Tambour cabinet

[Droogs]

Is that the interlocking hip joint bit set kind of thing? The problem with them is that they do not allow for a smooth flat surface when the tambour is closed. They leave both a gap and a radiused edge to both edges of the slat.

 

[gasman]

I guy I follow on Instagram, Phillip Morley (English, now in US) has just made a tambour cabinet with the tambour on the outside. I think there's some WIP shots on his feed. I contacted him once and he replied, so he may be able to help you.
Here's a link to his stuff Phillip Morley

Thanks Neil very much for that link to Philip Morley - he makes some nice stuff
That tambour wall cabinet is interesting but the tambours run inside the cabinet not outside. It looks like he cut all those slats in solid hardwood, then shaped the ends of all of them, then glued veneer on to the front of each, before splitting off very carefully each one with a sharp blade. It looks like he might have had a total of 40 slats for both sides - and I got the impression from the feed that it was a hassle. The problem I have is that I will have 5 times that number of slats. There are 2 tambours, each needing to be 1600mm long - so with >100 slats in each.Im not sure I am patient enough to do everyone individually like he did. I have got a piece of marine plywood to play with now so will see how that looks
Thanks recipio for the cutter suggestion. I have seen those before but I don't think they will work with a veneered slat like I want - you would presumably have to cut away yet more of the veneer on the convex surface

 

[Inspector]

When in my early 20s I was working in my fathers repair and refinishing business and an unusual roll top desk came in. It had a layered construction for the tambours. The slats were made of a plain wood glued to the back of the canvas and beveled to travel in the curved slots. The show veneer was glued to the front of the canvas, dark I think. So a slat, canvas, veneer sandwich. I can't remember if the veneer was solid or a thin plywood but it was only at most 2 mm thick. It gave a relatively smooth surface on both inside and outside curves and showed off the Rosewood nicely without gaps. This was the 4th type of tabour I saw come through there. The others being slat on canvas, fine cable through holes in the slats and the interlocking ball and socket type already mentioned.

Pete

 

[gasman]

Thanks Pete
I would be concerned about this flimsy Spanish walnut veneer that I have already bought being attached directly to canvas - I think it needs to be on solid wood or plywood
My maths not so good - the two tambours will be 1000mm long not 1600 - so about 130 slats in total but still alot!

 

[Cabinetman]

I don’t want to be thought of as P..... in the soup, but have you considered how much force you’re going to need to push 1000 mm of wood around a groove like that? I’m glad it’s not 1600 or I think you would’ve really had a problem. Ian

 

[Inspector]

A friend of mine made a stereo cabinet about 6 feet long, almost 2 metres, that was two record albums high. The tambours met in the middle and don't take much effort to slide open and close. Paraffin wax the ends of the tambours and groove and they slide fine. I made the mistake with my first tamboured cabinet for wine with the tambours horizontal. Lift it a little past half way and gravity took over and flipped it open with a scary bang. My next one was horizontal. ☺ I can post a couple pictures of the first but don't have any of the second if wanted.

Pete

 

[recipio]

Is that the interlocking hip joint bit set kind of thing? The problem with them is that they do not allow for a smooth flat surface when the tambour is closed. They leave both a gap and a radiused edge to both edges of the slat.

The Armana bits ? I agree they are OK for a Rolltop desk but not for the Porritz type cabinet. They also seem to fit totally into a groove with no tenons so will ride on the base of the groove. Not that I've got a set.

 

[gasman]

So more experimentation - I glued up a piece of 9mm marine ply and cut that up - and to be honest it is so obvious in the gaps because of the inherent 'stripiness' of plywood. It also was rough and not possible to plane very smoothly. Then I tried a piece of 10mm teak and glued veneer to that - but I did it by glueing the individual pieces to the veneer - using a thin payer of plastic between adjacent pieces. It worked so well - the plastic came out easy when the glue was dry and then with a new scalpel blade it was very easy to cut the veneer between adjacent pieces and separate the slats

I put a coat of osmo on it including the wood in the gaps and it looked so much better - so this is how I am doing the slats - just need to perfect how to mount the tambour now

 

[Inspector]

Pre-cut the tabs on the end of each slat and line everything in a glueing frame, holding the slats together and down along the edges with a board and screws, then glue the canvas on, holding back from the tabs a touch. Once the canvas is glued and dry you can take a sharp knife and score through the canvas and peel off the waste. If the slats are tight together and you don't go crazy with glue they won't stick together.

Pete

I'm not wild about seeing the plywood layers in the open slats and would consider solid wood for the slats in that area.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Then I tried a piece of 10mm teak and glued veneer to that - but I did it by glueing the individual pieces to the veneer - using a thin payer of plastic between adjacent pieces. It worked so well - the plastic came out easy when the glue was dry and then with a new scalpel blade it was very easy to cut the veneer between adjacent pieces and separate the slats

Hmm? It looks like you're moving to a methodology very similar to that which I suggested in my first post, i.e., set out staves held square on a base board and veneer the whole surface as if it's one panel. The reason I suggested it was because I'd employed it myself, not for making tambour staves, but for making stacked doors for various tall units, e.g., wardrobes or closets in which two or three veneered doors one above the other sat alongside full length doors where the veneer's long grain of all the door ran vertically. I've also used the same technique where drawer fronts stacked one above the other, again with the veneer's grain running vertically. In these instances cutting the veneer between the panels after glue-up meant knifing across the grain (easily done with care), which I suspect is what you'll do because as I read it you plan to have you're long veneer grain running horizontally.

I still think your staves need to be 12 mm or greater thick, especially if your plan is to cut a slot at each end of the staves to accommodate a brass bar set into a matching groove, curved at two corners, in the top and base of the cabinet. And again, I do somewhat question the wisdom of using 3 mm thick brass for this because of the greater wear factor compared to thicker material, e.g., 6 mm thick brass. But if you used 6 mm brass you'd also need to increase the thickness of the staves so that the slots at the stave ends didn't leave too fragile a tongue on both the inside and outside faces: thicker staves equals more weight which is undesirable. Of course you could, as I suggested, work a 6 mm tongue on the end of each stave to run in a top and bottom groove. Both methods for carrying the tambour around corners will work, so it's just a case of getting the balance between aesthetics and practicality right. Slainte.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I made the mistake with my first tamboured cabinet for wine with the tambours horizontal. Lift it a little past half way and gravity took over and flipped it open with a scary bang.

That configuration is similar to the drinks cabinet below. I anticipated the gravity problem you described and built in a hidden pair of sprung loaded pistons or rods at either end hidden at the back to engage with the last stave of the tambour as it opened. It cushioned the opening of the tambour as it approached fully open, and provided just enough upward lift at closure that little or no effort was required in the first 200 mm or so of travel. Actually, it still works effectively. I know because I made the piece for my parents early in my career out material that came off their property, and then it came back to me after they'd both died. Don't be fooled by the date on the photographs - I simply had the opportunity to photograph the piece again nearly thirty years after I built it, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[Inspector]

Nicely done. I should have used a counterweight or spring of some sort but it was a first for me and I didn't have much room behind to fit it anyway. The next was nicer and solved the problem with the tambour sliding side to side.

In the third picture you can see the tabs on the slats are offset to the back of the tambour slats to bring it more to the front. To make the slats I had several white oak boards, planed to size. I then jointed both edges and ripped off the two slats on the table saw and repeated until I had enough plus a few spares. Both machines were left running while I switched back and forth. It was the easiest way to get clean faces and edges while handling larger stock. I could have done the sanding and edge breaking before cutting for the same reasons. The sawn faces got the canvas glued to them. This one was made about 40 years ago and my buddy has it. He sent me the pictures three years ago.

Pete

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Nicely done. I should have used a counterweight or spring of some sort but it was a first for me and I didn't have much room behind to fit it anyway. The next was nicer and solved the problem with the tambour sliding side to side.

That's an attractive cabinet. I can see how that tambour could possibly take off and crash to its fully open position, and then be heavy at the early stage of closing. Apart from counterweights or springs to alleviate the problem I'm aware of pulley systems using springs and wire that spans and crosses the width of the cabinet to help with vertically moving tambours. Unfortunately I can't recall exactly how that sort of system is configured, but it, along with the potential solutions you mentioned might have been appropriate if you'd had enough space at the back to work one of those solutions into the construction.

We all live and learn; I've never got to the point where I can anticipate and avoid all errors of judgement or mistakes. I screw up far less often than I used to though, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[gasman]

Thanks both of you for your various replies - had a busy week so not much done in the workshop this week. However, I glued up 8 slats with veneer on solid wood and rebated the veneer sides of both ends to create a tongue on the end of each slat to run in a groove on the cabinet as suggested by you both.
I did some basic geometry to work out how wide the groove needed to be based on the variables of the radius of curvature of the corner of the cabinet and the width of each tongue. Eventually after some trial and error, I worked out with a radius of curvature of the corners of 60mm, and by shortening the woods of each tongue to 12mm, the groove would only need to be 0.5mm wider than the thickness of the tongue.

Anyway it all worked out OK and I then had a trial cabinet which slid reasonably even without any finish or wax on the tambour or groove.

So having decided on 60mm radius of curvature of the corners, and with a final cabinet size of 400 deep x 1200mm wide, that means that the width of the veneered MDF sections of the top and bottom is 400 - 2 x 60 = 280mm, and the length is 1200 - 2x60 = 1080mm.
I cut 2 pieces of 18mm MDF 1080 x 280 and then made up a quarter-matched veneer of burr walnut veneers that size. I'm sure the purists will be horrified that this is actually made up from 8 leaves of veneer as none of my veneers were long enough to do it in only 4 sections. However, I think the joins will be hard to see and it will look bookmatched. I will see how it looks when it comes out of the vacuum bag later. Cheers

 

[Droogs]

hope all goes well

 

[gasman]

It's been slow going. Work, family stuff etc etc
However finally some progress this week...
I finished veneering the 2 MDF boards making up the centre part of the top and bottom of the cabinet. Only the top has the quarter matched burr walnut - the other side of the top and the two faces of the bottom are plain straight-grained walnut veneer

Then started thinking about the base and I made several versions of the base in scrap pine to try and get the right proportions for the 4 corner pieces and rails. I finally settled on this - there is a 60mm radius curve on the outside of the corner to match the curve of the tambour going round the corners - and 50mm rails with curves to soften the corners. It is similar to the Poritz piece I showed the photo of earlier.

The nicest piece of walnut was this piece which measured 120 x 40 x 1000mm and I realised if I was careful I could get all four legs out of it - but it was a bit of a struggle and made things harder I think. SO here it is cut in half - then each of these was just long enough to get two legs out of.

The 60mm radius curves I had to shape by hand plane and then sand to final shape.

The inside curved surfaces of the legs were done on the bandsaw then planed / sanded / scraped to size. The legs taper very slightly down to the bottom where the curved surface is 50mm wide. It all worked out reasonably and I ended up with 4 legs roughly cut to size

Finally last night I tidied up one of the legs using a drum sander and hand plane

I apologise for taking so long but I think this will take weeks and weeks to do as Im having to make it up as I go along.
Cheers Mark

 

[Fitzroy]

I saw this thread at the start but only just dropped back into it. What a great read, really interesting and well documented to see your thought process and the evolution of the piece. Brilliant work, looking great and keep going can’t wait to see the progress.
Fitz.

 

[gasman]

I made more progress over the weekend.
finished the four legs

Then started on the rails...
These are 32x50 section walnut but the ends need to be 60mm deep to match the the curved section of the corner piece. So for the shorter end pieces I did these by making them 60x32 and cutting them on the bandsaw. Then I domino’d the joint and clamped it up

Then I started cleaning up the curves with rasp, scraper, gouges and sandpaper

It says I’ve run out of space for images so I’ll continue in the next
Cheers Mark

 

[gasman]

After finishing the ends I started work on the sides and cheated a bit because I cut and glued small pieces of grain matched walnut to complete the corner curves so that I could cut the long rails at 32x50 rather than 32x60. Glued and clamped it all up then spent a good whole cleaning up those corner curves

so that was my back done in for now
More later cheers Mark

 

[gasman]

Next instalment... I added corner braces to the frame to strengthen it as the 2 x 10mm domino in each corner joint would be under considerable stress

Then started work on the mitred edge pieces for the top and bottom part of the cabinet. I cut them roughly on the table saw then tidied up on the shooting board

The side pieces were attached with 5mm dominoes.

I always find glue ups a bit frantic but this wasn't too bad

Same for the top of the cabinet - here's the trial clamping to check all the mitre joints are tight enough

So I went ahead and glued the top up as well

I decided the top needed a crisp black line around the burr walnut centre piece. This was 2.7mm ebony inlaid into a 2.7mm router-cut slot

Last job of the day was to trim the corners roughly to a 60mm radius to fit with the corners of the base unit. They will be trimmed in due course with a flush-trim router bit when it arrives!

So... I feel like I have 2 major parts left to do - first the tambours and the grooves in the top and bottom for them - and second the central cabinet. Both have tricky aspects in my opinion. The tambours are going to be fiddly to make obviously - but I have to decide whether to rebate the edges of the top and bottom parts of the cabinet (which are a fraction over 19mm thick at the moment) so that only 10mm of top or bottom are visible from the side - this is my preferred option as I think 19mm will look too chunky but it makes the groove for the tambours harder to cut as it must be much deeper and I don't have a CNC machine so it will have to be done sequentially, a little deeper each pass with a router using a 2-point fence to go round the corners. That creates lots of opportunities for me to c**k it up
The central cabinet also has its problems - in particular whether to make it standalone - ie with top, bottom, sides and back - and then attach the veneered top and bottom I have already made to it - or whether to just make the sides and back of the drawer cabinet and use the top and bottom I have already made as the top and bottom if that makes sense? This has advantages - it will make the whole thing lighter, create more space inside and save me wood - but it will obviously be harder to locate accurately and to attach the sides and back to the veneered top and bottom respectively
Thanks for looking and always happy to receive comments or criticism
Cheers
Mark