PA Spice Cabient
Bill Tindall, E. TN
>I wanted to make one of these affaris when I first saw it in Fine WW Sept '88. It took me a while to acquire the skills and time to do three for family gifts.
Design considerations: This cabinet is shrunk from the original 18" height to 14" to be more appropriate for a dresser top jewlery box. The top molding hides a "secret" drawer so this molding must be around 1 1/4" high. Most of these cabinets look too top heavy to me because a large crown molding is used. I used a chair rail molding pattern and it lays flatter on the case for a less top heavy look. The top was molded to blend into the chair rail pattern.
The smaller size resulted in smaller drawers(11 of them) inside that were not high enough to accomodate conventional drawer construction. The 1/8" bottoms were glued into a rabbit cut in drawer bottom. The LN dovetail saw teeth were too coarse for the thin sides so a Zona saw was used and it worked very well. Of course I used the CPM 3V chisels for dovetails and mortises.
I found the bun feet difficult to turn and get to look right. I find spheres difficult. I made over 20 before I got 12 that looked acceptable.
The walnut was hand planned with LN 4 1/2 after sizeing on power planner and then sanded with 220 grit. It was stained with a slury of burnt umber in Tung oil and then many coats, sanded in between, of Hock's garnet shellac were applied by brush, rag and spray gun (I was experimenting). For me spraying 1 1/2 lb worked best-fastest and most even. I never could figure out how to brush the runny stuff around all the details.
Hardware, hinges and a tiny surface lock, is from White Chapel.
