A Krenov Inspired Cabinet on Stand in Six Days

We completed that cabinet during a six day visit by Jack. Our agreement was that at some future date, I would go to Houston and we’d do another six day project in his shop.

So….I arrived at Jack’s and we completed a much more complicated piece in another six day time frame and here it is……….. A Hepplewhite style Federal game table in solid walnut, with veneers, inlays, string banding, and rosewood cross banding.

The top is made up of beautiful shop sawn, highly figured walnut veneers, laminated on a sold walnut substrate.

The first step was to re-saw the figured walnut plank into 1/16” shop sawn veneers. Here they are stickered and air drying.

The selected veneers where taped and edge glued prior to pressing in the vacuum bag.

The edge glued veneers where scraped and prepped for pressing onto the solid wood substrate.

While the tops where in the press, the leg stock was milled and drilled for the solid gaboon ebony “booties” to be attached using dowels.

Using paper cutouts, we laid out the curve for the serpentine aprons.

The templates were carefully cut and shaped.

The next step was to taper the legs on the table saw. This was done after the booties were attached to give the entire leg a smooth taper on two sides.

The joinery for the aprons to the legs is all mortise and tenon. The tenons were cut on the table saw using a standard tenon jig.

The cross grained Santos rosewood banding was all custom made by laminating shop sawn veneers of maple and ebony together and then gluing them to the rosewood blocks. These blocks were re-sawn into 1/16” thick banding strips.

The 1/16” X 1/16” grooves for the ebony and maple string banding were routed using a Dremel mounted on a luthier’s base and a 1/16” solid carbide spiral bit.

The rear apron was attached to the back of the side aprons by half blind dovetails cut on the Leigh D4 jig.

The upper leg mortises were cut using a router and an X-Y axis vice to move the stock.

The curve in the stringing is very sharp so to prevent breakage, the 1/32” thick ebony and maple veneers were glued together at the desired curve. The 1/16” resulting curved veneer was then sliced into strips to be inlaid in the routed recess.

An oval template was made to route the recess for the upper leg block inlays.

The string bandings were glued into the grooves using hide glue and a fine syringe. Each piece of banding was hand mitered by razor blade to create the needed black/white joint at the corners.

After the string banding and the oval inlays have been glued in, the rosewood banding gets inlaid around the legs at the top and bottom.

The wooden hinge that swings the gate legs gets its primary cut for the knuckles by using the “box joint” method.

The outer knuckle coves are cut with a forstner bit. The rest of the hinge work is basically chiseled out by hand.

After many trial and error fittings, the wooden hinge is drilled for the 1/4” steel pin and it gets tapped into place.

The serpentined apron faces are veneered with commercial veneers and here you see the walnut burl and curly maple oval being fit and taped.

The rosewood banding has been inlaid at the bottom of the aprons and preliminary sanding is completed on all the table base parts. It is ready for a dry fit.

The tops are made to overhang the apron’s serpentine contour by about one inch. A router template was laid out and cut on the band saw.

Both tops were rough cut on the band saw and then routed to final shape using the template. After this procedure was finished, a center groove was routed all around the edges for the banding inlay.

The shop-made ebony, maple, and rosewood bandings were re-sawn at 1/16” thick and would not make the turn at the corners without breaking. So, I lightly moistened them and used a heated pipe to bend them enough to make it around the sharply curved corners. This really worked well.

The bandings were inlaid into the routed groove around the top’s edges.

This rear view shows the double gate legs swung open on the wooden hinge ready to support the top when it is unfolded to the open position.

A close up of the detail work.

Our plan was to inlay some corner fans on the maple portions of the apron veneer, and border the ellipses and rectangles with a fine cross banded stripe.

Six days just wasn’t enough time to get that done!

Thanks for looking.

This was a joint project with expert woodworker and friend, Jack Hutchison from Houston TX. and it was built in six days.

But first I want to thank everyone who visited and responded to my last blog;

A very large walnut and walnut burl credenza

I’ve admired Jack’s work on the woodworking forums for years. His specialty is 18th Century reproductions and mine, well…..mine is whatever I can get someone to pay me to make! After many emails and private messages, Jack said “Hey! Why don’t we get together for a joint project. Your shop or mine, and we’ll do it on a “work for food” basis.” So we worked out the deal. The host keeps the project, or sells it to his client, and the guest gets room and board and we both get the opportunity to meet each other and work with someone we admire. The only preliminary work we did prior to his arrival was to decide on the project…..A Krenov style cabinet in curly fiddleback koa.

The entire carcass is veneered. The inside is done in white maple. The elegance of the sweeping curved legs is complimented by the sculpted and curved form of the apron’s bottom edge and the rounded-over upper edges of the stand.

A detail shot of the dovetailed mini drawers, their ebony pulls, and the careful mating of the cabinet to stand.

We wanted the back to be as beautiful as the front so the piece could be placed anywhere in a room. We bookmatched the maple inside, and bookmatched the koa in back.

We started by re-sawing the all the veneers, both koa and maple. We did this first because we were forced to let the “net width” of the prettiest piece of koa dictate the finished width of our doors, and therefore the cabinet.

The veneer slices went straight to the drum sander for a few quick passes. Jack inspects a slice of koa that will become one of the doors as he starts sanding the maple flitch.

We started to break down the 12/4 rough plank of walnut for the stand by cutting it to rough length on the RAS.

We planed to a “clean” thickness and I jointed one edge to prep for ripping our leg blanks.

We laid out our desired curve on a piece of ¼ inch hardboard and Jack cut it out on the band saw and sanded to final shape.

While Jack started on the legs, I edge glued all the veneers that would be bookmatched. Before veneering, some carcass panels needed to be edged with solid koa to accommodate rabbets and some strictly for edge appearance. Then I set up the vacuum bag and started pressing veneers.

These are the two sides of the carcass, fresh out of the press. Each panel is bookmatched koa.

While I’m veneering, Jack works on the legs. First, one side of each leg is sawn close to the pattern’s pencil line. Then he hot glued the cut-off back onto the sawn side of the leg for support while he cut the second side.

Because the legs are curved on two planes, he used the hand sander for most of the sanding. The spindle sander and edge sander could only be used for small portions of the legs.

After Jack had finished the basic sanding on the legs, and we had completed the veneering of the front doors, we were able to determine the final dimensions of our cabinet. With this information, we could cut our aprons to final size and took the stand’s pieces to the FMT and I cut all the mortise and tenons.

Here is a shot of leg parts ready for the dry fit.

Jack drew up a gentle curve for the bottom edge of the aprons to compliment the leg’s curve, made templates for both dimensions needed for the aprons, and flush trimmed them all on the router table. The stand is ready for a dry fitting and glue up!

After the glue up, Jack started the hand sculpting of the upper aprons and routing the softened edges of the legs.

Here it is, all sculpted, sanded, and wiped down.

Meanwhile, I have been scraping and smoothing all the carcass panels. They were then cut to dimension and the carcass is getting closer to glue up.

After I glued up the walnut edging on the top and bottom of the carcass, Jack went to work on the dados for the dividers, shelf, and the knife hinges.

After pre-sanding all the parts and a complete dry fit with doors, it’s time to glue up the carcass. We taped all the parts to assist in any glue squeeze out and glued it up.

Our cabinet design calls for four small drawers. Here is where Jack’s experience doing drop front secretaries and period desks really came into play. He is the master of the tiny drawer, secret compartments, and hidden drawer locks. He set up, cut the parts, and built the gallery framework.

After the drawers were glued up, he hand sanded each one to get that perfect “piston fit”.

I made up and installed some Gaboon ebony pulls, and the final drawer fit was completed.

We wanted a perfect “piston fit” on the carcass back too, so the rabbet was “cornered” by hand chisel, and the back was carefully fit to size.

The first coats of an oil/varnish blend have been applied. The doors, stand, and drawers are starting to show some sheen. The back panel has been glued in and clamped. After the back has been scraped smooth and sanded, we will mount the base to the stand and complete the final finishing process. Tomorrow is “day six” and appears that we will get it done and shoot pictures before Jack has to get on the plane.

This detail shot shows the tight fit of the veneered back panel.

This shot shows the detail of the wooden drawer lock spring. It takes a tiny pushpin sized key in an almost invisible spot to release the catch and open the drawer.

I am a one man shop and I have never worked with anyone before. I have always said that I am a completely self taught woodworker, but after working with someone of Jack’s caliber, and being able to watch someone of his knowledge and confidence, I probably can no longer make that claim.

Creating this cabinet was a great experience for me. We have since made a Federal Period game table at his shop. I will post that one soon.

Thanks for looking,

But first I want to thank everyone who visited and responded to my last blog;

A glass top table with opposing arches

And as always, I welcome your comments AND critiques on this latest project.

The main carcass panels are finished at 15/16” thick, so I floated the carcass 15/16” off the base. The center door plaques are gilded with 23K gold leaf and aged to match an antique bronze sculpture that sits in the room.

This elevated and angled shot shows the beautiful walnut grain in the top and the “near gloss” finish that was selected by the client.

The open carcass reveals the back panel that was veneered from the same lumber as the carcass for a perfect match. The center compartment has a bridge that supports the main amplifier and the center speaker below. It all gets exposed for surround sound use with the center doors being pocket doors. The outside compartments have adjustable shelves.

I started by milling and gluing up the carcass panels. I ordered premium, 6/4 black walnut, and I requested it be selected for NO knots and NO sapwood and I wanted it skip planed to 5/4 to be sure they cold see it clearly. AND, I needed nine of them, 8 feet long, that I could net 9” wide clear lumber. My vendor took good care of me and found exactly what I wanted. ….And boy! Did I pay dearly for it!!

For panels this size, after they were all glued up I rented time on a big wide belt sander to surface all three of them, (I hadn’t cut the panel for the two ends in half yet). We surfaced out at the 15/16” dimension that I wanted as a minimum thickness. Then I ripped the panels to width and beveled the ends.

Crosscutting a bevel on a 24-1/2” wide panel that is 78” long, and doing it accurately is not an easy task. I used my bevel sled that is deep enough to cut 26”. At the long end of my extension table, I made a runner with a strip of “slick tape” to keep the panel level and assist in sliding easily then I securely clamped the panel to my sled’s fence. These cuts had to be perfect or my case would be out of square.

I used the domino as a joinery method for these bevel corners.

Next I drilled the shelf pin holes in all the vertical members. This is one of the center dividers. Note the 1” vertical cutouts that will become the “cable portals”. All of the cabling will exit the back of the credenza through one of the four vertical partition members that have these openings.

The design calls for the front edges of the carcass to be cross banded with straight grained walnut veneer to “frame” the burl doors. I harvested blocks of straight walnut and glued them up end-to-end and then resawed them into 1/16” thick veneers.

After gluing them on, I flushed trimmed them with a router. I did them in pairs for extra router support to prevent tipping.

Now it is time to glue up the carcass. It is big, It is heavy, and if it isn’t perfectly square the doors won’t fit or work properly. I made two large MDF panels that fit the inside dimension. By clamping the glue up with them inside, I should get a square case. I installed the dominos, and only glued one corner at a time, but I assembled the complete case each time. After I glued the second corner, the final two joints would be done at once.

I made a spacer as a router guide to cut the dados for the vertical members in both the top and bottom panels. Again, this should insure squareness.

Then I made a second one to cut the dados for the “bridge” that would be attached to the bottom panel only.

I used those dados to measure and fit the panels for the bridge. I dry fitted the side panels into the dados and then measured and cut the bevels for the top. I glued it all up in side of the case to insure a perfect fit. When completed, the bridge will be installed by screws from the bottom. It must be removable in case any thing goes wrong with the pocket door hardware and it needs to be accessed.

It is time to start on the base structure and its 3-way mitered legs. I created a template for the sculpted legs. They will get cut from rift sawn 12/4 walnut blanks.

After band sawing both sides of the blank, I sculpted and final shaped with rasps. You can also see the bottom has a round mortise for a recessed foot pad. It would be much easier to lay out the hole and drill into a 3” square block while standing on its end, so I drilled them with a forstner bit prior to cutting the leg blanks on the band saw.

The base frame design called for triple groove reeding. I used two laminate routers, one set at dead center and the other set to the correct inset to rout from either edge. I did the grooving before I cut the 3-way miters.

I cut the “rail to rail” mortises using the domino, and I cut the leg to rail mortises on the FMT.

Once the four rails had dried, I dry fitted the legs and marked the junction of where the reed grooves met at the 45 degree miter. I put each leg in the vice and hand carved the grooves. I couldn’t figure any way to rout them on the concave curve and a tapered face.

Clamping took some ingenuity too. I used epoxy so I didn’t need extreme pressures, but I did need to get some downward and inward forces going to get everything lined up right. I made this clamping fixture to accomplish this.

Here is the base ready to go the finishing room. I have installed the 15/16” recessed riser to “float” the cabinet, and you can see the elongated mounting holes to allow for expansion of the solid wood carcass. It will get a dark “black coffee brown” stain and then be mounted to the cabinet.

Now to get the doors veneered. I needed large walnut burl veneers to get the door faces done in two pieces. I did not want to go with a four way bookmatch. I found a large, high class flitch at Certainly Woods that would work. It was 28” by 14” and would allow me to harvest the two large pieces I needed without any white wood. And it was a 20 sheet flitch, enough to veneer the inside and outside of each door. I started by using a commercially made flattener, soaked each sheet and pressed them until dry and flat.

I used an MDF substrate, framed with 2”walnut. I veneered the edges, tops and sides, of each door with a double thickness of burl veneer. This gave me enough meat to be able to soften the sharp edges lightly after the face veneer was applied.

This is the router template that I used to rout out the recess for the gilded door plaques on the two center doors.

After I cut the recess, I stained and finished the doors prior to gluing in the plaques. You can see the effects of the veneered edges in this photo.

The gilded plaque is epoxied in. After investing so much time in a component like these doors, after cutting, trimming, veneering, and scraping etc. and hours of total time, it scares the heck out of me every time I have to go back to a machine or a process that could potentially cause harm to the component. I survived, and everything went together as planned.

This shot of the back shows the veneered Baltic birch ply I used for the back panels. The vertical recesses are the cable portals I mentioned earlier. Each side of those indentations has the 1” wide double openings. They not only allow the cables to go in and out without drilling big ugly round holes in the back, but they allow 19 square inches of ventilation to each compartment.

The Chisel and Bit Medallion is inlaid in the back.

Here are a couple of detail shots. This one shows the inside of the veneered door.

This detail shot shows the perfect 3/64” gap around all the doors, the finished 3-way miter and the hand carved grooves in the curved and sculpted leg. The cross banded walnut veneered accent on the edges of the cabinet really frames and highlights the veneered doors.

This was not an extremely difficult piece to build from a technical point of view, but it had to come out absolutely square at every critical cut and glue up, or nothing would have worked, or looked right. It was also very difficult to maneuver around my one man shop.

Thanks for looking.

This commissioned glass top display table, or buffet, is 50” wide at the base, 14” deep and 29” tall. It supports a piece of glass that is ¾” thick by 18” by 66”.

The construction is shop sawn zebrawood veneers, laminated on two layers of 1/8” poplar bending ply, on a curved torsion box inner core. The curved members are then framed in sold quarter sawn sapelli. The divider box is shop sawn veneer, cut from a very fine grained piece of Macassar ebony.

But first, I want to thank everyone who visited and responded to my last project post; and, as always, I welcome your comments AND critiques on this latest project;

A carved, ebonized, and gilded, wing back chair.

The unique curvy design is clean and simple, yet very dramatic!

This elevated and angled shot shows the consistency of the book matched zebra veneers.

I started by laying out a “half template” and then creating the full size pattern for the curved torsion box construction. I will make three “ribs” for each curved box.

Each torsion box gets a solid bolting plate in the center zone, so the three main structural elements can be screwed and bolted together. Then cross member dividers were glued in between the ribs all the way down to the ends.

All the zebrawood veneers were shop sawn at 1/16” thick, from the same straight grained, 8/4 by 10” wide, plank of wood.

The bookmatched veneers were trimmed, jointed, and edge glued together. First the layers of bending ply were laminated on the torsion boxes with the vacuum press, then the veneers were pressed on last.

I flushed trimmed the edges of the veneers and ply using a router. I installed a long rectangular base plate to help steady and keep the router flat on the concave side.

I trimmed most of the over-hang on the ends with a low angle block plane, and then using 3” strips of my drum sander rolls clamped to the bench, I sanded the ends flat and flush by sliding the assembly back and forth.

My next step was to make a prototype divider box out of MDF. This fit was going to take some special effort to get curves and bevels to match up perfectly. Once fit, the prototype would serve as a template for making the actual ebony veneered, four panel box

I had a beautiful piece of very tight grained and consistently dark Macassar ebony in stock. It is so dark, it almost looks like Gaboon. I resawed it for the box and some maple to line the inside. The box was grooved to hold a ½“ Baltic birch ply for screwing and bolting the assembly together.

The box is dry fit together to check the miters, splines, and grooves. Then using the MDF prototype, I drew out the curves and cut the bevels.

Oversized end caps were cut, drilled, screwed and glued to the bottoms of the ends.

After they dried, the contours were hand sculpted to follow the curves of the veneered surfaces on both the top and bottom faces. The screw holes were plugged with sapelli.

The solid sapeli side frames were glued up from several pieces of wood by staggering the blocks over a full sized drawing in order to save wood going around the curve. If I did this again, I would spend the money to cut the curved pieces from two glued up planks and NOT have so many glue lines. I was careful with the glue lines matching, and I think it came out great, but I know I could have done it better!

One at a time, I glued the oversized frame pieces on to the sides of the arches. These would have to be trimmed with a flush trim bit and a lot of climb cutting to avoid the potential tear-out from the grain changes in the sawn curved edges.

The first complete dry fit. I needed to mark out the location of the holes in the glass and drill the pilot holes for the 5/16” threaded inserts.

The box still needed final fitting by hand. Here it is already fitted and screwed to the under side of the upper curve, and I’m final shaping the fit to mate with the bottom curve.

Once the fit was perfect, I drilled four ½” holes through the skin of the bottom arch, and I ran four ¼” by 7” lag bolts up from the underside and through the bolting blocks in each member of the assembly. I used clamping cauls to keep the two arches co-planer while I drilled and bolted. The ½” holes were plugged with sapelli.

I used 5/16” flange bolts to make the hold downs for the top. I used a circle cutter to cut two 3-1/2” circles of Macassar ebony at 1/4” thick. I used a forstner bit to cut the recess in the top of the circle so the flange bolt’s head would sit flush, and then I veneered a 1/16” piece of the ebony veneer on top of that.

After it was sanded out, you can’t even see the seam.

The Chisel and Bit medallion is inlaid in the underside.

This low angle shot shows a little different perspective, and it also shows the tear in my seamless backdrop. Ha! Ha!

A close-up of the Macassar ebony hold down knob.

This close-up really shows the perfect fit of the curves and beveled edges of the box, and the beautiful grain in the Macassar ebony.

This big, bold, and beautiful table base with its “Opposing Arches” was not all that difficult to make. It did require some intricate fitting and a little bit of hand work, but the hardest part of its construction, was trying to figure out how to clamp the damn curvy thing to the bench so I could work on it.

It is finished with four coats of an oil/varnish blend.

I built those round “drum” tables, a sculpted set of dining chairs, then this curved piece, and I just finished a set of free form tables you see in my avatar…..............

Hopefully, there is a nice straight bookcase out there someplace with my name on it. ;-)

Thanks for looking,

As always, I welcome your comments AND critiques on this latest project.

This custom designed and fit chair is for a very petite lady who has always had problems with chairs fitting her. It is a “modified” wing back chair that is actually designed to be more of an office chair that will be used at a desk, rather than the normal read a book type of wing back chair.

We all understand that the design and upholstery may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is exactly what the client wanted!

This is the chair that I carved the Ball and Claw feet for;

You can see the entire blog on carving these feet here;

A unique style of Ball and Claw feet for a chair. PIX

The construction actually started with a full size prototype that was designed from a “client fitting” in a standard sized dining room chair and then we adjusted downward in size to fit her frame.

After we felt we had the correct size, I used the prototype to make the templates, and cut all the walnut parts. Before I started shaping and leg sculpting, I cut all the mortise and tenons in the leg blanks and aprons.

Next the leg blanks were cut on the band saw.

Only the front legs have B&C feet so the back legs were easy, but I cut one extra blank for the front in case something went wrong I would have an extra blank.

Before carving the B&C feet, I sculpted the upper legs. Notice the “extra meat” I left on the knee section for the carving elements that will be added here later.

The client’s husband is a very talented draftsman and they designed all the carving elements and submitted them to me in full scale drawings.

This made it easy to transfer the layout to the aprons.

Next I cut all the lower profiles on the rails and checked the dry fit.

I finished all the rest of the parts, cut and fit the arm rests, the wings, and cut all the mortise and tenons. Here is the final dry fit including all the upholsterer’s bars.

I cut all the fabric rabbets around the seat rails, and then made a simple platform to allow me to transfer the rabbets to the upper legs.

The arm riser and arm both curved on two planes and then the carving elements were transferred using carbon paper.

This is actually when I stopped and carved the Ball and Claw feet. Then I cut the outlines for the edge beading and outlined the carving elements using a Dremel and a Stewart Mac mini-base.

After a couple practice runs on each of the elements in some scrap pieces, I began to carve for real.

Here all four rails are completed except the end zones, where they will be blended into the legs after glue up.

Here you can see the B&C feet are completed, and the knees are done as well.

The arms and risers are done and the recess for the arm pads are routed.

I made a carrier jig to pass the curved sections of the legs over the stacked dado on the table saw. These dadoes will be where the stretchers attach to the legs.

Now the glue up has begun. I used West System’s Epoxy and this picture actually shows the third phase of glue up.

After both the sides were glued, I glued all the cross members and attached the two sides together.

The corner blocks were glued screwed and bolted, and the upholsterer’s bars were all glued in.

I made a two piece template to draw up and lay out the curved stretchers. A “keystone” like center board will lock the two halves in position.

Once the curves were laid out, I band sawed the template to make the bending form.

Using that template, I made the bending form and lined it with cork.

I resawed and glued up the bent laminates and glued them up in the form using Unibond 800. I made the one piece thick enough to split it into two stretchers.

After splitting and cutting to length, I dowelled the ends and then used a LN #66 beading tool to create the desired edge treatments on the stretchers.

The stretchers are glued in place and the center block is the “wedge” that ties it all together. The curved blocks were fit around the block and glued to hold the stretcher rosette.

I cut the oval to create the stretcher rosette and rout the recess that it will get inlaid into.

Using the template, I routed the outside shape of the rosette and then carved it in the vise. I used the band saw to “re-saw” the actual rosette out of the carving block.

Using the same the template, I routed the recess to inlay the rosette into the center of the stretchers.

I used Behlen’s SolarLux Jet Black dye to ebonize.

I used Sepp’s Mica antique gold for the gilding. A water based size allowed me to brush back to the very faint accent we were looking for.

The Chisel and Bit medallion was inlaid under the rosette.

Here is the frame ready to go to the upholsterer.

I stopped by Mr. Lanzetti’s shop for a picture of the spring work before he covered it in fabric. Both the seat and back have nine hand tied springs. This is a first class upholstery job.

Here are some close-ups of the finished chair and gilded carvings.

The knee carving.

The arm, riser and knuckles.

The clients are extremely happy, she said the chair is very comfortable, and she says she has never really had a chair that fits.

This has probably been the most extensive detailed work I have ever done. It has probably been the most challenging piece I’ve ever done, because I keep telling clients “Oh, no problem, I can do that!” and then I spend weeks wondering how the hell I’m going to do it. It has probably been the most educational piece I’ve ever made, because I have never done this much carving in relief.

Thanks for looking,

A walnut sofa table with Jacobean influences

As always, your comments AND critiques are welcome!

I recently completed a commissioned wing back chair for a very petite lady. It has a lot of carving detail so I though I would post one of the carving elements as a tutorial because this was almost a “project” of its own.

This chair has ball and claw feet on the front legs, and the clients liked the undercut talons that John Townsend and John Goddard made famous. I didn’t like the undercutting they would sometimes do at the top of the ball, as I felt it removed too much wood for a chair’s forces. My clients allowed me to use my input and go with a webbed upper ball and I chose to do a tapered ball, rather than the stubby round balls. Creating something as aggressive as a ball and claw foot that looks somewhat feminine and petite is not easy.

Here is what I came up with.

I started by milling the cabriole leg blanks from 12/4 black walnut, and finished them to 2-3/4” square. The pattern was made out of 1/4 “ ply and was drawn on two faces of the rift sawn blank.

The mortises were cut on the FMT, then both faces were cut on the band saw. I made one extra leg just in case I messed up and needed a “do-over”.

The “cabriole” shape of the leg was sculpted and the block for the ball and claw remains. Note that there is extra “meat” on the knee for the upper leg, relief carvings later.

The first step is to lay out the guide lines on the base of the foot. These will be used at each step of the carving. I shaved off about 3/32” from each side of the block to make the ball and claw a little more petite.

I start by carving the front two faces and using the outer circle as a guide to form a cylinder. This outer circle is the widest circumference of the ball. By leaving the corners, you can see the claws start to form.

The leg on the right shows the front two faces, and the one on the left shows the back two faces which are done a little bit differently. I can’t carve a vertical cylinder because the location of the “ankle” forces the creation of the top of the ball and the back webs.

Now I return to the front of the ball and start to shape the cylinder into the desired shape of a ball. This design is a “tapered” ball, so the apex is set high and the top is rounded in to form the front webs and the bottom is more of a straight taper down to the smaller circle on the bottom layout lines.

After the balls are shaped, the claws are rounded to match the shape of the ball. I used a compass to mark the height and location of the knuckles.

After a lot more work, the knuckles are sculpted, the cuticles are cut, the talons are carved down, and the tendons and webs are refined at the top of the ball.

Undercutting the talons. Now this is where things get scary! I made a popsicle stick template to draw the cut zone on both sides of each talon. Using a 3/8”, #4 gouge and a ¼” bench chisel, I carefully carved a way the wood under each talon.

After some rifler filing and some sanding, I sprayed some mineral spirits on the foot and this is what it looks like.

And yes! I did carve two of them.

I have carved ball and claw feet before, but never any this intricate.

I refer to them as;

Townsend/Fry – Newport/Acton Style Ha Ha!

Hope you enjoy,

A small table that took a whole lot of work

A veneering extravaganza!

As always I welcome your comments AND critiques on this latest project.

This commissioned sofa table’s concept was borrowed from a late seventeenth century round gate-leg table.

The client wanted it in a dark walnut with “antique shading”, and asked that the back of the table be as detailed as the front so it could be used away from the sofa if desired.

This elevated shot shows the grain and antique shading of the table’s top.

I used a Legacy Ornamental Mill to sculpt the barley twisted legs. I set the Legacy up and cut the mortises for the aprons in the 2” X 2” walnut stock as the very first milling procedure. Then I milled the stock round from the apron block down.

Next, I cut the top and bottom terminuses for the twists.

Here is one leg on the mill and I’m routing the barley twists.

All the twists are done, and here you can see the right and left twists of the four legs and the two backup legs. The two legs on the left side of the table spiral up and inward towards the center, and the two legs on the right are an opposing twist. This design gives the table balance and guides the eye upward and to the center of the piece. I see pieces where commercially purchased moldings and legs all spiral in one direction and to me, the balance is lost.

The final step on the Legacy is to mill 5/8” round tenons/dowels on the top and bottom of the spiral section of the leg, and part off the upper apron blocks. I decided on this construction technique because the bottom has to go through a flat stretcher and into a turned foot, and by separating the spiral from the upper apron block, this allows me to turn and position the twisted part of the leg at glue up time for the best appearance, and be certain of the alignment of all the spirals.

I turned the feet on the lathe two at a time.

Using chucks on the lathe, and a 5/8” forstner bit, I drilled the round mortises in the apron blocks and the feet.

The curved aprons called for bent laminations. From a full size drawing on ¼” MDF, I measured the inside radius of the curve and built a form to use in the vac press. I sliced the laminates at 1/8” thick and then drum sanded to 3/32”. For grain matching I used one piece of 6/4 walnut to go across the front of the table. Eight laminates gave me my approximately ¾” curved apron.

Another shot from the end.

I used a narrow block of wood on the waste section of the laminates and screwed through the block, the laminates, and into the form to keep it all from shifting while the vacuum pulled the laminates down against the form.

After the aprons got one of their edges sanded and jointed, I ripped the parallel edge very carefully on the table saw. I built a 90 degree fixture to use as a trimming sled so I could be certain the ends of the curved aprons would be cut at a perfect 90 degrees. I used this same fixture to hold the ends while I routed the mortises to joint the apron to the legs with loose tenons.

The front and back apron profiles would be easy to cut on the flat aprons using the band saw, but because I would have to cut the curved aprons by hand, I cut them all that way for the practice. So I removed the big waste with the band saw, but carefully cut the ogee profile with a coping saw and then shaped and smoothed with a #49 cabinet makers rasp and files.

Here is where I start cutting up my ¼” full size drawing to make templates. This shot shows the table top just after band sawing, and routing to finished size. You can see the carcass dry fit at the other end of the bench.

After the top is shaped, I cut the drawing up some more to get the bottom “flat” stretcher template. Once again, using the template, I draw it on the glue up, band saw close to the line, and then trim with the router.

This design called for a groove and bead-like edge treatment on the lower profile of the aprons. The straight aprons were no problem. I made a template and used a 1/8” round-over bit with a guide bushing and routed away. Bingo!

The curved aprons created different challenges. I made a new bent lamination out of some scrap veneers I had lying around and hand cut the profile needed to make this “curved” template. Using a trim router instead of a big router, I cut the tricky profile detail keeping the router as square as possible to the curved face. It wasn’t perfect, but a little hand work with a few sharp carving chisels and I was done.

The finishing goal was to be a dark walnut with antique shading on edges and in the nooks and crannies. I tried many methods of staining, dying, shading, and toning on samples. The expert finishers will probably scoff at the unorthodox method I used, but it was what worked best for me.

I used a gel stain by General Finishes called Java, and I stained the shaded areas first rather than as a glaze after the main stain.

Then I sanded back to the amount of shading I wanted. I could feather the darker color easily without worrying about cutting into the main stain.

Then I stained the whole piece to get the dark walnut tone and the shading showed through perfectly. I was very satisfied with the effect. Five or six coats of an oil/varnish blend and I’ll be done.

The top is attached to the carcass with cabinetmaker’s buttons except for the front-center, which was attached solidly with screws. This will keep the top’s overhang consistent in the front of the table and around the curves, but still allow the top to expand/contract towards the back.

This close up shows the apron detail and the upper leg joint.

This one shows the leg, to stretcher, to foot.

This was a really neat little project. I enjoyed making this piece because it had so many challenging processes.

Thanks for looking.

The secondary woods are mahogany and poplar.

This elevated shot shows the anigre veneered drawer bottom, and the detail in the top. The end tables are 23” tall and the tops are just under 26” X 26”. All three tables are finished with five coats of an oil/varnish blend.

Here is the pair of end tables together. This photo is to prove that I really did build two. Each table has over 500 pieces of wood.

And of course, the matching coffee table. Yes! These tables are wild, artsy to the extreme, and they are definitely NOT for those who dislike multiple wood pieces of furniture. May they at least enjoy the construction process.

I started by prepping and resawing all the necessary maple and boire veneers, this is a bunch of stickered and clamped boire.

All the patterned veneers for the raised panels were sliced from glued up solid blocks of boire and curly maple.

Just like the larger shop sawn veneers, these were sliced and sanded to 1/16”. I cut several extra, just in case.

The MDF substrates for the raised panels in all the aprons were beveled at 12 degrees and the beveled edges were veneered with commercial figured anigre veneers, that I had in stock.

I glued the patterned veneers to the panels using yellow glue and a fixture to hold the veneer centered on the face of the panel while it was clamped. Then I made another template as a router guide that the panel slid into firmly, and I routed the 1/8” grooves to hold the miniature 1/8” bullnosed cockbeading. After mitering these tiny moldings by hand, I glued them into their grooves.

The framework for the panels is “cross-banded” boire and a rounded over 5/16” bead of wenge. I made this by edge gluing large sheets of the boire to the substrate and then sliced the strips across the grain of the boire veneer. Then the strips of wenge were made by first using a roundover bit on both edges of a piece of solid wenge at the router table, and then ripping off the 5/16” strips. They were then glued to the veneered boire strips. Finally, on the table saw, I cut a 1/16” rabbet on the wenge so the roundover portion actually overlapped the delicate edge of the commercial veneer on the panel’s edge.

I set up stop blocks on my 45 degree miter sled and cut all the apron panel frame pieces. I used a band clamp to set the glued framework and then placed additional clamps to insure good contact all around.

The anigre leg stock was purchased as 8/4 lumber and my attempt to resaw this stock down to the desired 4/4 thickness on my bandsaw resulted in two, very dull, $200.00 carbide resaw blades in one 20” long cut! This is what they call high silica content. Wow! I wound up using my nasty looking 18T flat top ripping blade and got through it OK.

I beveled all the leg parts (using the same blade) and taped them for the glue up.

I glued the edges, rolled them up, and used band clamps and cauls for good pressure.

These legs will get four sided tapers, so I did as much milling as possible before doing the tapers. Here you see the cove being cut on the router table, the dadoes for the moldings on the bottom and just above the cove, have all been cut. All the mortises for the aprons have been completed at this time also.

The bottoms of all 12 legs have been plugged with anigre blocks, the outer two faces of all the legs have been routed in the upper portion for the inlaid mini raised panels.

The drawer fronts were made just like the apron panels except the veneers were laid up on sold mahogany. The halfblind dovetails are inlaid with Peruvian walnut, and the sides are white poplar. I veneered the drawer bottoms with figured anigre.

Next, I built a sled to taper the legs on the big planer with the Byrd Shelix head. To accommodate both lengths of legs and a four sided taper, I made it to be able to add blocks to change the taper angle, and a screw clamp so it would be held against stop blocks.

After the tapers were cut, I made this router template to cut the recesses for the angled herringbone boire inlays. These had to be cut on all four surfaces of all twelve legs.

To make the herringbone inlays, I edge glued strips of boire cut at about 45 degree angles. They were tapered and trimmed to fit, on the tables saw.

All twelve legs are inlaid and ready for the mini-panels to be glued into the upper recesses. Every recessed border will be finished off with 1/4”, by 1/4 round, wenge molding.

The mini panels that get glued into the upper leg blocks were made exactly like the larger panels. They have beveled edges and are veneered with anigre, they had one solid center piece of boire, and it is bordered by a tiny, 1/16� bullnosed cockbead, set in a 1/16� groove. Here the finished panels are being glued into the recesses.

After making all the quarter round wenge molding, I mitered everything to fit on the table saw using clamps and stop blocks. The 45 degree cuts on the upper moldings were pretty easy, but because of the tapered legs, the moldings for the bottom inlays were a much different set of angles.

I used a bunch of mini spring clamps to glue the moldings in place.

The coffee table aprons were end glued together and then these three panel assemblies, as well as all the single panel aprons, were glued to a � � Baltic birch plywood backer board. Mortises were then cut in the ends with a router for the mortise and loose tenon construction.

The top has a ½” wide wenge-maple-wenge banding. I made this by milling a flat piece of wenge at the ½” thickness and then ripped a 1/8” kerf in both edges. I glued a 1/8” thick slice of maple veneer in both kerfs.

Then I sliced off the banding at 1/16” thick and sanded smooth.

I taped and edge, glued all the 1/16” thick shop sawn veneers together for the tops.

I used mahogany backer veneers on the undersides of the tops. This end table top is right out of the vacuum press.

The table tops were bordered and profiled with Peruvian walnut. Then I milled the profiles for all the moldings and the inlaid beading out of Peruvian walnut, and then fit, mitered, and glued them into place.

Here are a couple of detail shots. This one is of the table top’s mitered corners. The outer veneer between the Peruvian walnut border and the wenge banding is shop sawn, figured anigre that I cut from a beautiful piece of 4/4 stock. I did my best to bookmatch as many of the corners a possible.

And finally, this one shows the corner block and leg in detail.

With over 1500 pieces of wood, this veneering project is one of my all time favorites. It was very intense and I literally put on the shelf for a few days at a time to keep my sanity. I found myself going out and pulling weeds to keep me from throwing it against the wall. :-)

Thanks for looking!

So I hope I do it right. This is a photo essay of the construction of a couple of “Drum Tables”.

A drum table made of Indonesian rosewood and wenge.

A second table of Asian ebony and wenge was made at the same time.

They have a 21” diameter at the top, and stand 23” tall. The main cylinder has an 18” outside diameter. The curved side panels are all bent laminations, and veneered with the final wood choice.

The curved door is mounted with three barrel hinges and the drawer is “piston fit” into the upper carcass compartment.

The tops are a veneered, sixteen segment starburst pattern with a solid wood wenge border and profile.

All the veneers for these tables are shop sawn at 3/32” thick and drum sanded to 1/16” inch final thickness.

The veneers where laid out for the most attractive “slip” match appearance and then were edge jointed and glued into panels. There are five panels, three for the outsides of the three permanent side panels, and one for the door and drawer front, and one smaller one for the inside of the door.

The structural design is plywood disks that are trimmed in either solid wenge, or in the case of the base, veneered wenge. The main lower carcass is made up of a round torsion box, that is wrapped with bending ply and then veneered with wenge.

This is the bottom the carcass. I formed a recessed base that is veneered with wenge and cut the inlay hole for my signature medallion. These clamps are holding the edge trim wenge, the outer bending ply was laminated using three band clamps.

Four layers of wenge are veneered over the bending ply to create the base. I went this thick because the top of this wenge will be routed into part of the base’s profile.

Next, it was time to start making the disks that complete the complicated curved profiles. Each disk will have eight solid wenge edge segments. The inner radius MUST be absolutely perfect to match the outer curve of the disks. I used a router trammel to make the cut.

There are five disks in each table, counting the top, and they are of three different thicknesses.

Once again the router trammel is my friend when trimming the outer diameter.

A cove bit and the trammel created this profile which becomes a part of the overall profile on the base.

Two different profile disks are vacuum pressed onto the base carcass to ensure a flat and good glue up. The secret to keeping everything aligned is the center holes in each component.

It’s time to move on to the curved panels. I built a form with a radius that will result in the outside dimension of the panels equaling an 18” diameter. This form will be covered with bending ply to provide a good solid surface for the panels.

Using four layers of 1/8” bending ply and one layer of 1/16” veneer, my panels will be 9/16” thick. I cut the plywood sheets to be 2” oversized, and trimmed the veneer panels to match. This allowed me to use centerlines and screws to hold the stack to the form with no shifting.

Here you see one of the Asian ebony panels sucked down to the form. The short pieces of blue tape are to protect the bag from the round head screws, and the long piece you see crossing the lay-up, is the line where the panel will be cut to separate the upper and lower panels and yet maintain grain continuity.

While the eight curved panels for the two tables were being pressed, I moved on to the veneered starburst table tops. I have a sled that is adjustable to tweak perfect 12 or 16 segment pie shapes. After carefully selecting the book-matched pairs, I started cutting the wedges for both table tops.

The matched wedges are taped on the back and edge glued together. Clamping pressure is attained by forcing them in between the edges of this simple fixture. And then weight is applied from the top to insure flatness.

The eighths are then carefully fitted and glued into quarters, and then into halves, and then into one complete top.

The top is veneered and trimmed to the round substrate. I used a maple backer veneer.

Just like the thinner disks, the 1” thick top is surrounded by an eight segment frame. Each piece is carefully and individually mitered to match the starburst seams in the top’s veneer. In my opinion, anything less than perfection here looks terrible!

I made a beveling sled to trim the edges of the curved panels.

The tops and bottoms were trimmed square on my table saw sled. The blue tape still marks the upper cut line to separate the upper and lower panels. I had to trim to “perfectly square” before cutting the panel in two. This was all a bit nerve wracking. One mistake and it would be very difficult to go back.

This is a jig to cut the mortises for the stiles in the base, top and center disk. I actually made a jig to make this jig. Once again, everything is “registered” through the center of each component.

This is the dry fit of all the mortises and tenons. You can see the second table carcass on the bench in the background.

All of the vertical members, needed to be gently rounded on the outer face to match the molded curves of their mating surfaces. I did this on the bench with a rasp and a card scraper. I left everything a little proud to be able to do a final, after glue, sculpting.

I needed to cut curved rabbets on each face of the tops and bottoms of each panel to create a ¼” curved stub tenon. I used this set up with just the round guide to cut the inside rabbet, and then added the opposite form (as shown) to cut the outside.

Once again, the router trammel was used to cut the curved groove in between the mortises on all the plates that the stiles and panels would be joined to.

The top’s profile was cut with a roundover bit in the router, but there was no way to cut the fragile ¼” wide bullnose profile on the top’s bead without poking a hole in the center of my veneered top. I used a Lie-Nielson No.66 Beading tool to form the bead.

This is the final dry fit of both the tables. After cutting 1/8” grooves in all the verticals, I used 1/8” splines to align the stiles and panels.

Once everything was fit, I sanded everything to 180 grit, stained all the inside surfaces dark, and began the glue up from the bottom up. I used West Systems Epoxy for this project. In this picture all the panel’s sides, splines, edges, and all the bottom mortises and tenons are glued. The center horizontal divider on the top, is not yet glued, but used as a register to be sure everything is in line, and as a clamping block.

The drawer box side walls were cut and fitted and the top carcass was glued up next. To insure the drawer box was true and square, this was actually done in three stages.

The door was carefully fit and installed. The curved drawer front would not fit in my Leigh D4 jig, so I hand cut the dovetails. The drawer bottom and sides are solid white soft maple, and the box was planed and sanded to a perfect fit.

Here are a few final detail shots. This shows the hand cut, halfblind, dovetails.

The molding profile and the fit of the stiles.

And, of course, the Chisel And Bit medallion inlaid in the inside drawer side.

Thanks for looking!