Thursday, March 26, 2009

drawers and boxes for them


i'm using imbuya for the drawer front. it smelled good at first, but now it's starting to give me a bit of a headache. 


i've got some quarter sawn eastern maple for the sides and backs, and some colorful western maple for the bottoms. it dawned on me the other day that flat sawn stock might be better for drawers that are fit with let go. too late now. it's amazing how much wood moves out here in the maritimes. there's such a big humidity differential with the cold winters and humid summers. it can really cause some serious havoc.



the drawer box got glued in the other day and i got the rest of my hinges in the mail too. i could have sworn that i ordered enough for both doors, and the lady at sanderson even confirmed this, but i could not for the life of me find the other set. oh well, maybe i'll find them in the car or some non-wood related place in the future.
i started cutting the dovetails in the drawer fronts this week. i can now see why krenov seems to have avoided them to all cost during his career. and all the info that i find is for concave front, as opposed to convex. it's supposed to be the same procedure, but i think there may be some little differences. at least, that's what i'm going to keep on telling myself.

7 comments:

Nick Brygidyr said...

Curved drawer fronts are not fun at all. I seriously question if i'll ever do them again(that means i'll do more in my next one ouch!), concave or convex, shouldnt make a difference in the way you do them. i can send you the article i read if you'd like? unless you have a subscription to FFW.

That drawer box intrigues me...could you tell me more about it? how'd you shape the sides to match the sides of the cabinet?

LORD GODFREY said...

I'd scrap the western maple and go with the hardboard bottoms. They look so "calm."

Good to see your update, as usual your stuff looks great and is really inspiring.

jbreau said...

ian, i think the chicken pox is making your manhood soft, but thanks, it's good to hear good things. hard board would really make the oak pop.
the sides got shaped by block plane and file and time. i can't say that the fit is flawless, but it's pretty good. i don't know what overcame me when i first made the top and bottom of the box, but they were almost too small for the cabinet, but i was able to sneak them in.
i dug out two fww articles, one from 2005 and a paul harrell article from the 90's or 80's for the drawers. i think that i could've been more careful with the prep. it's tough when you have four drawers along a curve, rather then a bunch of drawers over top of one another. four times the work. learning all the time.

Nick Brygidyr said...

Ah...so you build the box a lil bigger than then squeak it in.

Are the sides of the box just straight and flat or do they follow the curve too? If they follow the curve..how would you build that?

I saw one of juan's cabinets, zulu i think it was called, where the bottom was bent and the bottom of the drawer box was shaped to the curve...im just wondering what the substrate was, it's not liek you can shape ply-wood into the curve...or can you?

jbreau said...

no, those pieces are just wood edging that is shaped to the curve... in juan's piece.
the verticals are just thin pieces that meet at the corners. i just made the applied edges thicker on the outside and planed them down until they were in place and tight.

Nick Brygidyr said...

Ah! so it's hollow kinda?

Hey jacques, im gonna be slicing up my spalted maple into veneer soon and making a liquor cabinet of some sort...i heard spalted maple is hard to finish, is it just that it soaks everything up? How did you finish the spalted maple on that cabinet of yours?

jbreau said...

hey nick, i've done two things that involve sealing the surface. one with laquer, the other with thined down epoxy. the epoxy worked the best. essentially liquid thin, let it soak and dry, take it off the surface, and then shellac as normal.
in the future, i may opt to leave this wood unfinished. it's a fuming pain in the ass.