Restoration of a pair of late 19th century chairs

These chairs were seriously damaged by a plumbing accident while my client was out of the country. Pipes burst upstairs in a home and leaked continuously for over a week. The house needed to be gutted and the chairs which were covered in marquetry were severely damaged. The veneer was as brittle as dry leaves on a cold winter day. There were also significant losses. The images below show the extent of damage and some of the techniques involved in restoring these two chairs.

Restored armchair. 

Restored side chair. 

Severely damaged seat rail veneer. Delaminated, completely brittle and suffering some losses. 

Regluing the seat rail. Note the complete marquetry losses to the side of the front leg and large parts of the arm of the chair. 

The same seat rail reglued, patched with early stages of finish applied.

Damaged armchair with the side of the front leg mostly patched. 

Another view of the armchair showing how I puzzled the broken pieces of the leg veneer together. Many of the flowers were missing and needed to be made by me.  

Patched and in the process of finishing. 

Making pieces of the banding.  

Sand shading the pieces. 

An assortment of pieces ready to go. 

The effect once fitted together.  

Patching the back of a leg at floor level. 

Patching a loss on the arm.  

The side chair when it arrived.  

Restoration of a late 18th Century Chest of Drawers

I've been doing a lot of restoration lately and a recent project of mine was this chest of drawers. I believe that it is English but it could be American. The arguments for it being English are that it has oak drawer sides and it has a veneered perimeter concealing the joinery of the drawer dividers. The arguments for it being American are that the dovetails aren't very delicate, not at all the refined pins of an English piece. The pulls have American motifs including E Pluribus Unum on the ribbon held by the eagle and 13 stars above the eagle. The brasses are replaced so it may mean nothing. The drawer bottoms are pine or deal depending on which country you attribute it to. 

I repositioned the drawer dividers, replaced the drawer runners, patched many veneer losses, replaced missing cockbeading, repositioned the drawer bottoms, filled shrinkage cracks, replaced a missing escutcheon and installed an antique lock in the upper center drawer, polished the brasses, colored repairs,  repaired large areas of bleaching and polished with shellac and wax. Images of the project are below. 

Restored chest. 

Before restoring.  

Damaged perimeter with drawer dividers protruding from the frame and damaging the veneer. Drawers are missing cockbeading.  

Protruding divider. 

Damage on the other side. 

Restored perimeter on the left side.  

Restored right side. 

Front right before.  

Right front after.  

Veneer losses to the base.  

Restored base. 

Bleached side, broken and missing veneers around the top and perimeter of front.  

Restored side. 

Drawer pull back plate with eagle, 13 stars and E Pluribus Unum on the ribbon.  

Breakfront Bookcase Final Work .

Since my last entry I have molded the shelf fronts, made the cornice , installed the pulls , catches and glass. My client ended up choosing a lighter finish than I had originally envisioned. I designed the moldings on the doors, frames and cornice with the idea of dark wax highlighting the individual shapes. In the end we are doing a light amber finish reminiscent of Pugin furniture. At least that's how I decided to look at it. I try to be historically accurate about things like construction techniques, materials and finishes so in my opinion this is a color that you wouldn't see until the 1830's .  I did however add some book slides that I borrowed from a French bureau plat design, so I'm not exactly making an identical reproduction.  I also want to make the client what they want so here it is. I'm actually learning to like the color more and more. I'm setting up for the final photos for the website. This is a huge disruption to my workshop because benches need to be moved and there are about ten pieces of furniture in the room. Trying to avoid the chaos of the shop showing up in the reflection of the glass will be a challenge. I still need to fill it with furniture books for the final photographs. Images below will show some of the progress with explanations. 

This shows me molding the front edge of the bookshelves by hand with a homemade scratch stock. 

Molded edge completed.

This shows the completed cornice. There are five different molding shapes that had to follow the projecting breakfront shape. Each molding custom made but many of the profiles are from Chippendale's Director. 

Once completed the whole thing had to be disassembled for finishing. I used different grades of shellac applied with a pad and brush for the moldings. 

This is the upper left side showing rather nice figure in the oak. 

The lower section reassembled with the waist molding and sliding mechanism. 

A view of the waist molded area with the right slide partially pulled out. You can see how each box was hand dovetailed and the nice figure of the oak. 

Pulls and catches installed. 

Molding to support the glass being fit. 

Here I'm installing the glass and gluing in the molding. I'm using a technique I learned from my life as a guitar maker to clamp the small bits of molding. The horizontal sticks are "go" sticks. They are slightly longer than the space between the stiles and are wedged into place. Once the glue is dry they are removed.

Glass installed and awaiting final assembly. 

Here's the bookcase sitting on photographic paper. I need to fill it with books, then get the tripods to support the paper above the top and hopefully get some decent photographs.  

Installing shelf pins in oak breakfront bookcase

In an effort to make a bookcase that allows for easy access of books and doesn't damage them as they are put in and pulled out I'm inlaying the shelf pins. These pins were cast in England and look like proper 18th century hardware. These guys use the proper ratio of copper and zinc. Many brasses look inappropriate for furniture made to high standards and ultimately detract from the overall project. I'll show the process below. It took many hours (about two days for all the shelves) but it will ultimately be worth it.

The shelf pin shown here as you can see looks pretty good.

Laying out the pin for inlaying. 

Setting in with chisels and a gouge. 

First pass. 

Setting the depth with a small router plane. 

Laying out the shelf pin to inlay into the end grain. 

Inlaid pin.  

Shelf pin installed and flush with the shelf bottom and sides. The inner panel is also flush with the frame so that any books won't catch on anything.

Oak Breakfront Sliding Waist Molding

I've been working on the waist moldings and sliding frames the last few weeks. The idea was taken from French bureau plats of the 18th century which is essentially the same time period that I designed this English breakfront. I haven't seen any precedent for this design but it's not an unreasonable idea and it's a good reason to hire me to make a custom piece of furniture. The undulating moldings on the base, waist and cornice definitely slows things down more than I expected. The effect is ultimately nice but each frame takes three times as long than simple rectangular frames. I'll explain the images below.

A very crude scetch of the lower and upper, sliding thumbnail molded frame. 

The waist moldings just placed on the lower section at this point. The frames slide left and right and use the center brace as a stop. 

The center brace is dry fit and removable to insert and remove the sliding frames. 

The brace has a stub tenon and a half lap joint. This reveals an opening for the tongue on the slides to be inserted or removed. 

The tongue for the slide is lined up for removal from the rails. 

One of the sliding frames just before glue up. All mortise and tenon joinery. 

One of the tongues just before gluing into a mortise on a slide. The grain of the tongue needs to be at a right angle to the slide for added strength. 

This image shows how the nicely figured oak slides are cantilevered from long rails that will remain under the upper section of the bookcase. 

Corner detail of bookcase with the upper section in place. The slides are not noticeable. 

Slide partly extended. 

The slides still partly extended will pull out about 20 inches.  

Current state of progress. The cornice needs two more layers of molding before it will be completed. 

Oak breakfront bookcase progress

It's been a couple of months since my last entry about this bookcase. I have been juggling several other projects but I must say that working in quarter sawn oak has proven to slow down the pace of everything. I'm also at a disadvantage because I drew a half scale drawing because of the size of the piece. I usually hand draw full scale drawings with all joinery worked out in advance of making anything. I made the drawing for the client to see and understand the design and I have been making the thing based on the principles of traditional joinery and generally doubling all the dimensions. This has proven to be a problem when it comes to the geometry of the opening of the center door and whether or not it hits the nice pulls that I bought from an English supplier. The projection of the center section neeeded to be considered and the small spacers between the cases had to be adjusted to best deal with the problem. If you study breakfront bookcases they nearly all open doors with a key, not a pull. I have dovetailed and glued all the cases, made all the doors, installed the doors and made the plinth. I've also drilled over 500 shelf holes by hand and partly inlaid the shelf supports into the shelves. I'll explain the images below.

Glueing up the lower cases. 

A simple jig that I made to drill holes for the shelf pins. The hardware is really nice and stout but I had to be really careful not to drill through the sides because there wasn't much clearance. Note that the inside of the panels are flush with the frames so that the books can easily slide in and out without damaging them.

This shows the six cases with the doors attached but no plinth, waist moldings or cornice. I also plan to mold the leading edge of the shelves. 

Part way through dovetailing the back of the base. 

The back of the base dovetailed to the side of the base.

The proper way to glue the miters in the front of the base. I've glued the off cuts to the sides of the base to clamp them tight. Once dry, you cut them off and plane them clean.

I made an ogee molding with a fillet sitting on a half round shape right out of Thomas Chippendale's Director. I had to make most of this molding by hand.

The right hand corner detail of the base cabinets on the plinth. 

Lower section on the plinth awaiting the waist moldings. I will make them slide out to the left and right side like a bureau plat. They will be asupport some books or occasionally a small flat screen tv, which the client wanted. 

Making a Louis XVI Bureau Plat

In 2005 I was hired to make a French writing table or desk commonly referred to as a bureau plat. These desks vary greatly in their level of ornament but they usually have a tooled leather top with two leather lined slides on the left and right sides of the piece. They also generally have a wide center drawer with smaller flanking drawers (sometime two and sometimes four). Some have turned legs and some are tapered like this one. My client wanted a fairly restrained one but even so, I did add some bronze belts and brass moldings. It's made of mahogany and mahogany crotch veneers with quarter sawn oak for secondary wood. All the joinery was traditional hand cut dovetails and mortise and tenon where appropriate. I added a few secret compartments for fun. Despite the apparent simplicity of the piece there are a lot of internal parts that need to slide past each other. I've always liked this piece and would love to make some other versions of it someday. I don't have many photos but I have a few and I'm sorry that they were shot on standard film so the quality is less than ideal. I'll include comments with the images.

This is the right side rail. The oak is veneered with the crotch mahogany but it hasn't been framed with solid mahogany yet. It shows the front tenon (to join the leg) and the doubler on the inside that allows for the joinery of the front horizontal framing elements.

The same rail from the other side partially fit together. There are two mortises below and pins cut for two dovetails above. 

The rail and leg assembly with the solid mahogany framing bits being applied. 

This is a view of the back rail before being framed with mahogany. The crotch figure is book matched so that the "feather" points left and right.

Main glue up. 

A detail of the glue up. The piece assembled like a puzzle. The clamp with the red handle is pulling a dovetail joint below closed while pulling a twin tenon above closed. 

A view of the slides extended without the top on. The frames have small tongues that slide in grooves of the oak horizontal rails. 

False drawer back. 

False back folds down to reveal two figured mahogany drawers. They were eventually French polished and fitted with nice pulls. 

Another view of the assembly. I dovetailed the box holding the smaller drawers. The left hand slide was extended so that you can see the mahogany box and drawers. The tops of the twin tenon are also visible and you can see how various elements need to slide past each other at right angles.

A detail view of the finished piece. The leather lined surface on the right drawer slides back for access to the drawer below.

Making a late George III Chair

I was commissioned to build 5 chairs to match a set of George III period chairs a few years ago. I needed to make the chairs using traditional joinery, copy the carving and match the finish. I often refer to them as the Prince of Wales chairs because of the distinctive Prince of Wales plume carved on the splat. It's a common decorative motif of the period and was used in different applications (above mirrors for example). I've seen one or two versions of this model of chair in auction catalogues over the past 20 years. I like to make a set of chairs from the same board when ever possible for consistency of color and grain. I often make an extra chair if I can to work out details and I either offer it to the client (for sale) or keep it. They usually buy the extra one. I'll show some of the stages of construction with descriptions below.

These are the front leg blanks with mortises cut and the depth cut for the fillet detail on the spade foot

After tapering the legs I use a cutting guage to mark the recessed field of the legs. 

I use a gouge and various hand tools to flatten the recessed field and define the beads at the edges of the legs.

I'm nesting the rear posts for the chairs out of a single 8/4 piece of genuine mahogany. The plywood template was made from my drawings.

I lay out the chair posts left and right essentially bookmatching them at the top of the post closest to your eye to maximize the symmetry of the posts on the finished chairs. 

Fairing the rear posts with a spokeshave.

Glueing up the rear seat rail and the bottom of the splat.

The mortise and tenon joint that connects the rear posts to the crestrail.

I'm using a spokeshave to form the curved board that I will use to cut the various parts of the splat.

A process shot of carving the Prince of Wales plume. I have cut the recessed field on the crestrail and carved the reeded area on the center element. I left some wood to provide strength while carving the plume.

Carving getting closer but the center "stem" on the left needs to be thinned down and tightened up among other things.

Finished carving detail. 

My chair and an original.

Restoring a Louis XVI side chair

This lovely chair was brought to me because it was particularly wobbly. After a brief inspection it was obvious that the structure of the chair was compromised by powder post betels. I removed the upholstery and found that there were broken tenons and rails. The solution was to make new rails and veneer the old exterior surfaces to make the repairs nearly invisible when completed.

Broken front rail.

Broken tenon where the side rail joins the back.

This shows the extent of damage to the rails. The piece above was sawn off so the I could glue it to a new rail later.

Cutting the angled tenons for the front rail joint. The rear tenons are compound angled.

Tenons cut on the table saw but they still need to be trimmed and fit by hand.

The front and two side rails replaced and veneered with the old molded and beaded exterior rails. The chair was sent to an upholsterer to reattach the original upholstery.

Inlaying a leg for a Baltimore card table in the manner of Levin Tarr

These images and descriptions are of the Baltimore card table I made in 1996 as a student at the North Bennet Street School. As one of my instructors, Will Neptune told me, "Your not hear to make furniture, your hear to learn how to make furniture". This project had a lot of techniques used in Federal Furniture making, bricking veneering, making fans, making bandings, making patera and inlaying everything. Because it was a card table it also had two movable gate legs. This table was based on one from the Kaufman Collection that was in a catalogue from their show at the National Gallery. I learned a great deal on this piece.

This is the finished leg with the bellflowers hanging from the little black and white string a detail that connects the design to the Levin Tarr group. 

This is how I laid out the ebony and holly for the banding that runs along the bottom of the apron and across the legs. 

Glueing the strings around the central ellipse. 

Fitting 8 pieces of tulipwood around the ellipse to provide perpendicular striping. This is then trimmed by eye and wrapped with two more strings. 

Sand shading holly veneer for the petals. 

Cutting the elongated center petals. 

Inlaying the center petals last after inlaying the two flanking petals. This distinguishes Baltimore from Boston where the center petals are inlaid first and are not elongated. 

An assortment of projects over the past 20 years.

I posted a series of what I referred to as odd ball projects on Facebook recently and I thought that some of those images as well as others would show the variety of work that I've done over the years. While I have worked on countless pieces of English, American and French 18th century furniture over the years, a degree of discretion is necessary because the work was done for antique dealers. The work was done to the highest standards but showing someone else's furniture in a state of disrepair needs to be done without hurting anyone's ability to sell an object. For the most part I thought I would post images of projects that were not the ordinary restoration work I do like patching losses, structural work and finish work. With a few exceptions these are non-furniture projects. Many of these images were shot on standard film and not of the highest quality, my apologies for some of them but in most cases they are the only images I have of an unusual project. I thought it might be interesting to see the object despite the less than ideal quality of the photograph. I'll include descriptions with the images. 

This is a set of regimental drums that I restored sitting on a minimal stand that I built. The drums are English and date to the 1850's or so. I worked on several drums like these over the years. 

This early bicycle I believe is French and dates from 1840-1860 . I'm no expert on this subject but that is what I've been able figure out from my modest research. I did some minor restoration to the bicycle and made some ebonized brackets to display it on the wall. 

This is a tabernacle that I built for the Catholic Church to loosely match the oldest tabernacle in the United States. The original is in Maryland and a photograph of it will follow. The clients kept wanting me to water down the design but I really wanted to be fairly accurate. This image shows the piece near completion. I hadn't applied the bronze mounts yet and I still needed to turn a finial to match the original which I also gilded. They had put a drawer pull on top of the dome for some reason. I also turned a series of details above all the capitals. The side opens up to store the objects used for the Eucharist. The key to lock the door can be seen in the photograph.

The original tabernacle sitting in a slightly undignified way, on a filing cabinet in Baltimore. I believe it dates to around 1680. 

A broken pediment for a George III breakfront bookcase. It arrived in a box containing hundreds of pieces.

Repairing the broken fretwork. 

Restored pediment. 

The tallest things I've ever turned are these bedposts for this bed I made 15 years ago. The posts are 8 feet tall and are based on a pattern in Hepplewhite's pattern book. While the painting isn't to my taste, it isn't all that different from the green and white painted furniture that Chippendale made for David Garrick.  

The smallest turning I ever executed was this imitation ivory pull (one of about 4) that I made for a snooker board. I placed a dime in the photo for scale. Something like 5/8 of an inch long by 1/16 of an inch. 

This is one of four feet that I turned and carved for a low bed based on several Indian examples. The form is reminiscent of Indian glass and bidri ware hukah basses of the 18th century.

I made many display stands for a wide variety of objects when I first arrived in California. This one is relatively simple ebonized stand to hold a pierced metal fish ( maybe a weathervane). 

Louis XVI Vanity

In 2015 I was commissioned to build a Louis XVI style vanity by a client that I have worked with many times in the past. I normally wouldn't build a non-moveable piece but my client was very persuasive and I like him a great deal. The piece would be built in every way like an 18th century commode ( an elaborate chest of drawers ) with a few 21st century additions. The case and all the drawers would be dovetailed by hand. The case was made from highly figured maple with all the boards cut from the same tree for consistent color and figure. All the drawer linings and interior parts were made from quarter sawn white oak. No plywood was used at all. The only modern twists were undermounted soft close drawer slides and a waterproof finish. The wood was stained to resemble Harewood and to harmonize with the exceptional tile work in the room.

I started with full scale hand drawings as usual with the main difficulty being to work out the frieze. I needed to base the dimensions of the front and sides on the repeat of the Greek Key pattern so that they would be symmetrical within the metal frames on the frieze. After that was worked out the rest of the drawing was fairly straightforward. 

Hand dovetailed oak drawer side and maple drawer front.

Assortment of nickel plated bronze Greek key, belts and moldings from Paris.

Bronze frames, mounts and escutcheon.

Inlaying the "washboard" detail in one the feet of the chest.

Inlaid feet with sabot attached.

Early stages of the assembled case. The rear pilaster is just held in place by clamps at this stage.

Dry fitting the wooden and metal frames for the drawer fronts.

Detail of the front with wooden and metal frames.

Fitting wooden frames after attaching the rear pilaster. 

Knobs attached and beginning to look like the finished piece.

Inlaying the offset knife hinge for the door. I needed to cut into the bronze belt to properly place the hinge.

The geometry necessary for the side drawer fronts.

The inlaid nickel plated bronze flutes for the pilasters. Because they were plated, I had to fit them perfectly flush by hand while they were raw bronze and then send them back to Paris to be plated.

Detail of the upper side. Note that the grain behind the Greek key runs horizontally.

Side detail with helmet attached.

Nearly ready to deliver, I was cleaning the Greek key as you can see on the right.

Chippendale Pier Table Tops

In 2012 I was commissioned to build a pair of pier table tops to match a photograph. The client had period bases with modern marble tops that were inappropriate and I was hired to make wooden tops. There were a few details about the photograph that were different than many George III pier tables which piqued my interest. The pinwheel detail in the satinwood band, the volute details that sort of frames a palmette inlay connected by a string and the feather inlaid area at the back center of the table top. I did some research on the tops as I worked on the drawings and found that they bear an amazing resemblance to a pair of demilune commode tops made by Thomas Chippendale the "Younger" for Dumfries House in Scotland. Other details like the pinwheels and palmette decoration are found on the satinwood secretaire abattant Thomas Chippendale supplied to Harewood House, probably my favorite house anywhere. 

The drawings were made directly on to a poplar board for two reasons. The first was that because the tops are ellipses rather than semi-circle, it was easier to draw concentric elliptical lines from the solid top than by traditional drafting methods. The second and more easy to explain, was that the client could place the tops on their bases to see how they would look ( they lived in a different state and the top could be mailed to them). I also made a color palate showing how all the different veneer would look under finish. The table was made of sycamore, holly, tulipwood, satinwood, rosewood, dyed green and black veneer. Additionally, almost every piece is sand shaded, engraved or embellished with penwork. There are nearly a thousand pieces of wood in each top.

Freehand drawing of perimeter inlay details on the poplar pattern of the top.

Inlaying the feather detail into the top.

Shaping the sand shaded sycamore fan after veneering the pieces to the mahogany core.

Glueing and clamping holly strings to the edge of the sycamore fan. I made all the strings from solid holly boards because the original strings were thicker than modern veneer.

The largest of the bellflowers being cut to shape in preparation for inlay into sycamore fan. The tip is sand shaded holly.

Layout of bellflowers for future inlay.

Inlaying first bellflower.

Inlaying smaller bellflowers.

Marquetry techniques for the perimeter.

Cutting the palmette detail for the perimeter.

Palmettes and flowers in progress.

Sand shading pinwheel pieces.

Assembling the pinwheels.

Glueing the tulipwood to the perimeter of the top.

Cutting the negative spaces for inlaying the volutes.

Holly strings inlaid and clamped with push pins.

Engraving feather details, note the far right feather has yet to be engraved.

Finished table top on my bench.

An 18th century French hurdy gurdy

I have been lucky enough to have worked on a variety of different things over the years. One project that was a bit different than the usual bit of restoration that I do was this 18th century hurdy gurdy. It has a wheel that is charged with rosin that is cranked by a handle continuously bowing strings similar to a violin. There are drone strings and a keyboard that plays a melody on other strings. This instrument was missing the curved cover over the wheel. I made one to match out of ebony and ivory that I recycled from old piano keys. I inlaid mother of pearl bits to match the rest of the instrument. There were missing violin type keys and a missing ivory detail in the headpiece of the woman at the top of the instrument. I also had to design and build a way to display the piece that would allow a person to easily remove the piece from the stand . I did this by having small dovetailed buttons that could be pulled out when needed. These images are from 2002 like the campaign table in earlier postings and were shot on standard film.

Detail of the curved wheel guard that I made from ebony, ivory (from recycled piano keys) and mother of pearl. 

Imitation ivory inlaid into the headpiece of the woman and a few copies of the violin type keys that I made to match.

An image of the stand and instrument from behind. 

The sliding dovetailed keeper to hold the instrument and that can easily be removed when necessary. 

Restored instrument and stand. 

Some construction details of the Charles Stewart table I made in 2002

When I agreed to make the campaign dining table in the manner of Charles Stewart I worked out most everything from a few photographs. I did manage to get a copy of the patent for the table,  with the help of my client, from the British Museum but it was only modestly helpful. The table dates to 1810 but for some reason the copy of the patent dated to 1840. The conventions of drafting were not standardized at this time and a lot of information was missing.  I made a full scale drawing and a full scale model to work out all the sliding frames and rotating parts. The smartest thing that I did was to make the model out of mahogany because a model made of pine or poplar would never be suitable for making a piece of furniture. This way I would have a second campaign table once the details were worked out. Fifteen years later I still need to finish the second one but I'm still happy that I have it. I have a few images of making the table, unfortunately not many but I thought I would include them here. Images of the completed table are in the previous blog post.

A view of the internal sliding frame assembly necessary to make this table extend and collapse. 

I made a jig to hold a pencil to layout the reeds for the legs. The point of this is to make sure that my scratch stock doesn't deviate from the layout lines. 

This lathe had no indexing mechanism so I had to make a circular plate that I divided into 10 or 12 equal sections. I then hand cut slots so that I could insert a steel scraper to lock the rotation at equal intervals.

Another jig was used to hold a scratch stock to define the reeds. The final shape was cleaned up with chisels and gouges.  

The brass plates that hold the legs to the table were cut and shaped by hand. 

Bronze threaded pieces were attached to the plates with small pins. 

The reeded perimeter of the table top was scratched by hand with a tool that I made. 

This table has four sliding frames. You can see that the legs are attached to the lower frames and the table top is connected to the upper frames. 

The center of the table in the foreground and the mahogany model in the background. The poplar inner bits will be replaced when it is eventually made into a second table. 

Reflecting on the Charles Stewart design campaign dining table I made in 2002

One of my favorite pieces of furniture that I was ever commissioned to make was a dining table in the manner of Charles Stewart. The original dates to 1810 and was made to match a photograph from Nicholas Brawer's book on campaign furniture. Stewart made several models of this design of varying degrees of embellishment. Some had flat aprons, surely the least expensive. There is this model and one example that I've seen that looks like mine except that it has ebony inlaid on the top when the table is in its smallest configuration. That is the most embellished model that I have seen ( on British Antiques Roadshow nearly 20 years ago). I have never seen a box for the table but I designed one based on the many pieces of campaign furniture that I've worked on over the years. The box provides storage for the leaves when they're not in use and it serves as a coffee table. Two pieces of furniture for the price of one. I will add more formal photos to my work page in the next few months.

Genuine mahogany box with a nearly 28 inch wide single piece top. 

Open box with a locking mechanism to hold the lid safely open. 

The front panel removes by releasing the two brass flush bolts. 

The open felt lined box with storage for three leaves, four legs, six table forks and sash bolts to strengthen the table when fully open.

The legs screw into brass plates that I specially made for this piece. 

The table in its smallest configuration. Roughly 29" high x 48" wide x 24" deep.

The top rotated and opened up to seat four. 

The table telescopes open to over 9 feet long. The sash bolts can be seen in the photo, used to make the table very solid when fully extended. Also the quality of the mahogany I used on the apron is visible. 

The table fully extended can seat 14 people. The top was made from two 17 foot long 25 inch wide mahogany boards from the same tree, for consistent color and figure. 

Oak Breakfront Bookcase.

Today was spent cleaning up the last of the dovetail boards and transferring the dovetails to the pin boards. The pin boards are all the vertical panels and all the joints are lapped dovetails (some people call them half blind dovetails). I also started cutting the pins after laying out each side. I'll show the process below and I will include a few details of the frame and panel construction.

Cleaning the dovetails in preparation for transferring them to the pin boards  

Using a cutting gauge to establish the depth of the tails. This is usually the thickness of the bottom and top boards. 

Using a different cutting gauge to establish the length of the tails. 

The tail board (in this case the bottom of the center lower case) being laid out precisely to transfer the tails to the pin board. 

Transferring the tails. 

Cutting the pins. 

Cutting close to the pencil lines. The areas with the "x" are to be removed to accept the dovetails. 

Mortise and tenon joinery of the frame and panel doors and sides. 

Oak Breakfront Bookcase

I've been trimming the dovetails by hand on the top and bottom boards for each of the six cases that make up this bookcase. Working with 3/4 inch oak is tough on my chisels so I keep my sharpening stones at hand to touch them up when needed. Since these are carcass dovetails, the pins ( the connecting piece to the dovetails) are fairly beefy. None of this joinery will be seen in the final piece but the joinery is structural and done in the same manner as an 18th century piece. It's important to me that design of the construction (interior) is consistent with the design of the exterior. I'll include some images of trimming the tails as well as some images that relate to my last post.

Some of the twelve boards with the tails cut but still needing the waste material for the pins to be removed. 

My 1/2 scale drawing showing a partial view of the front on the left and a side view on the right. 

A lower side frame and panel assembly of nicely figured quarter sawn oak. 

The inside of the panel is flush with the frame so that books will easily slide in and out of the bookcase. 

Sharpening stones, honing oil and strop all at hand to touch up chisels as I work. 

Trimming to scribed line established by my cutting gauge. 

Trimmed tails on top and untrimmed tails on the bench surface. 

I've included an image from one of the great Charles Hayward's books showing an easy way to divide a board for pins and tails . The various cases that make up this bookcase vary in width. In an effort to find a pleasing division of pins and tails I always use this technique. It's much easier than say, dividing 18 7/8" by 7. I think that the illustration above has the tails and pins too similar in size. The tails should be wider in my opinion but the principle is the same.

Oak Breakfront Bookcase

I've been commissioned to build a quarter sawn oak breakfront bookcase by a client that I've worked with in the past. It will be made in what I might call a Georgian vernacular style. Its main divergence from historical examples is that it will have two slides on the left and right at the waist molding to occasionally support a small flat screen television. This idea is borrowed from French Bureau Plat slides that date from the same period. Among other things I thought a blog might be an opportunity to explain my building process and how I work with clients to make various things come to life. 

Usually people have an idea of what they want and I work with them to find the best historical examples to choose from or to have as a starting point for deciding on things they like and dislike. In this particular case there was a piece of furniture in the room that will hold this bookcase. The oak English chest that influenced this bookcase has a frame and panel construction and the raised panels have a particularly deep fielded panel. I rather liked that so we decided on frame and panel sides and lower doors with glass upper doors. The piece will have a base, waist moldings and a cornice. I will use traditional joinery throughout, all cases will be dovetailed and all doors and frame and panels will be mortised and tenoned together. The hardware will be made in England and I'll use a traditional shellac and wax finish.

I always start with a hand drawing, usually full scale but because this is a large piece I've drawn it half scale. Once approved I can settle on a price since I certainly need to know exactly what I'm making before I can have an idea of what it will cost. I then select the best materials I can find and mill all the parts to size. No plywood is ever used. I hand plane all the joints to form each panel. A piece like this has around 40 panels made up of 2 to 3 pieces, a lot of hand planing.

The doors and other frame and panel elements have an interesting molding that I custom milled and the framing elements are mortice and tenoned together. The inside of the panels are flush with the frames so that books can easily be slid in and out without catching on anything. I started this project a few months back and I'm beginning to cut dovetails at this point. I have made all of the frame and panel units and doors as well as the tops and bottoms of each case. More to come.

Detail of drawing of the lower right door and waist molding and base.

Detail of the drawing showing the upper right side and cornice of the breakfront bookcase. 

Frame and panel detail of the bookcase showing nicely figured oak and moldings made to match the English chest that inspired this piece.

The English chest that inspired the design of this project. 

Laying out dovetails for the construction of each case. Using a cutting gauge to mark the length of of the tails. This breakfront has six separate cases. 

Laying out the tails, the "x" shows the area to be removed for the pins. 

My general assortment of tools for dovetailing, left to right cutting gauge, dovetail saw, chiseles and a skew chisele. My layout tool is beneath the chisels.