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The Editors Mailbox

The life and times of a Fine Woodworking photo prop

Matthew Kenney, senior editor

12 users recommend

Three board cabinet. The case parts and door frame came from one board. The door panel from a second and the drawer fronts from a third.

Matt Kenney

Poplar interior. I wanted the inside to be a bit bright, so I made poplar shelves and used poplar for the back. I wish I had used something like Alaskan yellow cedar instead.

Matt Kenney

Dovetail spacing. This is how I do mine. It's the inverse of what you usually see: small tails on edges and bigger ones in the middle. I like my way.

Matt Kenney

Cocobolo pulls. I know the cabinet has a Shaker feel to it, but it's not a Shaker cabinet. So, I went with a contemporary shape for the pulls. They are very comfortable regardless of how you grasp them.

Matt Kenney

Hey, that's my cabinet. This is a shot from the Stowe article. Kelly Dunton is routing hinge mortises in the cabinet.

Matt Kenney

I've seen that door before. Here, Kelly is marking the cabinet and door so that he can rout hinge mortises in both.

Matt Kenney

Familiar drawer. This is the top drawer from the cabinet. I'm putting on some shellac. This was taken while Kelly and I were shootng photos for a Q&A about finishing drawer parts.

Kelly Dunton

Three board cabinet. The case parts and door frame came from one board. The door panel from a second and the drawer fronts from a third.

Photo: Matt Kenney

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There is no doubt that the primary responsibility of my job here at Fine Woodworking is editing, and the majority of my time is taken up by all that it entails (I won't bore you with the details). However, I do get to do some woodworking as part of my job. Sometimes I write articles and sometimes I end up making props for photos. This cherry cabinet is an example of that. I made it to serve as a prop for an article written by Doug Stowe. Typically, we travel to the author's shop for the photographs, but for that article I didn't. Art Editor Kelly Dunton and I did the photos in the FWW shop. After that it sat around my office for quite a while. I really didn't need it at home. And, more importanly, it could be used again for other articles. For example, the drawers showed up in a Q&A for FWW #222. And I have afeeling that it's been used by others for even more articles (I just can't remember what right now.). At any rate, I got tired of seeing it in my office, so I finished it (using Mike Pekovich's finish, which is very nice), turned some pulls, and now I'm going to hang it in the dining room at home.

PS: When it comes to padding on shellac, don't follow the photos that were used for that Q&A. Instead, check out what Peter Gedrys does (he's the man when it comes to finishing).

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Comments (4)

MKenney writes: Thanks for the nice comments. It is fairly large. (Kelly isn't as tall as I am, but he's certainly not tiny!) All of the case joint are dowel joints. I did it that way for a couple of reasons. First, I'd never done it before and I wanted to see how it worked. It turned out to be very easy and plenty strong enough. (If it's good enough for Krenov, it's good enough for me.) Normally, I attach an overhanging top/bottom with a sliding dovetail. Second, I was in a hurry, and it's a fast joint.

And pitbull, I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes the DT spacing.
Posted: 9:39 am on January 19th

joemcglynn writes: Nice looking cabinet! It's bigger than I thought at first, the picture of the mortises being routed inside the case shows the scale pretty well. Unless you have tiny people pose for pictures.

Are the top and bottom put together with dowels?
Posted: 4:31 pm on January 17th

joemcglynn writes: Nice looking cabinet! It's bigger than I thought at first, the picture of the mortises being routed inside the case shows the scale pretty well. Unless you have tiny people pose for pictures.

Are the top and bottom put together with dowels?
Posted: 4:29 pm on January 17th

pitbully writes: Hi Mathew, great looking cabinet. I love
the way you layed out the dovetails (I
can see them being used quite a lot in
future). And the drawer pull is a very,
very neat idea. :0)
Posted: 12:27 pm on January 17th

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