own, I will be looking at installing a small ball catch at the bottom of the door.
As this was a student piece, there are many aspects of the project that I had not tried before. Chief among these was the milling of everything in the project by hand. I mean I 'knew' how to use hand planes, but during the course I became much more familiar with them in a 'time to make the donuts' kind of way. I did suffer from a touch of carpal tunnel by the end of the 10 week course, but it is all good now.
Parquetry was also new to me and having done it once, I feel that I will be doing this more in future. The beeswax finish was applied to the door and carcase with a polissoir. This is a fascinating process. It is also strenuous. Did I mention that I lost about 15 pounds during the 10 weeks? This probably had more to do with me cooking for myself in a rented bedsit than the exercise, but I digress.
The last thing that I learned, albeit imperfectly, was French polishing. The customer likes a bright shellac finish and so one was applied to the drawer fronts. I had more than a few problems with this process, some of which were related to the small size of the drawers. Knowing how much to load the rubber or in other words, how little to load the rubber, took some time. Also, one's ability to curse will instantly improve if one foolishly attaches a pull with CA glue and then accidentally smears that devil's spit on a tiny drawer front that now includes a small brass obstacle to sanding/buffing.
I have to say that I really like the scale of this project and so I will stick with boxes or box like objects for some time, which doesn't really limit me all that much I guess. And, because it was so much fun, if you can find the time I would highly recommend that you take a class or two with Tom Fidgen. Toronto is such a cool place that a woodworking class is kind of icing on the cake.
Cheers,
CJ
