Comments

1. 
   BenchMarc | Nov 16, 2014 03:18pm | #1

   Hi Ralph! I love the design. Like you, I have an appreciation for Greene & Greene, and my current piece will reflect that. But what interests me most about this nightstand is your panel door construction. I had attempted a similar design on a bookcase that can be found on my member page. The main difference is that I chose to cross the door rails over the ends of the door stiles. My, rationale at the time, was that this would be a more stable construction than to have extremely short top rails. I just figured that the nearly full-length slip tenons I used to join the doors would mitigate any significant movement. In the intervening years, the doors have held up well; no twist. But they do move as the humidity rises in the spring and summer. My center gap diminishes more at the top than at the bottom. I am curious to know how your doors will move with changes to humidity, and whether you had any theories or hard knowledge about this particular construction detail. Mine was an experiment that mostly worked. Although I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me that those reveals - which were once perfectly uniform - have changed. All that aside, your work is very clean and nicely proportioned.

2. 
   Ralph Kolva | Dec 01, 2014 07:57pm | #2

   Thanks for the feedback BenchMarc.

   The door stiles and rails are bridle joints so the rails are a good bit longer than they appear and have a good area of glue surface. Most of the joinery on the case is slip/loose tenon with the mortises cut on my router table with a Paolini type xy table and the router mounted on a vertical plate.

   So far with our low humidity here in Colorado the gaps have been OK, they do tighten up a smidge but not bind. If I ever send a piece like this to Houston I'll have to do some adjusting and maybe bring a humidifier into the shop. The only movement I have in the doors are the stiles (outside of the floating panels) and calculating max movement it's only about 1/16". Could do better if I used quarter saw stock. All the other panels are floating with space balls in the dado.

   I love the Art Nouveau case, fantastic work!

3. 
   BenchMarc | Dec 20, 2014 01:26am | #3

   Interesting. I didn't know what it was called, but a bridle joint is what I used on the bookcase to join the lower case center stiles with the lower rails. Yeah, it seems that glue surface area - in either construction - is an important element. One thing I wish I had done was to back-chamfer the lower door edges. They only bind on each other, in the summer, if you try and close both doors simultaneously.

   With the exception of the walnut center stiles, my doors are plain-sawn mahogany that I veneered (inside and out) with much fancier 1/16" Sapele. I agree that it would have been a smarter move to use quarter-sawn stock. At the time, though, I was just scrounging what was available to me, in the way of odds and ends.

   I have to say that I found the slip-tenon joinery to be a very nice way of putting the bookcase together. It simplified the mating of curved joints tremendously.

   Thanks for getting back to me. I look forward to seeing your future projects!

4. 
   LouisCKnutson | Mar 05, 2016 06:41am | #4

   Beautiful woodwork! and what an imagination!

5. 
   MargieJRichey | Mar 08, 2016 12:40pm | #5

   Great finishing touch.

6. 
   RonaldCNewby | Mar 14, 2016 10:57am | #6

   Amazing wood craft.