Replies

1. 
   Lataxe | May 24, 2009 05:14pm | #1

   The two drawer fronts are made from one lightish-coloured piece of QS oak, so they match, whilst their handles are made from a couple of bits of brown oak, for contrast.

   First the drawer fronts are carefully planed to be an exact fit in the drawer 'oles.

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   I had single-fielded the drawer fronts (like the apron panels of the rest of the table) but decided at the last minute to do the Gomson-style double fielding on the drawer fronts.  The wood is straight-grained and neither rising not falling in these fronts so the LN140 coped with no tear out. 

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   The cross-grain ends were done with knife and chisel.

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   I made up the handle design as none of the Cotswold-style A&C handles that I know about seemed to match the size of these wee drawers.  (There may be an appropriate design somewhere but I ain't spotted it yet).  I bandsawed out two blanks, first, of what looked to be around a proportionate size.

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   These were then had-at with a gouge, to make a finger-dents on top & bottom but also some decorative and tactile edge scallops.

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   Finally the handles were located (with the aid of dowel-centres and the drillpress) using 6mm dowels, although the glued long-grain to long-grain join of handle to drawer front will be plenty strong.

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   Next post: the drawer sides.

   Lataxe

1. 
   Lataxe | May 24, 2009 06:11pm | #2

   Now the drawer sides.  First job is the measure their required height directly from the table carcase, placing the bottom-runners on the table's drawer-runners to represent the bottom-thickness.

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   The drawer sides (already prepared over-size from 11mm thick QS stock) are then cut on the TS to exact length/width and height + 1mm.  The 1mm allows the DTs to be made with 0.5mm projection of the tails and pins whilst the extra 1mm height allows the top-edge of the drawer-sides to be planed for an exact fit in the 'ole once the drawers are assembled.

   The drawer-sides have the tails in their ends.  These can be gang-cut after the thickness of the drawer ends + 0.5mm has been used to set the gauge that knifes the cutting-depth line.

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   Gang cutting is not just quicker but also helps the user to keep the saw at right-angles, as there is a greater width that the saw must span.  Also, the cut goes slower as there is more wood to cut through, which helps avoid over-cutting errors.

   The position of the tails is roughly marked out by eye on the ganged-up ends.  The slope of the tail cuts is also made by eye.  This results in a certain irregularity of the DTs, which is in keeping with the rough nature of this table's design.  No fancy houndsteefs for this item!

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   The waste in then chiopped out with a chisel just a little less wide than the waste-bottom.  The first chopping cut is made with the bevel of the chisel facing out, so the chisel is driven back by the chopping force towards the knife-line.  The chop is repeated on the other side.  A finer chisel (I likes Blue Spruce with its sharp aris) is then used to pare to the line and to clean out the corners.

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   A sacrificial board is placed between the bench-top and the workpiece, to avoid through-chops or vigorous pares mucking up the benchtop.

   The tails are then used to to mark out the pins, in traditional style.  Note that fine wee marking knife, which is an excellent item made by no other than our own Derek Cohen.  It is even smaller and finer than a Blue Spruce knife so is ideal for these small DTs.

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   Now, the pins must be marked and cut accurately to get a good joint.  Ideally the saw will cut exactly enough so that no paring of the DT walls is needed.  I use a very, very good Wenzloff DT saw, which will follow a knife line once started.  To help it start aright, I like to open up the knife lines on the ends of the boards to be cut, to give the saw a bit of a guiding wall as the cut is begun.

   If a chisel is carefully placed in the original knife line (bevel away from the waste so the chisel gets pushed into the waste rather than the pin, when hit) a wee smack with a light mallet opens up the knifeline just enough.

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   The pin waste is chopped and pared out, as with the tail waste, except that a chisel much narrower than the pin waste is used, from the wide-side first.  After making a similar chop on the reverse (narrow-bit-of-the-waste) side the corners are cleaned out using a sharply-arised Blue Spruce chisel held at the same angle as the pin-walls.

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   Those careful sawcuts on the pins should now yield a joint that will go together first time, with no paring of the walls but with a good, tight fit.  The fit can be checked with a partial insertion; although it's best not to fully dry-fit then disassemble the joint as this can cause a tail-snap or other disaster.

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   Next post: assembly/fitting of the drawer and a bit of joint tidying up.

   Lataxe

1. 
   Lataxe | May 24, 2009 06:55pm | #3

   Now all the parts are made for the drawers, they can be assembled, fitted into the drawer 'oles and given a final tidy-up.  First the parts are glued together, with every squish-clamp to be found about the shed.

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   It's important that the drawer sides are just inboard of the drawer-bottom runners, all-round.  If the drawer sides are not absolutely square they will try to project beyond the bottom, which would mean the drawer couldn't go down the 'ole. 

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   The sides of the drawer-front, when it is glued on to the drawer carcase, must also be exactly in line with the bottom-runner edges.

   Those pins (and the tails) were made flush from their 0.5mm projection using a min Marcou low angle BU plane, always moving from the edge towards the middle of the piece.

   Once assembled, the top edges of the drawer are carefully planed until the drawer fits perfectly down it's 'ole in the table.  Use of another mini Marcou plane (a standard 45 degree smoother) means that the shavings can be taken very accurately from those narrow drawer sides. And the corners, where the grain of drawer side & back are at right angles to each other, will not be messed up with an inadvertent swoosh across the grain, which is always possible if a larger, heavier plane is used for this purpose.

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   Eventually, the drawer will be a perfect fit, with no slop but no sticking or dangling out the hole when fully opened either.

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   Now, sometimes the DT cutting is not quite purfek.  Of course, I never make mistakes myself <G> but here is a "deliberate" gappy joint to show how it can be easily and strongly fixed by using veneer of the same timber to fill the gap.  The veneer is 0.4 - 0.6mm thick.  It can be scraped to be thinner.  Using a dry piece to test the fit, one may scrape until a piece goes down the gap.

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   Gaps of varying width in the joint may all be so-stuffed.  The grain of the veneer is in line with the grain of the pin so, with added glue, will form a bond as strong as that which would have formed beween a perfectly fitting tail and pin.  Once the veneer is in place, bend it to and fro until it snaps off level with the joint.  When it's dry, chisel-off any sticky-out bits and the joint will look very neat, as well as being strong.

   With fibrous wood like this oak, another cosmetic issue is corners that may break off tail or pin.  It is hard to avoid some degree of this with oak (although avoiding dry fitting then disasembly helps).  However, the chipped-off fibres at the corner can be disguised with a bit of hard wax having the same colour (or a shade darker).

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   I used to use a kitchen blow torch to heat an artist's pallet knife, but this could burn the wax and blacken the fix a bit.  I've since discovered this magic wee tool, which is a tiny heated spatula, heated to just the right temperature to melt hard wax, using one AA battery in the handle.  The "heat-me-up" trigger is sprung so it can't accidentally stay on to drain your battery.

   Incidentally, no sarky comments about them too-narrow tails and too-thick pins.  Everyone can make mistakes!  :-)

   Finally, here is a blurry pic of the finished table.  Not quite finished as there is a bit more oiling here and there to do, as well as the buttoning-on of the top and a final wax-polish with a brush.  Sexy pikshers, in a day or three, of the finished item.

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   Lataxe

    

1. 
   [email protected] | May 24, 2009 08:32pm | #4

   Thanks. Posts like this, are a big part of why I continue to wander back here.

2. 
   derekcohen | May 24, 2009 09:46pm | #5

   Sir L

   That is not only a splendid table, but also a wonderful set of pictures.

   A question about the dovetails. I note the even spacing (.. it had me wee mind confused for a short while ..). Is this the way they were set out traditionally, compared with the more London shape and wider spacing?

   Jetlaggedly yours

   Derek

1. 
   Shoemaker1 | May 24, 2009 10:16pm | #6

   Nice narrative, good pics, great table. How many trolls can one drawer hold? not big enough for a bootle of grog.

2. 
   Lataxe | May 25, 2009 12:47am | #8

   Derek,

   "A question about the dovetails. .... Is this the way they were set out traditionally, compared with the more London shape and wider spacing"?

   That DT spacing is the new Lataxe Cotswold reinterpretation style.  :-) 

   There was an aside in the Edward Barnsley biography that I read concerning the contrast between fatter and evenly-sized tails/pins in the Cotswold school agricultural pieces (those in oak) with the near-to-houndstooth DTs on their refined pieces (those of walnut and ebony).  Even the Gimson/Barnsley agricultural DTs look rather "neat" to my eye, compared with their rougher chip carving and drawknife chamfers, so I deliberately made the DTs on my hayrake in a rather "crude" shape.

   This is not to say that the DTs are ill-fitting or bodged.  They fit like a chicken's top lip but are not finely measured in spacing or slope.  I'm hoping this blends with the rest of the table's consciously-rough (but strong) handmade construction approach.

   I suppose I'll have to make summick with great pointy houndsteef now, in contrasting timbers, just to prove I can.  :-/

   ****

   I have one plane that could be called a rabbeter (ie with a fence and a nicker): the LN140 skew blockplane.  With it's low angle blade, this cuts OK with well-behaved flat or rising grain; but it tears out with anything else.  To go both ways in a rabbet, or to deal with LH and RH rabbets, one needs another such plane with the nicker and fence on the opposite side.

   But an LN140 is also limited in it's reach - wide rabbets beyond about one & a bit inches are not possible.  Aso, there is no depth-stop.  So, I keep drooling over that pair of new LV rabbet planes.  Not to mention their plough plane (my Mujingfang is not that hot).  Also an LV router plane, for all those tenons.

   Mind, a router can do all those things in about 56.8 seconds.  However, it makes them much too well and they have that precision look.  :-)

   Now, Mr Marcou could possibly sell me a pair of rabbet planes and other exotica that he might make, despite the few pence more they will cost over them LVs.  But I suspect he is busy making minis and battleships, like those in the pickshers.

   Lataxe.

3. 
   boilerbay | May 24, 2009 11:03pm | #7

   Lataxe,Great set of shots. Your moving right up there with Samson. A very handsome and complex effort. Well done. Also the photo quality has noticeably improved.About those duplicate shoulder planes...wouldn't that mean duplicates of some of the Marcous? Speaking of the Marcous, is that the new "Bismark" in photo "Fitdrawerfrontexactly-2.jpg"?Boiler