Project Information
After making one of these cabinets way back in 2012, I swore I would never do another one…....well, I guess I was wrong! A customer saw my posting late last year and talked me into creating one for him - it did take me a while to agree, but when we started talking about what woods he wanted and the overall design I just couldn't say "no".
It was completed slowly, over the course of about four months. The most tedious thing about making one of these is doing the box joints on the 18 drawers - over 3500 of them! I also bookmatched and made continuously running faces to all three rows of shelves - that meant having to get EVERY box joint perfect on all the faces or I would have to start all over again on the entire row! Luckily I was able to slowly and meticulously accomplish the effort.
This thing is also fairly HUGE for an apothecary - five feet long and a foot deep! The customer was specific on the measurements as he wanted it to fit in a specific spot in his house. He was also specific on the way the carcass was joined - NO overhanging edges! This meant I had to miter the sides to the top perfectly since it's very visible.
The entire inside of the carcass was painted with "China Red" epoxy paint prior to attaching the back.
The outside carcass is solid walnut and runs continuously up one side, across the top and down the other side - sort of a waterfall effect. The drawers faces are matched Ash with the boxes being long leaf pine.
Finish was Maloof's wipe-on oil finish and then a few coats of paste wax on the top surface.
It took a LONG while, but I think I was successful.
The first picture is the cabinet in its new home - the customer LOVED it!
After making two of these I can say for certain this time - NO. MORE. APOTHECARY. CABINETS. ;-)
BTW, here's a link to my first one - it's sitting in my office and the cherry has deepened to a fantastic dark red.
Cheers!
-bob
It was completed slowly, over the course of about four months. The most tedious thing about making one of these is doing the box joints on the 18 drawers - over 3500 of them! I also bookmatched and made continuously running faces to all three rows of shelves - that meant having to get EVERY box joint perfect on all the faces or I would have to start all over again on the entire row! Luckily I was able to slowly and meticulously accomplish the effort.
This thing is also fairly HUGE for an apothecary - five feet long and a foot deep! The customer was specific on the measurements as he wanted it to fit in a specific spot in his house. He was also specific on the way the carcass was joined - NO overhanging edges! This meant I had to miter the sides to the top perfectly since it's very visible.
The entire inside of the carcass was painted with "China Red" epoxy paint prior to attaching the back.
The outside carcass is solid walnut and runs continuously up one side, across the top and down the other side - sort of a waterfall effect. The drawers faces are matched Ash with the boxes being long leaf pine.
Finish was Maloof's wipe-on oil finish and then a few coats of paste wax on the top surface.
It took a LONG while, but I think I was successful.
The first picture is the cabinet in its new home - the customer LOVED it!
After making two of these I can say for certain this time - NO. MORE. APOTHECARY. CABINETS. ;-)
BTW, here's a link to my first one - it's sitting in my office and the cherry has deepened to a fantastic dark red.
Cheers!
-bob