Chest of Drawers wip - slow hand tool project

[Graham Orm]

Hope you're not copying the attire Andy? He'd soon get a lather on ripping, wearing all that clobber. I bet there's a shirt and tie there somewhere too!

Graham! Have you not seen my avatar picture? I'll have you know it was taken from the life, with one of those newfangled Daguerreotype contraptions! :wink:

:mrgreen:

 

[Sheffield Tony]

At the last bodger's ball I watched some attempts at rip sawing rather larger timbers. A Thomas Flinn two man pit saw was used with a scaffold tower, with much difficulty. A combination of a wobbly tower, high winds and quite possibly a poorly set up saw made it all look hard work. But what did seem to do the business was something like this one:

http://giantcypress.net/post/1386903490 ... s-is-a-saw

A maebiki if that page is correct. I'm not normally a fan of Japanese saws, but that was the ticket. I guess the nice deep blade avoids wandering off. If you set off in just the right direction, of course ....

 

[AndyT]

At the last bodger's ball I watched some attempts at rip sawing rather larger timbers. A Thomas Flinn two man pit saw was used with a scaffold tower, with much difficulty. A combination of a wobbly tower, high winds and quite possibly a poorly set up saw made it all look hard work. But what did seem to do the business was something like this one:

http://giantcypress.net/post/1386903490 ... s-is-a-saw

A maebiki if that page is correct. I'm not normally a fan of Japanese saws, but that was the ticket. I guess the nice deep blade avoids wandering off. If you set off in just the right direction, of course ....

A bit like this maybe?

(from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sawyers_by_Hokusai.jpg)

I may need a bigger basement!

 

[AndyT]

So after all that ripping fun, let's get down to plane facts again.

Quite a bit of the thinking behind this project is about which bits of wood to use, how much I will need to cut them up and what sizes to make the finished components to suit the wood that I have. Mentally, it's a bit like the planning stage where you try to lay out a cutting list onto waney edged boards, hoping that you've bought enough, but in this case there are even more variables to juggle with.

I've decided pretty definitely that the sides for the chest will come out of this piece:

It's the top of an old office bookcase that I must have salvaged about twenty years ago, when they were chucking out all the accumulated old fashioned stuff to get the full plastic coated chipboard effect into every room.

I noticed for the first time that it even has remnants of an old maker's transfer on the back edge:

There's not much left, but I'm pretty sure that the bottom line was WILDER ST BRISTOL. Wilder Street is still there - a short stroll with a handcart from the old office - but as far as I know there are no furniture factories there now. I can just about remember that off nearby Portland Square, just near the end of the M32, there used to be a sprinkling of little basement workshops making frames for upholstered furniture. That was in the 80s before wholesale redevelopment changed the city so much. If anyone can identify the maker from this fragment, do say!

Regardless of pedigree, it's a good enough and big enough piece of oak, so you get some exciting shots showing that it got planed a bit:

and you probably want to see some other planes from time to time:

That big lump of iron and boxwood has no maker's name at all but works nicely for this sort of job. I'm not just planing for the sake of it, I need to prove to myself that the wood will look good enough to use, and I also need to get it slightly flatter than it is. I wouldn't normally bother with this sort of measurement but you can't assume old wood is flat enough without a little treatment:

This piece then got marked out to the right width

and to cut into two

I thought this was a sensible dodge to hold the free end up when working on my own:

- it was certainly more reliable than just grabbing the end with my left hand.

One end needed a bit more trimming to just miss some holes

and then a touch of planing on the end grain

And so we get to the end of a few more happy hours in the workshop, pottering, planing, sawing and thinking. More soon!

 

[AndyT]

The old bookcase top has several holes in, from where it used to have some vertical dividers on top, to make some paper sorting trays. They were just fixed with screws up from underneath. I can avoid most of them, but some need to be patched. This is all ordinary work when recycling timber. I cut some thin strips about 1/8" thick from the strip of oak that I had trimmed off the width, and sawed some little squares out, holding the saw a few degrees off the vertical to make the sides slightly bevelled:

Then I marked round each one, chiselled out a hole

and plugged it

and waited for the glue to dry

I then chiselled and planed the excess wood:

and tidied up the sides a bit

Now I realise there is a sort of convention that says any shot of a smoothing plane making wispy shavings needs a measurement: these seem to be about 2 - 3 thou thick, whether measured the easy way

or the way that needs no batteries

The various patches are not invisible, but they are smooth, and when the finished piece is in use they will be hidden in the shadows under the top, and between the side of the bed and the wardrobe, so I'm not going to agonise about disguising every line.

Meanwhile, planning continues in some more detail. I've done a full-size drawing so that I can try and get the proportions right. This is on lining paper on a bit of mdf board.

The vertical sides are drawn 3/4" thick, so I think the runners and rails need to be 3/8" thick, with the drawer fronts 3 1/4" deep. (That should give about 3" internally which is plenty for the sort of stuff that will go in there.) I've drawn one drawer in cross-section to plan how the bottom and sides will go. That tells me that the rails and runners will be big enough if they are about 1 1/4 or 1 1/2" wide. I'm well aware that elements that are in hardwood, on a small scale piece, will look awful if I leave them too thick, so I want to slim everything down as much as I can.

All these dimensions have to suit the wood that I shall be using. This is what will be the rails and runners - old bed slats, currently about 9/16" by 3" or 3 1/2"

so there will be a fair bit of planing to do.

But I've had a rethink on the drawer fronts. I want conventional lapped dovetails but the wood I have set aside for the fronts is under 1/2" at the moment and will lose at least 1/16" in planing. I don't think I can squeeze a functional lapped dovetail into something that thin.

Fortunately, there is enough wood in these two remnants of an old shelf unit that I found in a skip a decade or two ago, which now get their chance to come into the limelight:

so they will be the source for the drawers; I should be able to finish them at 3/4" thick, which should be enough for the lapped dovetails if I am careful. I should be able to plane out or avoid the ink stain now I know I am only making five drawers, not six.

Time to sharpen a few cutting edges and get planing!

 

[JanetsBears]

What a thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring thread!

My problem is that I have so many projects that 'need' doing now that I can't find time to do something like this using just hand tools. Hopefully, I'll get the time when I retire in a few years time

Chris

 

[Graham Orm]

Good stuff Andy ;-)

 

[MickCheese]

Enjoying this. Keep it up.

Mick

 

[AndyT]

Thanks for all the interest and encouragement - it really does help!

Back to the stack of old bed slats.

These are about four foot long, 3 1/4" wide and 9/16" thick. I now know (from my full-sized drawing) that I need strips of around 12" long and 1 1/2" wide, to make the rails and runners. I want them to be only 3/8" thick, and I'm planning to use stub tenons to join the runners (which support the drawers) to the rails (which span the cabinet from side to side).

That sounds ok in theory and looks ok in a drawing but I've not actually made anything this small and fiddly before, and want to be sure before I spend ages getting it wrong, so decided to do an experiment first.

So here's a slat in the vice, getting ripped into two strips. This worked, though I had to kneel on the floor to do it, which is not so good.

Here it is on edge on the bench, getting one long face edge

This project throws up some interesting workholding challenges, especially as many of the pieces are quite small. To hold this wood on its edge for planing, I used this simple plywood device, which I think I probably saw on here first - so thanks if you posted it. In my case it fits over the bench stop and is helped with a holdfast. The wedge holds well and is quick and easy, just needing a tap from a mallet.

For this first strip, I planed the thickness with the wood all in one long bit, using the same device, but without the wedge:

I had thought that keeping this part in one length would make workholding easier, but in this case it just made it more awkward.

Anyhow, with a thin piece ready for an experiment I could try making a mortice at one end and fitting a stub tenon into it.

I marked the width of the tenon and planed down with a Record 405 as a plough, to make a sloping cut:

which I then deepened to a square ended mortice with a matching 1/8" chisel

- not at all tidy! That won't do.

However, with a tenon sawn on the end of another piece, they do at least go together

Thinking about it further, the obvious technique is to plough the grooves all the way along. I don't need a groove - I'm not fitting dustboards - but I think that having the groove is no disadvantage. As Jacob often reminds us, the best way to answer design questions like this is to look at old work, which I did. There are three examples of Victorian hand made drawers available in our house - but they all have dustboards!

So I went back to the test piece and ploughed the groove all the way along.

I think these will be ok looking like this:

So, the experiment confirmed that my plan was ok with the proportions of 3/8" thickness and a groove 1/8" x 1/8".

It was time for some more planing. Having switched to working on pieces only about a foot long,

I needed to work out efficient ways of holding them, on a bench with no tail vice.

I have some dog holes and a Veritas surface vice - but it's designed for thicker timber, over 1/2" thick, not under.

It was ok with a bit of plywood in between,

but it still gets in the way of the plane, so I settled on a simpler system instead.

It's just a holdfast, a scrap of ply, a wedge and a wooden bench dog. The ply is only 1/4" but is stiff enough. The wedge is nice and quick, so I can check progress or turn the wood round easily.

I soon got into a routine. Gauge 1/8th from the flat side, take thick shavings off with a wooden Jack plane, then switch to a medium thickness shaving with a 5 1/2, and finish up with a no 4. Gauge to 3/8" and repeat.

The wooden Jack took really quite thick shavings:

.

I did have to keep stopping, to sweep up:

and to re-sharpen. Let's not get distracted into sharpening, but thicknessing oak does go a lot better with sharp edges :wink:.

So, after quite a few hours, I had got into a nice working routine and could plane down a piece in about ten minutes. I successfully turned some of this

into this

.

And yes, that is a table saw the bits are standing on. I don't need it on this project, but will be using my little bandsaw where it makes sense to do so. I like using hand tools but don't have any dogmatic objection to power tools, where appropriate. The hand planing has been quite a nice work-out and might even help get me fitter if I do enough of it. Sometimes "the hard way" is easier overall; sometimes it's not.

After several days of preparation, I am getting closer to the point where I can start to cut joints, but am not quite there yet. All this time, I am still mulling over the details of dimensions, joints and choices of materials. I know that I am very fortunate having the time and opportunity to do this the way I please, without having to worry about making a profit on the job or satisfying anyone other than myself. More of the same will follow soon!

 

[Racers]

Nicely done Andy, good work and write up.

Are you dadoing the frames into the sides?

Pete

 

[AndyT]

Nicely done Andy, good work and write up.

Are you dadoing the frames into the sides?

Pete

Thanks Pete. Yes, I've been chewing over options for the construction and I have also done a second full size drawing.

That's probably not very clear - it's all in pencil so I can revise it! It's a sort of composite plan and section view, and also shows the variations for the top rails and runners (on the left side only).

The rails (the bits that go side to side and show underneath the drawer fronts) will be fixed by tenoning into the solid sides. I did an experiment for this, in some similarly sized oddments, making a barefaced through tenon:

This held so well that I have decided that through tenons are not needed, which is just as well, as this was pretty scruffy. I reckon that tenons about 3/8" long into 3/4" thick sides will be enough. At the top, the rails will be lap dovetailed into the sides. At top and bottom there will be extra rails at the back, to which the back panel will be fixed. They get fixed to the ends of the runners on longer mortice and tenon joints, left dry.

Thinking about the runners (the bits that go front to back to support the drawer sides) I have two choices. One is to stub tenon and glue them to the rails at the front, and slot screw to the carcase sides at the rear. The other is to have the stub tenons and the slotted screw but also cut housings (aka dadoes) and have the runners fit into them. The theory is that the long grain runners must not be glued to the sides, which must be free to move with the seasons.

Now, I'm pretty confident that the seasonal variation in our bedroom is pretty small. It's certainly nothing like the extremes of the American continent with its cold, dry winters and hot, humid summers. But I rather enjoy cutting housings, so I think I will include them. They aren't needed for strength, as these drawers will only be holding a few light bits and pieces, but they should make it much easier to get everything located properly during assembly. The housings will be cut with the sides flat on the bench, but the runners don't get fitted until after the rails have been glued into the carcase sides. Pushing them into housings will be much more positive than just relying on a screw at the back for positioning. The housings don't need to be deep - I reckon 1/8" will be plenty in this oak.

One further thought about construction. This project actually needs very little measurement!

I was going to make a rod, just as an exercise in doing so, but I can't see the need. The one defining dimension for the width is the length between shoulders on the rails, ie the internal distance between the sides. This will be 11 1/2". All I need to do is to stack up the rails and mark that 11 1/2" dimension on them all at the same time. It's important that all the rails are effectively the same length but it's not too important what that length actually is, as long as the rough cut wood is long enough.

The two carcase sides are a matched pair - so I'll mark the positions for the rails on both together. I can step them out with dividers, set at about 3 1/4", but it won't matter if that is a bit more or less.

The drawer fronts and sides will be planed to fit each opening once the carcase is built.

The top will be an inch bigger than the base, all round, so will be defined by the finished size of the base.

And so, with that lovely confidence that comes at the start of any project, where nothing has yet gone wrong, it's time to get back to planing!

 

[Racers]

Runners in dados with a shallow dovetail on the front to hold the sides together, either cut into the runner (tricky) or a separate piece.

That would look nice, and be even more work!

Pete

 

[AndyT]

Runners in dados with a shallow dovetail on the front to hold the sides together, either cut into the runner (tricky) or a separate piece.

That would look nice, and be even more work!

Pete

Hmm... do you mean something like this?

The end of the rail is a tapered sliding dovetail, the same depth as the housing that the rail goes into, which is simply square for the rest of its length. The rail ends would drop into the wide housings, then slide forward to tighten up and draw the carcase sides together. It could work and could be fun, but I think I would have to go a bit deeper than 1/8", even in oak. Then again, it might be simpler than lots of little stopped mortices...

Of course, it would only "look nice" during construction - once the job is done, it would look exactly the same!

 

[Racers]

I was thinking of deeper dovetails that the dados, probably easer to plant on a strip of wood to the front of the dust frame.

Have a look here from 2:15 onwards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDDeC0Q ... KW1cdmWWCC

Pete

 

[AndyT]

Oh, I see what you mean. Although the Doucette and Wolf stuff is, to judge from their videos, beautifully made, I would not want to follow their lead and expose the joints. It's just a personal preference, each to his own etc, but I rather like joints to be hidden, whether or not I can manage to make them good enough for display. I've done other pieces - some in the same room - where lapped dovetails are only visible to the spiders, and sliding dovetails are visible only in my w-i-p photos - but I know they are there!

 

[Racers]

O/k I understand that, a spot of glue at the front of a stopped dado would work just as well.

Pete

 

[devonwoody]

Joining in to watch, but I did three of these around ten years ago but the easy way with soft wood from 30 year old rafters and pleased to say mine are still in working order and in daily use.
Tops I used any off cuts 30mm wide by 18mm thick random lengths.

 

[John15]

I'm enjoying your WIP very much Andy, especially your use of hand tools.

John

 

[Gerard Scanlan]

Hi Andy this is a really good WIP. Recycling bits and bobs and all the extra bother and design constraints this causes makes this piece all the more interesting.
Carry on the good work and please continue to ignore all the power tool fanatics.
Gerard

 

[AndyT]

I think the best way to decide on the most practical joint is to try both options out, so it's back to some bits of scrap for an experiment.

This is the tapered sliding dovetail:

First I just cut down straight, then I used an angled guide block to undercut at a 1:6 angle:

On the other part, I cut it straight but a bit 'blunter' on the triangle, then pared back at the same 1:6 angle. I can't tell from the photo if this was before or after the angled trimming, it was so slight.

This worked ok but did not feel very strong, even though I made the housing 3/8" deep instead of the planned 1/8".

Here it is with a runner in place behind it.

For the tenon option, the bits looked like this - the rail has one side longer than the other, by the depth of the housing, which in this case was just 1/8". The tenon was 3/8" long.

And here it is assembled:

(Ignore the holes - they are not part of the design.)

What you can't see in the pictures is that the tenoned version felt usefully strong, even without glue, whereas the sliding dovetail really did not have enough wood to hold properly. The M&T was also much easier to mark out and cut. The project would probably be ok without the tenons - as Pete suggested - so I could leave them out, or compromise and just put tenons on the bottom rail, not the intermediate ones.

On the other hand, that could make assembly a little bit harder - having the tenons means that everything is self-supporting, so I would not be struggling to get several ends lined up, with all of them falling over at a touch.

I think I will go for tenons - but please do all feel free to chip in with ideas or suggestions along the way. Often, even if I sound like I know what I am doing, I will just be thinking aloud, and I've not made anything quite like this before!