Let’s start with the raw material, a wood billet. Also called a blank, this is the square of wood that you chuck in the lathe to make your turning. Having accurately milled billets that are exactly square and of the same length cannot be overemphasized. To achieve this, I run the face and one edge of the plank I will cut billets from across the jointer and then rip squares from this board with a good carbide blade in my table saw. I am rewarded with perfect squares that are straight.

Sometimes I crosscut the jointed plank to length first and then rip finished billets. Other times, I rip squares and then crosscut finished billets from the squares. It depends on the wood and the length of the billet.

While it is tempting to cut billets 1/8″ to 1/4″ oversize with the idea of creeping in on the largest diameter, this is a mistake. I mill to about 1/32″ over the diameter of the piece. Turnings such as table legs will have a square area called the pommel at the top. This is where the aprons will be mortised in to form the frame of the table. While the extra thirty-second does not affect diameter much, it gives me some cleanup room to hand plane the pommel nice and smooth after mortising.

You will need to accurately find the exact center of both ends of your freshly milled blank. I use a machinist’s center finder and a sharp awl to accomplish this: a pencil line marks to the side of the center finder, while an awl hugs it. I then center punch the exact intersection of the two resulting lines and catch the punch marks with my centers when I chuck the billet.

Chucking off-center decreases the diameter you obtain by the mis-centered amount. Chucking on-center gives you the full diameter of the blank without measuring; simply turn until the blank is just round and you have the major diameter of the piece. No need for calipers; just lightly touch your fingers to the back of the rotating piece until you feel the flat spots just go away.

Accurate Layout is Key

The human eye is much better in picking up differences in the height of key elements on several turnings than in judging differences in diameter. Of course, the larger the turning’s diameter, the more irregularity you can have without anyone noticing. Most furniture turnings are between 1″ and 2″ in diameter, so my comments address this size range. While no one will notice a 1/8″ difference in diameter between several turnings, 1/32″ in heights of any of the elements will bring scrutiny. Precisely placing all of the elements on a turning boils down to accurate layout. Here are some methods that will help immensely in achieving that goal:

Master Part: Turn a good example of what you want or what the plans suggest. Display this master turning in front of your lathe by either hanging it on the wall or setting it on a shelf or stool. All measurements are now taken from the master turning, and it acts as a comparison to guide you in turning the rest of the pieces.

Rulers and Tapes: I do not use tapes very much, as they are hard to hold against a turning and bend around turnings with large differences in diameter, giving a false reading. I like folding wood rulers much better. Measure key elements on the master and transfer these distances to the piece you are turning with a sharp pencil. It is generally best to only measure from one end; measuring from both ends can introduce errors. The longer the turning, the more this is so. An exception is where you want a tenon of a specific length on one end but are measuring from the other. In this case, using dividers to mark the length of the tenon is fine if all the billets are of exactly the same length.

Calipers and Dividers: Both these instruments are necessary to duplication. You cannot have enough of these stalwart friends in a variety of sizes. The ones that woodworking stores sell today tend to be big and clunky. I have good luck finding really good ones at house sales, flea markets and antique shops for reasonable prices.

As outlined previously, you can obtain the major diameter of a piece by milling the blank to that size. I set a pair of calipers at each of the lesser diameters on the master turning. (Actually, I set them about 1/32″ larger so that I have some room to finalize each diameter.) I use dividers extensively to set the width of coves, beads and tenons, as well as the distances between elements. I use my largest caliper or dividers for the greatest diameters and distances. I then try to graduate them size wise as the diameters and distances lessen. A perfect caliper for tenons is an open-end wrench. It will give you a press fit with a drilled hole (1/2″ hole, 1/2″ wrench).

Story Stick: This turning aid is great for long runs (50 pieces or more) or where you are going to be turning this part regularly. Start by drawing the part full-size; shelf paper is good for longer turnings. Extend lines from each of the key elements and glue the drawing to a thin piece of wood. Cut the resulting piece to the major diameter of the turning, and cut small notches where each of the lines meets the edge. You can now hold this story stick up to the turning, place a pencil in the appropriate notch and draw a line on the work at exactly the same place every time. You can also directly set calipers and dividers to key diameters and distances on the story stick. Drill a hole in it and hang it on the wall for next time.

Don’t Push Your Tool Ability: You do need to be an OK turner to duplicate, but you don’t need to be an ace. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is insisting on using a skew for final smoothing of the columnar sections of the turning or, even worse, cutting the beads. A skew is a tough tool to use regularly, and a poor time to gain the necessary skill to use it with aplomb is when turning the legs for a table you plan to finish the day after tomorrow. I am a huge believer in the spindle roughing-out gouge and a 1/2″ spindle gouge. A really well sharpened spindle roughing-out gouge is difficult to have a catch with and will leave a finish almost as good a skew. Practice with the skew after the table is finished and use it next time.

Use Appropriate Speeds: For 1″ to 2″ spindles, 800 to 1,600 rpm is a good speed range. I generally turn at 1,200 to 1,400 rpm but slow down to 600 to 800 rpm for skew work. Too much speed causes vibration with resulting chatter marks in the work. However, too slow invites catches. For sanding, you can speed the lathe up again. But keep it at 1,800 or under — then take your time and sand well.

Best Duplicator? You

I am frequently asked, “What is the best duplicator for my lathe?” My reply is, “You are!” You can buy duplicators, but one that is within the budget of workshop enthusiasts is a sorry affair. It will only scrape duplicate with a flat tool that cuts without a burr. Such tools do not produce smooth finishes or deep grooves between elements such as beads. For small production runs of four to eight pieces, you will spend more time setting up the duplicator than it would take for hand turning. The duplicate work also needs to be heavily sanded, starting at 60- or 80-grit. This further erodes crispness between elements, leaving very lackluster turnings.

We go to live concerts because there is a chance that the artist will make a slight mistake. I think it is the same with handbuilt furniture. If you want all the parts to be exactly the same, save the trouble of turning them and take a trip to IKEA.

The post Making Two Turnings Look Alike appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Before You Tape

It’s often wiser to dye, stain or seal the wood before you mask. For instance, you might start with a dye or stain for the lighter colored squares. Flood dye over the entire surface and wipe it all off immediately. When it’s dry, seal it with a coat of dewaxed shellac to prevent bleeding. Once that’s dry, mask every other block, then color the open squares with a darker pigment stain or contrasting paint color.

For paint over paint, apply the lighter paint color over the entire surface. Once it’s dry, mask and apply the darker paint over the first. On fresh paint, use delicate surface or low-tack masking tape.

Dye will creep under any sort of tape, since it goes through the wood itself. To get a crisp edge with dye, you must seal the area underneath the masking tape first. It means taping twice, but it’s worth it. Tape the area that will be dyed, then seal the adjoining areas with dewaxed shellac. After it is dry, reverse the taped and untaped areas before applying water-soluble dye.

Working with gold or silver leaf? Start by creating a filled-pore, high gloss finish over the entire surface in the color of the non-leaf blocks. Mask, then apply gilder’s varnish, also called gold leaf size. When it is dry enough to squeak, apply the gold or silver leaf and rub it with a clean, dry cloth before removing the masked squares.

Choose Your Tape Wisely

Not all tapes are equal in all applications. For lacquer, shellac, or oil-based materials, I prefer Scotch green lacquer tape, more common in auto parts stores than home stores. For water-based, you’ll get clean edges with Scotch Edge-Lock tapes (blue) or FrogTape® (green). These are designed to stop water from seeping under the tape, and they do actually work quite well. In a pinch, regular painter’s tape will work.

For paint-over-paint masking, use delicate surface or low-tack tape, which is less likely to lift the recently applied paint. Because it has lower tack or grab, make sure to smooth and press down the edges carefully after affixing it. When masking over paint, give the base color at least 24 hours to dry before masking, even when using low-tack tape.

You’ll notice I have not mentioned the traditional beige masking tape. My advice is to avoid it completely, as it yields sloppier lines and does not peel off either cleanly or easily. Apply the tape without wrinkles, then press the edges down with a brayer or squeegee. For a crisper line, let the tape sit in place overnight before you paint or stain.

Waste Tape, Save Time

What I’m about to describe may seem odd, but there’s method in my madness. For something like a chessboard, I’ll use wide rolls of tape and cover the entire surface rather than creating 64 blocks with many small pieces of tape. Abut the tape edges carefully, leaving no spaces whatsoever, but avoid overlapping. Sometimes using more tape and a sharp razor can actually save you time. The three photos show how that works.

Even at best, the tape edge will form a dam where paint or stain can well up and form a ridge. We want to keep that to a minimum, and thicker overlapped points make it worse, in addition to creating small spaces where finish can creep under the intersection.

Now that you have an unending sea of tape, use a straightedge and sharp razor blades to cut your chess block squares, then peel off every other one. I buy boxes of 100 single-edge razor blades at the home store for just a few dollars, and switch to a new, sharp one frequently. Don’t worry if you cut through into the wood as well, since it will barely show, and it may even make the chessboard look more like cut blocks or veneer. After all, that’s what we are trying to mimic.

Small Dams, No Puddles

Try to brush your paint or stain away from the masked edge and towards the center. Dragging the brush over the edge of the tape will form a puddle of excess paint at the edge, which dries slower, chips more readily and leaves an unpleasant ridge of paint.

Miniature paint rollers actually work better than brushes on masked surfaces, since they apply paint more evenly and don’t scrape across the tape dam. Using stain? Daub instead of scrubbing or wiping, if possible.

Removing the Tape

Don’t just pull upward to remove tape. Start at a corner or edge and pull the tape back over itself at an angle away from the painted edge. This will give you a cleaner line with less paint lifting.

To level the blocks, build up several coats of non-amber clear finish, sand without going through to your color layer, and repeat. For water-based paint and stains, use water-based clear finish, which is already colorless.

Don’t Forget the Border

These same techniques work to create a mitered border around the chessboard. You can even add a stringer of contrasting color just inside the border. My favorite technique for glazed mitered borders is to apply gel stain atop a sealed surface, then add grain texture by dragging a dry brush through it.

Lay a piece of 80-grit sandpaper at 45˚ on the corner, grit side down. The coarse grit won’t smear the glaze. Start with the bristles on the paper and drag the brush away from it, through the stain. Move the sandpaper to the grained side to create the adjoining miter edge.

The post Masking Off Finishes: Color Contrast the Easy Way appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Click Here to download the instructions for creating chess pieces on a bandsaw.

The post Cutting Grooves for Inlay Strips and Making Chess Pieces appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Their compact size and portability appealed to Civil War officers, who frequently took them into the field when they went off to war. So popular were they, in fact, that they quickly picked up the name “field desk,” a moniker that stuck. A Google search for “field desk” turns up hundreds of these from all time periods, whether they were actually used in the field or not.

These desks are just as versatile in the modern home. The one presented here isn’t a reproduction of any single desk, but I’ve borrowed details from a few historical examples — the carcass trim and lidded top are similar to Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s desk, while the tall dividers are patterned after those in a desk belonging to Capt. Edwin Stivers of Illinois. And although the design is 100% authentic to 19th century samples, I’ve updated it some with 21st century hardware and material conveniences. Don’t worry, though, I’ll include suggestions for a “period-correct” desk, too.

Getting Started

I’ve chosen cherry for this project, but feel free to use your favorite hardwood. Likewise, these desks came in an unbelievable range of sizes, so alter dimensions any way you like.

Mill your stock to the appropriate thicknesses per the Material List, then cut all the individual workpieces to rough size. There are a lot of parts here, so label or mark them to keep everything straight. Also, some parts move — door, drawers, shelves, etc. — and need a bit of clearance to move freely. With that in mind, note that I’ve sized everything on the Material List to match the openings into which they fit, but you may need to shave a tiny bit of stock off one edge or another for smooth operation. For example, the door stiles are sized at 15-1⁄2″ high on the Material List to match the 15-1⁄2″ door opening; however, you’ll want to ease that fit to allow a tiny gap at top and bottom to accommodate hinges and free movement.

Begin construction of the main carcass by cutting the necessary joinery. The desk sides receive 3/8″-deep by 3/4″-wide rabbets on the inside bottom edges for the desk bottom, which I cut with a dado blade on the table saw. Now, leave the blade set where it is and cut a 3/8″-deep by 3/4″-wide dado across the inner face of the two sides at 3″ down from the top. When assembled, the open area will be 16″ high.

Now change to a 1/2″ cutter and make a pair of 3/8″-deep dadoes on the inner faces of the desk top and bottom for the center drawer module. The center module accommodates drawers measuring 7″ wide, so once cut, the open space on either side is 8-1⁄4″ wide.

Finally, cut a 3/8″-wide x 1/4″-deep rabbet along the inside back edge of the desk sides for a 1/4″ plywood back.

Dry-assemble the carcass and check the joinery. Note how the 1/4″-narrower desk bottom and top meet flush with those rabbets you just cut on the sides. If everything checks out, dismantle the carcass and set it aside for now.

Making the Drawers

Most desks like these had at least one drawer, while others were filled with them; still others had none at all. I’ve done two drawers, but feel free to delete one or add another as you wish — and it is fine to use stock that is not cherry for your drawer sides and backs.

You can use any joinery you wish on the drawers, but I went with half-blind dovetails cut with a router table dovetail jig.

Drawer pulls can be as simple as a small hole drilled into the drawer front, but I love the look of brass and opted for brass flush pulls. You’ll need to do a bit of “layered” mortising for these, but this is pretty straightforward with a drill press. Here’s how to do it for the pulls I use: Set the depth stop to the thickness of the outer portion of the pull, and use a Forstner bit to drill the first mortise. A 1-1⁄2″-dia. Forstner bit is perfect.

Follow this up with a smaller Forstner bit to mortise a relief for the pull’s pivot. Finally, make room in the center for the curved back of the pull. For this, I chucked up a bullnose router bit into the drill press to excavate a relief area. It worked like a charm.

On the table saw, cut a shallow 1/8″-wide groove for the plywood drawer bottom, locating the groove so that it falls within the bottommost dovetail. This groove won’t be visible once the drawer is assembled.

I mentioned earlier I’d point out period-correct ways to do a few things, and the drawer bottom is one of them. Modern drawers typically “capture” the bottom, so for these you’d cut a groove in all four sides, partially assemble the drawer, slide in the bottom and then attach the final side. In the 19th century and earlier, drawers were often fully assembled first. The drawer front and both sides had a groove, but the drawer back was cut off right where the groove would go and the bottom was inserted later. The drawer bottom is slightly longer, and simply nailed or tacked into place at the back after assembly.

Dadoes and More Dadoes

We’ve already cut the dadoes in the desk bottom and top for the center module, but there are plenty more inside the desk. These are easier to do by clamping up component pairs, then measuring, marking and cutting them as a unit.

The dividers slide into stopped dadoes from the back. For the tall ones, clamp the desk bottom and top together, back edge-to-back edge, and mark the stopped dado locations. I used a T-square for the task, evenly spacing the two 8-3⁄4″-long dadoes on the left side of the desk. Once marked, use a clamp-on edge guide to rout 1/4″ x 1/4″ stopped dadoes on your marks. Because these are clamped together, you’ll rout each set of dadoes simultaneously in a single 17-1⁄2″ pass.

For the short dividers in the middle, clamp the desk top piece (one of your Pieces 2) and the top shelf of the center module (piece 6) together, also back-to-back, and mark three evenly spaced locations for stopped 7-3⁄4″-long x 1/4″-wide x 3/16″ stopped dadoes. (Use another of the 3/8″ center shelves to raise the top shelf up to the same thickness as the desk top.) As before, rout the dadoes using a clamp-on guide.

The drawer shelves in the center module need dadoes, too, with one slight difference. These are through-dadoes visible in the finished desk, so clamp the two sides of the module together front-to-front; when cutting the dadoes in a single pass, the router exits the cut on a back edge. If you get any slight tearout, it’ll be hidden on the back.

The middle drawer shelf goes right in the center; once it’s marked, use the drawers themselves to lay out the other two. Some scraps of the same 3/8″ stock used on the drawer shelves will help lay them out. As before, use clamp-on guides and rout across both workpieces in a single long pass.

The last task before assembly is preparing the tall and short dividers. The tall ones receive a nice profile on the front edge typical of the period, and you can cut this on the band saw or with a jigsaw, scroll saw or coping saw.

To match the round front of the stopped dadoes, use a 1/8″-radius bit to cut a roundover on both sets of dividers. The entire front of the short ones get the roundover, while just the top and bottom straight portion on the tall ones. While you have your router table set up, swap the small roundover bit for a larger one and mill a bullnose edge on the front and both ends of the desk lid.

Finally, give everything that will be on the inside of the desk a good sanding — it’s easier now than after assembly.

Assembling the Desk

Assemble the center drawer module first, taking care that the drawer shelf with the slots for the short divider is on top, dadoes facing up, as shown in the photo above. Apply glue inside the shelf dadoes and clamp up the assembly.

Attach the desk’s top and bottom to the center module, again ensuring that the divider slots are oriented correctly. In the photo, I’m clamping the assembly upside down so I can see those dadoes on the underside of the desk top. Better safe than sorry.

The upper storage compartment is boxed in with front and back pieces. The front is a simple piece of 3/4″ x 3-3⁄4″ x 26″ stock installed onto the upper front of the desk with glue and biscuits. The back piece, however, has 3/8″-wide x 1/2″-deep rabbets cut on the inner surface of each end and along the bottom, and is glued and screwed into place. You can see in the photo how the back piece creates another shallow rabbet underneath it. This teams with the rabbets on the back edges of the sides to form a recess for the desk back.

This is also a good time to attach the door-mounting strip on the bottom front. This is almost entirely a long-grain to long-grain joint, so glue alone is fine.

With assembly complete, test-fit all the dividers and adjust as necessary. These should slide easily in and out and be flush with the rear edges of the desk. Don’t glue these into place; the desk back holds them in. This is not only easier, it’s also period-correct — they were almost never glued in.

The shelves on the right side of the desk could be installed in a number of ways. If you prefer, you can cut even more dadoes to create shelf slots in the inner surfaces of the carcass before assembly. Since these shelves pull out, you’d need to make those through dadoes. However, for visual balance I set the shelves back the same distance from the front as the tall dividers on the other side, and I didn’t want empty slots in front of the shelves.

You could cut dadoes into a separate interior wall, but I’ve done something easier by creating a “shelf stack.” This method simulates dadoes, creating a solid and attractive means of mounting the shelves, yet allows them to be removed. The concept of stacked shelves is simple: Attach a series of wooden strips to the sides of the shelf compartment, topping each with a shelf.

Cut the side strips to width (the desired height of the shelf), and then it’s simply a matter of gluing and stacking. Start by gluing/clamping the two bottom side strips in place, then top with the first shelf. Then glue the next two side strips into place, top with the next shelf, and so on. Be careful not to get glue on the edges of the shelves or you won’t be able to remove them.

I’ve evenly spaced three shelves, but you can do more or fewer, and alter the spacing as you like. By the way, if you really make the shelves exactly evenly spaced, considering that the interior height is 16″ and the shelves are 3/8″ thick, you’ll end up with some tough-to-work-with fractions. Instead, make the first three sets of the side strips 3-3⁄4″ high as noted on the Material List, then just trim the top ones to fit. That top set will be about 1/8″ shorter but completely unnoticeable.

Finish off the desk carcass with a back cut from 1/4″ plywood, attached with 1/2″ screws — I used cherry plywood, but a different species is fine; original desks of this type often used a different wood on the back. If you want absolute period-correctness, use tongue-and-grooved or lap-jointed solid wood slats instead of ply.

Making the Door

The drop-down door is basic frame-and-panel construction, with a couple of options. Cut components to length, and then mill a 1/4″-deep groove down the inside edges of the frame pieces, and on both edges of the center stile. Since I’m using 1/4″ cherry ply for my panels, I’ve sized these grooves accordingly, but adjust yours for the panels you plan to use.

Now, install a 1/4″-wide dado set in your table saw (or a 1/4″ bit in a router table) and cut 1/4″-long tongues on the ends of the top and bottom rails and the center stile.

You’ll find it easier to install the desk’s half-mortise lock on the top rail now, before assembly. Clamp the rail to your workbench and lay the lock even with the top-inside edge of the door. Trace around the lock with a knife or sharp pencil. Keep in mind that most locks don’t have the key post in the center, so mount the lock slightly off-center in order to have the keyhole centered on the outside.

Define the mortise edges, then carefully clean out the waste with a chisel. Check the mortise depth frequently as you work by putting the lock in place upside down until the depth matches the thickness of the lock face. Now, mark the door edge for the shallow mortise that allows the top of the lock case to sit flush with the door edge.

Use a square or straightedge to mark the inner mortise for the lock mechanism. Speed things up for this deeper mortise with a Forstner bit on your drill press, being sure to set the depth stop. Remove most of the waste, then square it up with a chisel.

To locate the keyhole, rub pencil on the key post and press the lock firmly in place. The lock won’t lay flat because of the key post, but the graphite on the post marks the correct spot for drilling the keyhole. The hole need only be large enough to allow the key to pass through, but it’s best to size the hole to match the opening in the escutcheon you plan to use.

Flip the rail over and hold the escutcheon in place over the keyhole, and pencil in the keyhole outline. Shape the keyhole by removing most of the waste with a drill, then fine-tune it with a chisel, knife or round file.

I mentioned you had options on the door. On many original desks the door was the same inside as out, and if that’s your preference then assemble the door now. However, most included a formal writing surface on the inside that was smooth all the way across the panels. You can achieve this by making the center stile thinner so it’s flush with the panels. I removed most of the inner face on the band saw. Go easy on this, as you don’t want to go beyond the level of the tongues on each end. Best, in fact, to leave it a hair high for now and then level things out with a sander after assembly.

Assemble the door as you would any other frame-and-panel piece. The rails first, then slide in the panels, then the outer stiles. By the way, I wiped a light coat of oil on the panel fronts to see what they’ll look like before locking them in place. (Glad I did; I didn’t like the look of the first panels I cut.) I rarely use glue with panels, but in this case that center stile doesn’t have a closed groove — removing the back portion turned it into a rabbet — so I ran a thin bead of glue on that one panel edge when installing it.

Give the door a good sanding all around, including the center of the writing surface, to do any final leveling.

To create the mortise for the lock’s bolt, first attach the hinges on the bottom, 3-1⁄2″ from each end, then mount the door to the desk. (If you plan to dismantle it later for finishing, no need to use all the screws now.) Rub pencil marks over the top of the bolt and, with the door held closed, engage the lock so the bolt rises up into the underside of the desk’s top. This leaves a guide mark for cutting the bolt mortise. Make a series of shallow drill holes on this mark to create a slot, then clean and square things up with a thin chisel. You can add a strike plate over the bolt mortise if you like, but they weren’t typically used on desks in the 19th century.

Finishing Up

So, why are the drawer openings 10″ deep, but the drawers only 8-3⁄4″ long? Well, that’s a secret — a location for a secret till, that is. Hiding places were common in these desks, and I’ve included not one, but two, of them.

These are simple, butt-jointed boxes; they’re so small that wood movement just isn’t an issue. Center a finger hole near the top of each front piece, then just glue and clamp them up. Use any wood you want for these (they’re perfect scrap bin projects), but the facing pieces should be a dark wood so they’re less visible inside the drawer openings.

The last touch is an optional strip of 1/2″ half-round cherry molding that visually separates the lidded top of the desk from the lower portion. Miter the corners of the front piece and simply glue and clamp it into place; all the grain matches so wood movement isn’t an issue. That’s not the case on the desk sides, though. Attach the side pieces with a bit of glue at the front — the first 1-1⁄2″ inch or so — then a single pin nail in the center and one at the back.

Give the desk the finish of your choice. A drying oil was common in the 19th century and that’s what I’ve used — oil on cherry is my favorite finish in the world — but use whatever you prefer. If you’ve opted for the full writing surface as in the project desk, don’t apply any finish inside the panel area.

I used thin leather, adhered to a 1/8″-thick piece of hardboard, for the blotter here. Attaching the leather to a subsurface first with contact adhesive makes installing it way easier. You don’t have to mess with a lot of adhesive on the inside of the door at all, as you would gluing loose leather in place. Instead, with a few dollops of regular wood glue scattered around inside the door an inch or so from the stile/rail edges and a few in the center, you just drop the hardboard into place and you’re done. If you should decide to change the leather down the road, removing it is much easier, too.

Now, if you disassembled things for finishing, the last step is to reattach any hardware you removed — hinges for the bottom of the door, lid hinges for the back of the desk lid and the flush pulls on the two drawers.

Click Here to download a PDF of the related drawings and Materials List.

Hard to Find Hardware

2″ Brass Non-Mortise Hinges #28720

The post 19th Century Drop Front Desk appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Featuring:

Mid-Century Modern Nightstand: Learn to edge plywood and rout rounded corners with this sleekly styled piece inspired by the designs of the mid-20th century.

Portable Board Game Storage Box: Get set for playtime with a storage case that keeps your boards and your playing pieces snugly contained between friendly competitions. You’ll also find instructions in this issue on how to use tape to mask off a chessboard for the finishing process.

19th Century Drop Front Desk: Secret compartments, plenty of drawers and a writing surface made this style of desk work for field commanders during the Civil War era, and are just as useful today. Author A.J. Hamler provides options for period-correct construction, as well as today’s techniques.

Shaker Chair: The model might have been a museum piece, but building this chair offers an easy introduction to chairmaking, with the use of a handy alignment and drilling fixture for properly spacing the mortises.

Techniques: Sandor Nagyszalanczy offers you options to take the frustration out of measuring and layout – and make sure your project comes out right.

The post Woodworker’s Journal – September/October 2016 appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Tapering the Legs

Let’s get started by preparing four 1-3⁄4″ x 1-3⁄4″ leg blanks. Cut them to length, according to the Material List. Using a tapering jig at the band saw, rip two tapers from top to bottom to form the legs’ inner faces and 1″-square feet. You also need to miter-cut the tops and bottoms of the legs to form their splaying stance.

I used a scrap V groove jig to hold the untapered (back) edge of each leg securely and correctly while I made these two cuts on each leg. Tilt your miter saw off of vertical to a 5.5° angle, and trim the top and bottom ends to this angle. Be careful that both cuts face the same direction. Then set the legs aside for now.

Edging Plywood

Covering plywood edges with solid wood is a common method to hide the core material. If you do this carefully, you almost can’t tell it’s still plywood.

On this project, the edging also provides extra wood for milling deep chamfers around the nightstand’s front face.

A short tongue on the edging fits into a centered groove in the plywood to join the parts. By forming the edging on wider blanks, the narrow strips are safer to make at the router table and table saw. Then just glue and clamp them in place. Simple!

Adding Wood Edging

Rip and crosscut a top, bottom and two side panels for the carcass from veneered plywood. Use a sharp blade to cut the plywood’s face veneer cleanly, because on this project, those cut edges will show. To help minimize splintering as much as possible, trim the plywood “best face” up.

Now, mill a centered, 1/4″ x 1/4″ groove along the edges of the carcass panels that will face front and back. I used a 1/4″-wide slot-cutting router bit. This will give the solid wood edging, to come next, a locking connection to the plywood as well as a glue bond.

Prepare enough blanks of 3/4″-thick, 2-1⁄2″-wide solid wood to form pairs of edging strips for all four carcass panels. Try to choose your edging stock from wood with a grain pattern and color that’s consistent with the plywood veneer so it will blend in nicely. Mill the 1/4″ x 1/4″ tongues along both edges of each piece at the table saw with a dado blade buried partially in a sacrificial fence. Or, go with the same slot cutter you used to make the grooves.

It’s a good idea to refine your tongue-cutting setup on a test piece first so you can dial in a perfect fit in the panel grooves – you want a good, snug connection. Once the tongues are milled, rip the edging strips to width, cut them to length and glue them to their panels. Plane, scrape or sand the edging flush to the plywood faces, if needed. The nightstand’s legs will attach to the carcass with dowel tenons, so we’ll drill holes for those next. Carefully lay out the leg positions on the carcass bottom panel: they’re located at the corners of the plywood, flush with the edging. Center and mark a 1″-diameter tenon hole within each of the four leg areas.

While the tenon holes run straight through the bottom panel, the legs are splayed, so these holes penetrate the legs at an angle. And, you’ll want the legs to align with the bottom panel holes precisely. Easy solution? Stick the legs to the bottom panel with carpet tape to position them, then secure them for drilling, temporarily, with two 1-1⁄4″ brads.

You’re now ready to drill those dowel holes, but first study how I set this up in the photo. With the bottom panel resting on your drill press table, drill the tenon holes through the bottom panel and 1″ into the legs. Brace underneath the leg with a scrap block when drilling its dowel hole. Once the four tenon holes are done, pry the legs free from the panel, pull out the brads and peel off the tape.

Making Corner Blocks

Shaping the nightstand’s large, rounded outside corners would be impossible on plywood, so we’ll use wood blocking here instead. Prepare four 1-3⁄4″-square blanks for the corner blocks, and crosscut them to match the width of the carcass panels.

You’ll notice that the inside corners of the carcass are also rounded, so let’s start with those curves first. We’ll form them in the corner blocks simultaneously with a 2″-dia. Forstner bit. Start by taping the four corner blocks together in a bundle. Arrange the blanks so their best-looking ends are together. These will face front on the nightstand.

Unlock and tilt your drill press table to vertical, and clamp the bundle securely to the table so it’s centered exactly under the chuck. If you’ve got a powerful drill press, bore a 1-3⁄8″-deep hole down into the centerpoint of the bundle with the 2″ Forstner bit. Then flip the bundle over and reclamp. Bore a 3/4″-deep hole into this end for the carcass’s back panel. To manage drilling into this tough end grain with my modest-sized drill press, however, I had to use a range of Forstner bit sizes, working up to a 2″ diameter, to keep the drill press from stalling. It was time-consuming but doable. Just be patient with the slow drilling process.

With these inner curves completed, you’re ready to assemble the carcass. I used a Festool Domino machine to reinforce the corner joints with three floating tenons, but biscuits or dowels would also work fine. Dry-assemble the carcass pieces to check their fit, and mark them to keep the part order clear.

Now sand the inside faces of the carcass parts up to 180-grit, and apply stain and finish. Then go ahead and glue and clamp the carcass together.

When the clamps come off, round the outside corners of the carcass to 1-3⁄4″-radii. I did this by first trimming off the sharp corners at the table saw with the blade tipped to 45°, then removed the rest of the waste with a spokeshave. It’s a great way to gain some experience with a classic hand tool, and the process is remarkably quick and enjoyable if your spokeshave is good and sharp. Sand these curves smooth and so they meet the carcass panels flush.

The inside front edge of the carcass receives a deep chamfer all around. You can mill it with a large piloted chamfering bit at the router table. Feed the carcass clockwise against the bit, removing material in several deepening passes. Make the final chamfer 5/8″ deep and so about 3/16″ of material is left around the outer edge of the carcass face.

Final-sand and finish the outside surfaces of the carcass to complete it.

Detailing the Legs, Adding Tenons

Grab the four legs again so you can soften their long, sharp edges. I eased the outer three edges to 3/8″ radii with a router and roundover bit, then switched to a 1/8″-radius bit for the fourth edge that will face inside the legset. Sand the legs smooth, then stain and finish them.

Glue 2″ lengths of 1″-dia. dowel into the four holes in the legs. When the glue dries, test-fit the legs on the carcass without glue, and mark the top protruding ends of the tenons for a flush fit. Remove the legs so you can trim the tenons to final length. Do this back at your miter saw with the blade tipped again to 5.5° off of vertical. Face the outside edge of the legs down in the V-groove jig as you did before. This will create the proper cutting angle to trim the tenons neatly to your layout lines.

Building the Drawers

Before you build the two drawers, go ahead and install the drawer slides inside the carcass so you’ll know if you need to adjust the Material List dimensions of the drawer parts to suit your nightstand’s actual inside dimensions. Better to be safe than sorry! Locate the centerlines of the slides 2-1⁄8″ up or down from the corner blocks.

Now prepare enough 1/2″ stock for the drawer fronts, backs and sides, then rip and crosscut these parts to final size. I assembled the drawer boxes with simple 1/4″ x 1/4″ rabbet-and-dado corner joints. They’re easy to mill at the table saw with a 1/4″-wide dado set. Plow 1/4″-deep dadoes across the inside faces of the drawer sides, front and back, 1/4″ from the part ends. Then cut rabbets on the ends of the drawer fronts and backs to fit the drawer-side dadoes. Dial in your saw settings on test pieces first, so your final joints will be spot on.

Next, leave the dado blade in your table saw to cut 1/4″-wide, 1/4″-deep drawer bottom grooves around the inside faces of the drawer parts. Dry-fit the drawer boxes together, and measure the span between those grooves before cutting your two drawer bottoms to size.

You’re ready to sand the drawer parts up to 180-grit, and assemble them with glue and clamps. When the clamps come off, give the drawers a couple coats of clear finish to protect them. After it dries throughly, install the metal slide components on the drawer boxes so you can hang them in the nightstand.

Routing Corners with a Jig

These ABS-plastic templates, with four different radii per template, register with the corners of a workpiece blank automatically, thanks to pins and tabs that protrude down through the clip-on blue handle. For these drawer faces, you’d use the 1” radius template corner.

Trace the template curves, then trim off most of the waste with a band saw or jigsaw. Bring the curves to final shape by guiding a top-bearing flush-trim bit in your router table along the template edge.

Finishing Up

The drawer faces are the only parts left to make. Measure the inside opening of the carcass carefully, then cut two drawer face blanks to width and length. Mark 1″ radii on their outside corners. Trim off most of the waste, and rout or sand the curves to shape.

I sanded my drawer faces super smooth and eased their edges with a tiny chamfer, then spray-painted them with six light coats of metallic lacquer. Let them dry thoroughly.

Mount the drawer faces on the drawer boxes temporarily with carpet tape to help position them. Now locate and drill pilot holes through the drawer faces and boxes for the screws that secure the metal pulls. Install that hardware.

One more piece of round-cornered plywood will form a back for your nightstand. And once that’s fixed in its opening, glue and install the legs to wrap up this snazzy little retro project.

Click Here to download a PDF of the related drawings and Materials List.

Hard to Find Supplies

Rockler Corner Radius Routing Templates #32611
Amerock Allison Value Hardware Pull BP3415-26 #1007662
12” Series 3612 75-lb. Full-Extension Centerline® Slides #45859
2” Forstner Bit, 3/8” Shank #21242
17⁄8” D x 1” H x 1/2” Shank Rockler Chamfer Bit #27080

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Ample use of stretchers makes it immune from racking, and the tape seat is like having a myriad of band clamps to reinforce the glue.

Shaping the Legs

I turn the legs almost entirely with a spindle roughing-out gouge. While I will plane straight-grained wood with a very sharp skew chisel, curly wood is best sanded smooth. I finish the legs and stretchers, but not the seat rails, before glue-up.

Finish Options

The original Shaker chair in the museum is maple with a wash of red paint, but I have made these chairs in curly maple with a clear finish to stunning effect. If you want to use the original Shaker finish, then leave the wood bare and remove all traces of excess glue. Mix a thin solution of milk paint and brush on an even coat. Once thoroughly dry, apply a coat of oil finish such as Waterlox®.

On the other hand, if you have picked striking wood, a clear finish is easy to apply. A couple of coats in the lathe make sanding much less tiresome.

Marking and Drilling the Legs

I like to bundle the leg posts together as they will be in the assembled chair and put masking tape or a pencil line (the distance up from the bottom of each leg) where the mortises will be drilled, as seen in the photos. This keeps me organized and saves me from turning a post in the wrong direction when drilling the second line of holes.

To drill the holes in the legs, I created a marking and drilling jig that you can see in the photos and Drawing on the next page. With this jig, I also use a 10˚ alignment ramp and an alignment stick. The alignment stick is a 1″-square billet with a 5/8″-dia. by 7/8″-long tenon turned on one end. The tenon should be a tight slide fit with the hole drilled by the auger bit that will be used to drill the mortises in the leg posts for the rails and stretchers.

Clamp each rear post in the Drilling Fixture and drill the mortises for the back rails/stretchers first. The 5/8″-dia. holes should be drilled 7/8″ deep to fully bottom the 3/4″ tenons. Making a story stick like I am using in the top photo at right helps to get things right, even if you are only making one chair. The story stick should be 1-7/16″ wide (slightly smaller than the 1-1/2″ diameter of your leg posts); it helps greatly in centering the holes as you mark them. Be sure to center punch the location before drilling.

After drilling the back rails/stretcher holes in the back posts, insert the alignment stick in the bottom hole and rotate the leg so that it is parallel to the alignment ramp with the big end toward the jig. A note about the alignment stick and the alignment ramp: They are used as a reference — sometimes the surface of the stick lies directly on the alignment ramp, but sometimes you eyeball the relationship. See it in use in the photos. You should see the second pencil mark, meaning you turned in the correct direction, and you will have an angle of 100˚ between the holes. The other post in the pair will turn in the opposite direction, and the wedge has to be placed on the other side.

In the Drawing, you see the big end of the wedge as it would be used for the back posts. Making the alignment stick parallel to the wedge makes the angle between the rows of the holes 100˚— what you want for the back posts. Use the small end for the front posts.

Making Rails and Stretchers

The seat rails are essentially dowels with a 5/8″-dia. by 3/4″-long tenon on each end. I turn them with a spindle roughing-out gouge and leave a spiral pattern, which helps prevent the tape from which the seat is woven from slipping to the back. (For the same reason, you won’t want to finish the seat rails!)

To quickly size the tenon, I use a beading and parting tool and a 5/8″ open end wrench as a gauge. The eight stretchers can also be a dowel with a 5/8″-dia. by 3/4″-long tenon on each end, but they look much more elegant if they are tapered from the center to about a 1/16″ shoulder at each tenon.

When you’re placing the rails and stretchers into your chair assembly, you’ll need to note that all the side seat rails and bottom stretchers are slightly higher than the front and back rails/stretchers. The distance is 5/8″, or just a bit more, so that the holes do not interfere with each other. Other stretchers are placed to reduce racking. You can see the placement distances for these in the Drawing; all distances are for the center of the hole location.

Seat Back: Boiling to Bend

To create the curve in the seat back, I employed the process of poaching in a hot water bath. I built a bending form, as seen in the Drawing, to accomplish this. The form was easy to build: simply saw the shape down the center of a 2″-thick by 3″-wide by 11-1/4″-long piece of wood. I use maple, but any wood will do. The shape may be laid out by bending a thin strip of wood between nails pounded into the top at about 3/4″ from each end. You will need to sand each half smooth; otherwise, rough saw marks will imprint in the wood that you’re bending.

To bend, wood needs to be 180° or hotter and have 20% moisture content. You can easily accomplish both needs by poaching your back piece in simmering water or steaming for 15 to 20 minutes. A cake pan and a hot plate or camp stove will work. I find it useful to put some round bars in the pan so the piece is slightly off the bottom, and to place a weight like the wrench you can see in the photos above to hold it down on these bars.

Once you’ve removed your piece from the simmering water, it’s very important to have it fully clamped into your bending form within one minute. Waiting longer than a minute will most likely result in the piece dropping below 180˚: breakage, rather than bending, will be the result. Wearing leather gloves during this process is a good idea. I simply put the form in a bench vise, align the hot part between the two halves, and close the vise. Your piece should stay in the bending form for a minimum of 12 hours.

Once you’ve removed your back piece from the bending form, it will spring back a bit, leaving about 3/8″ of deflection.

Cutting the mortise for the back support is best accomplished with a hollow chisel mortiser. I put the alignment stick in one of the holes and vertically align it in the mortiser. If you don’t have a mortising machine, hand mortising works well, as does a router with a 1/4″ spiral bit and a suitable jig.

Final Assembly

Once you have all of your wooden pieces ready, it’s time to glue up and assemble your chair. Glue with a long open time is best; I like Titebond® III or 90-minute epoxy. Two strap clamps will pull all of the tenons to full depth and usually bring the chair square.

Just after clamping, if the chair is out of alignment, I become a chair chiropractor. I simply grab the tops of the back posts, place a foot on one of the bottom stretchers and muscle the parts around until the chair sits level and looks square. This is why long open time glue is very, very good!

Weaving the Seat

My wife, Susan, weaves the seats for our chairs with cotton tape, which is available in several colors as “Shaker Tape” from Royalwood Ltd. (www.royalwoodltd.com; 800-526-1630). She shows the simple weaving process in a video found below:

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