Against the Grain

[MikeG.]

Well, strictly, I guess it should be Across the Grain.


It is with great pleasure that I post in the Projects section for the first time in many, many months. It was a pleasure clearing the workshop of aluminium and fibreglass detritus, and getting back to playing with a bit of wood.

The project is a pair of chest of drawers, utilising some pre-made drawers scavenged from some office furniture, and design brief was for pine with a dark finish and bandsaw marks left on all of the faces!

This brief was developed in conjunction with my design consultant, who seemed to excercise a disproportionate amount of power in the process, forgetting which of us is the professional designer!

Ho hum......

This is all made from demolition wood. Old door linings and bits from a built in bed/ storage system.

As every face needed bandsaw marks, and I had passed everything through the PT, I adopted this technique. I held a board each side of the blade, and "sawed" along the inter-face. It was very effective.

This is to be a carcass of two side panels, some framing between the drawers, and a couple of cross members on the back...........so most of the work is on the side panels and the top. This is the start of the side panel construction:

Cutting the grooves

Cutting the tenon shoulders on the RAS

Cutting the tenons:

Gluing up the panels. The panelling is ex12mm t&g matching board, bandsawed faces, and wrong way out (ie groove not showing)

A coat of Fiddes Rugger Brown wax was then rubbed over everything.......it was quite odd waxing something so rough.

Using a router jig with stop I then housed out the sides for the cross-rails:

The screwed on the drawer runners. In the wrong place. Twice. Slow learner?

The tops were supposed to be cut from one large old desk-top that had been kicking around for a while, but it wasn't flat enough. I ripped it up, then sorted the boards into curve up and curve down grains alternately, and glued it all back together again with rubbed joints. The 5 minute PVA glue meant this had to be quite a well planned operation.

Oak buttons to hold the top on (I forgot to take pictures of the glue up of the frame).

Just the faces to apply to the drawers, and a second coat of wax over everything and it was finished:

The knobs are temporary. I'm looking out for some rusty steel rings.

There we are. Three days of wood-work, now, unfortunately, it is back to fibreglass and aluminium........

Mike

 

[OPJ]

Mike, good to see you woodworking again!

I actually quite like this and it does look nicer than some of the 'bandsawn' furniture I've seen in a couple of American books. I like your tip on cutting between two boards at the same time. That finish must have made it a right b****r to finish - rather you than me! :wink:

Will we be seeing more of your woodwork from now on?

 

[MikeG.]

Thanks Olly.

No, I'm afraid that might be it as far as woodworking goes for the next couple of months. My next woodworking project could be fun, though........a downhill racing car!

The finish was a bit easier to apply than you might think, and the result rather smoother than you would expect.

Mike

 

[head clansman]

hi mike

I love the fact that you used all ods and ends to make these units ,and especially recycled the drawers from elsewhere all for that , any reason for no backs which would have done the same job as the brace . hc

 

[Jake]

Very Tate Modern!

I like it.

 

[MikeG.]

any reason for no backs which would have done the same job as the brace . hc

Only that I had lots of scaps of softwood, and not much in the way of ply/ hardboard/mdf. It is also easy to ensure that the sides are exactly parallel if you simply cut all the cross-pieces to the same length at the same time, and set them into housings all routed to the same depth at the same time.

This also has a benefit when it comes to planting the drawer fronts onto the drawers. I screw through from the inside until there is just a small point of the screw sticking proud, pack the drawer front into place within the frame, then push the drawer from behind to mark its position on the back of the drawer fronts (the screw points do this for me). This requires access from the rear to be able to push the drawers.

Mike

PS Thanks Jake!

 

[Mattty]

Looks good Mike. I fitted out a few Walkabout bars about 10 years ago with a very similar finish.

 

[MikeG.]

Matty,

your face hasn't got any better!

Mike

 

[Ironballs]

Mike there's no arguing that your pieces are unique! This one not to my tastes, but you knew what you wanted and knocked it out pretty quickly.

By the way there's no that's the last of the woodworking projects for 2 months, you owe us that weird conservatory chair thing from the compo. So chop chop!

 

[MikeG.]

This one not to my tastes

Nor mine! I haven't used pine for years.......but my design consultant had a clear vision of what was needed, and, with a whacky set of conservatory furniture to make, I thought I would keep my powder dry over something as unimportant as bed-side drawers for the spare room. Up here for thinking......

Mike

 

[TheTiddles]

I've got a beech chest of drawers that looks a bit like that I made a few years ago, because I didn't have time to finish it properly, maybe it's fashionable now, I was going to bin it as soon as possible as it offends me!

Aidan