Hand cut dovetails in sapele

[D_W]

It's a limited market here as well, and a well-covered one at that.

Worth a read: http://irionlumber.com/wp-content/uploa ... W198BI.pdf

My GOD, that first piece is fabulous. The carving on page 81 is sublime, too.

I wish my eyes and brain visualized that kind of proportion and liveliness. Not that I could ever execute it.

The federal piece is nice, but the top bracket gives a flavor of mystery science theater 3000 (or rather the character who sat on the right side in the theater for that series).

 

[Trafalgar]

World class furnituremaking no doubt. A staggering amount of fine work over a 90+ piece commission.

 

[G S Haydon]

Incredible, I look forward to a client sporting sweat pants covered in flour.

 

[custard]

http://irionlumber.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/W198BI.pdf

Sadly, I don't believe Irion Furnituremakers are still around though I believe the lumber yard is.

Thanks for posting that, very impressive. The Irion Lumber Yard is still up and running, it's probably the main supplier to specialist UK yards of the very highest grades of figured Cherry.

Incidentally, the mahogany used in those pieces looks exceptional, I wonder where they sourced that?

 

[Trafalgar]

Check out the last couple of paragraphs in the article about some boards of Cuban mahogany they ended up cutting and using as veneer.

The highboy immediately above the verbiage was veneered in this wood.

 

[iNewbie]

Its mentioned on the bottom of the link.

 

[D_W]

I rarely read articles, but the furniture was so spectacular that I at least browsed this one and saw this comment earlier (but the wood that's not covered by the second half of the comment below is just as spectacular):

Almost every piece in the collection was
built with boards hand selected by Lou
and shipped down to his old company. For
many of the pieces in the collection, Lou
supplied mahogany from Peru. One nota-
ble exception is the Affleck chest-on-chest,
which is one of John’s favorite pieces.
Irion’s reproduction was built with veneers
they sliced from 4-in.-thick boards
of Cuban mahogany that are purported
to have belonged to Thomas Affleck himself.
Dredged from the Delaware River
early in the 20th century, they were squirreled
away in a barn for decades. Their owner,
who considered them too special to use,
died in 1998, having left instructions with
his daughter to offer them to Irion. They
found just the piece to use them in.

 

[Jacob]

It's all very wonderful this 'high end' stuff but to be honest I'm not that interested in it.
It's a Hestor Blumenthal equivalent, with no bearing on what we normally consume. Even arguably a waste of skill and resources - all that effort into replicating some over-fussy antiquated designs. Even if I could do it (I couldn't) I wouldn't. A lot has happened in the field of design in the intervening 200 years!

PS actually Blumenthal and even Escoffier were modernisers - it's more like bringing Marie-Antoine Carême back from the dead. (Took some googling to find that name!)

 

[cowfoot]

I'd argue that what the top end/cutting edge/avant garde of any field of human endeavour gets up to usually filters down to the public. Heston's stuff is sold in Waitrose...
I also noticed that in the last series of that Interior Design Challenge on BBC 2, a couple of the more switched-on contestants were using "brown furniture". One chap used a very striking armoire for a 1920's themed room - as he pointed out, it didn't cost much. Might be wishful thinking on my part, but surely more people will tire of chalk paint eventually!

 

[iNewbie]

It's all very wonderful this 'high end' stuff but to be honest I'm not that interested in it.
It's a Hestor Blumenthal equivalent, with no bearing on what we normally consume. Even arguably a waste of skill and resources - all that effort into replicating some over-fussy antiquated designs. Even if I could do it (I couldn't) I wouldn't. A lot has happened in the field of design in the intervening 200 years!

PS actually Blumenthal and even Escoffier were modernisers - it's more like bringing Marie-Antoine Carême back from the dead. (Took some googling to find that name!)

Gave some woodworkers full-time jobs in a craft they trained for and enjoyed what they were doing. Whats not a positive there... Whether you enjoy it is irrelevant.

edit - I'll also say, it may have been reproduced work but for some people thats something of a challenge: can I make it to the same standard - or slightly better. For some thats a pleasure as much as a headache. Testing yourself.

 

[bugbear]

We had a discussion about battens, deals and planks a while ago, here.

a-historical-question-what-were-hewn-battens-used-for-t86167.html

Some of the images are missing, but this fresh link to a handy book explains what they used to mean - they were the same thickness but different widths.

https://archive.org/stream/everymanhiso ... 0/mode/1up

The Glossary of Wood was first published in 1948; it was a compilation from the glossary column that ran for a decade in "Wood" magazine. You can be sure that if readers of the magazine has disagreed with an entry, they would have said so, thus these are effectively reviewed and accepted meanings.

It says:

Deal: A term applied to converted softwoods between 2 and 4 in. in thickness
and 9 and 11 in. in width. The sizes vary at different ports.


BugBear

 

[B3nder]

Blimey this thread has gone off on an interesting tangent!

Just to say my original issue has been resolved, when using the knife to make score the pins, I was angling it slightly thus creating a pin that was wider that the tail. Simply resolved by keeping the knife blade flush with the tail.

Thanks, just need to practice a few more!

 

[Jacob]

..... You can be sure that if readers of the magazine has disagreed with an entry, they would have said so, thus these are effectively reviewed and accepted meanings.
....r

6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Many (most?) readers wouldn't know and would simply accept what they were being told. In this way whole areas of woodwork have been radically revised by journalists and their readers passing on the misinformation - most extremely in sharpening. What used to be easy and hardly worthy of comment has become difficult, unrecognisable, and a big money spinner for the gadget makers
Or in bench design post1160597.html#p1160597

 

[Trafalgar]

Blimey this thread has gone off on an interesting tangent!

Just to say my original issue has been resolved, when using the knife to make score the pins, I was angling it slightly thus creating a pin that was wider that the tail. Simply resolved by keeping the knife blade flush with the tail.

Thanks, just need to practice a few more!

Use a marking awl - line is fine and won't follow the grain as readily as a knife will. Hold it near the end, like you would a pen, but not so close of course that your fingers get in the way.

 

[Jacob]

Blimey this thread has gone off on an interesting tangent!

Just to say my original issue has been resolved, when using the knife to make score the pins, I was angling it slightly thus creating a pin that was wider that the tail. Simply resolved by keeping the knife blade flush with the tail.

Thanks, just need to practice a few more!

Use a marking awl - line is fine and won't follow the grain as readily as a knife will. Hold it near the end, like you would a pen, but not so close of course that your fingers get in the way.

Agree.
In spite of the name a knife is not suitable for marking, except for those rare circumstances where you want an indelible mark. What they are for is cutting a mark (which may or may not be already pencilled in) but only where needed to give a sharp edge to the sawn or chiselled arris - DT and other shoulders being the most obvious places.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Blimey this thread has gone off on an interesting tangent!

Just to say my original issue has been resolved, when using the knife to make score the pins, I was angling it slightly thus creating a pin that was wider that the tail. Simply resolved by keeping the knife blade flush with the tail.

Thanks, just need to practice a few more!

Use a marking awl - line is fine and won't follow the grain as readily as a knife will. Hold it near the end, like you would a pen, but not so close of course that your fingers get in the way.

There are two ways to use a marking knife:

1. The traditional and correct way (because I say so ) is to take a light stroke, and then a couple more light strokes. Do not try to mark deeply on the first stroke - that is how the knife is taken by the grain.

An awl cannot be used when the dovetail socket is narrow (such as "London" dovetails) since the curve to the point prevents it from being used vertically.

2. The second method with a knife is easiest of all - use my blue tape method. A light knife cut severs the tape (and outlines the dovetail). Easy peasy.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jacob]

......
An awl cannot be used when the dovetail socket is narrow (such as "London" dovetails) since the curve to the point prevents it from being used vertically....

Try it - but don't hold it vertically.
Many marking knives are thicker than awls.
If the pin hole is really small I use a thin Xacto type square ended craft knife. Single bevel pushed down with the face is flush with the side of the hole

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

......
An awl cannot be used when the dovetail socket is narrow (such as "London" dovetails) since the curve to the point prevents it from being used vertically....

Try it - but don't hold it vertically.
Many marking knives are thicker than awls.
If the pin hole is really small I use a thin Xacto type square ended craft knife. Single bevel pushed down with the face is flush with the side of the hole

Jacob, you cannot have it both ways if marking the pins from the tails Either use an awl or use a knife. You end up using an Xacto for the very reason I say an awl cannot be used - that is cannot get into small spaced and keep the point against the wall ... wide dovetail, certainly, but nothing that I tend to do.

Detail and dovetail marking knife:

And I do know about scratch awls. Chris Vesper sells one I designed for the purpose of marking (I designed the knife as well) ....

link: https://www.vespertools.com.au/marking- ... cohen-awl/

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Here is a proper, traditional, and thin marking awl. And it is thin enough far enough up its shank to mark London Pattern dovetails off thin drawer sides - typically in the 3/8" thick range. I suspect that the Crown awl is a third of the cost of the Vesper awl, maybe even less.

https://www.amazon.com/Crown-20110-Scra ... B001C009PS

I have no idea what one would use the bulbous and clumsy awl for in Derek's photo - it looks like one designed for leather work. It misses the mark, fairly widely IMO, as a marking awl meant for woodworking.

Leather awls:

https://www.google.com/search?q=leather ... 64&bih=603

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Here is a proper, traditional, and thin marking awl. And it is thin enough to mark London Pattern dovetails off thin drawer sides (where these are found):

https://www.amazon.com/Crown-20110-Scra ... B001C009PS

I have no idea what one would use the bulbous and clumsy awl for in Derek's photo - it looks like one designed for leather work. It misses the mark, fairly widely IMO, as a marking awl meant for woodworking.

Charles, au contraire ... the scratch awl I posted is designed to be held as a pencil.

P-l-e-a-s-e tell me how you would hold the one you linked to ...

THAT is one for leather work!

Regards from Perth

Derek