Night stand (final post)

Here's the final set -

Night Stand (post ten)

Well, the night stands are done. I spent about two weeks finishing the pair. Here's the process in thumbnail - first, I mixed a aniline dye and thoroughly covered the entire piece, inside and out. After some sanding (because the water raised the grain) I coated the pair in a coat of varnish thinned with mineral spirits. This sealed the dye and allowed me to then rub in gel stain. I used a mahogany gel stain which colored the deep grain of the oak in an even, dark color matching the aged appearance of the original pieces I attempted to match. After this was thoroughly rubbed in I then put on 3 coats of poly. I put a few more coats on the top sanding between coats to level the surface.

After this was all complete I installed the hardware.

Night Stand (post nine)

The last remaining items to build are the drawers. Drawers require a quite a bit of material and thus a quite a bit of milling. For the sides, I took a large board of Alder and cut it into 1/2" thick sections to produce the sides and back. I used Poplar for the bottom. These had to be glued up because of the 16" depth. All this milling and gluing took quite some time.
I planned out how I wanted the dovetails to look and then cut each part just a bit larger than needed to fit in the drawer holes. Going back and forth between the stand and the work bench and using various hand planes produced pieces that fit exactly into each space. The drawers will have no modern slides so they must fit very precisely in order to work and not bind.

Once this was complete the dovetails were cut using a dovetail jig and a router.
















The end result looks like this.

















After all of the pieces are milled and fit and dovetailed the drawers were assembled. As usual, the bottoms of the drawers float as a panel and are not glued. Once glued, the drawers are final fit into each drawer slot until they slide nicely.

Next, to finish.

Night Stand (post eight)

It has been a few days since my last post, but I had some redundant work to do - gluing up the second stand. After I removed the clamps from the second stand I finished the tops routing a 5/8 radius on the underside and hand cutting a radius on the front corners. I then attached them to the stands. Next, I milled a some small blocks that attach to the top and fit into the dado milled into the sub-top.










They are shown above and loosely fit into the groove. These blocks will be screwed from the bottom to secure the top. The top then fits tightly, but can move without either splitting and cracking or tearing apart the joints below.

Next, the four doors. These are similar in construction to the rest of the stand - mortise and tenon construction with a floating panel; however, I used a thicker piece of wood and raised the panel putting the raised section toward the inside.






















The center stiles are half-lapped with a beaded edge run down the center. The center of the doors are cut at 2 degrees off of 90 so the doors don't bind when shutting. This all was done on the table saw and the router table. You might notice I have drawn exactly what I need to do the end of the center stile so it can't get screwed-up. After many steps it really sucks to mess up and have to go all the way back through to recreate the piece.





After gluing up the doors they are fit into each opening. There are a couple of things I can point out with the proportions of the doors. (you may have to click on the picture to see this) Notice that the bottom rail is the widest. Although, you may not realize it, a door with all of the rails and stiles the same width looks odd. Also notice that the center stiles are each much smaller, but together make up about the width of a regular stile. Next, I start the drawers.

Night Stand - glue up (post seven)

I had a list of about half-a-dozen items to finish before I was ready for a dry run for glue-up, one of which was to put a small bevel in the front legs. Both of the pieces I'm matching have such a bevel; although both are a little stronger than what I want to make. This is accomplished on the table saw with a small jig I threw together from scraps. After beveling the leg the cut is cleaned up with a hand plane.












With all of the pieces cut and all of the miscellaneous items complete I'm finally ready for the dry run. This is the fun part as I now get to see what everything will look like and how all my joints fit. One of the important elements of the dry run is making sure that I can fit, glue, and clamp everything in the order I anticipate. This is something that can get screwed up during the glue-up, so everything has to be just right. Here's the final stack. What's missing are all the drawer and door parts.


















Many of the parts are numbered and identified either one or two (I'm making two), but not all; so as I fit each piece I will note inside/down, etc... so I don't have any unexpected problems and so any defects in the wood face in. Glue-up needs to go as quickly as possible. It took about 45 minutes to get to this. Now to take it back apart and glue it up.























Here's what it looks like all clamped.























Now, the only thing that remains during this phase is attaching the sub-top. It gets screwed onto the end of each leg. I don't have to worry about wood movement so screws work well. These four screws will be the only fasteners in the stand (except for the hinges). Tammi and the kids are coming back tonight so I will go much slower now. Next, is to glue up the other stand and start and the doors. I also need to buy the hinges so I can make sure, as I make the doors, that everything will work.

Night stand - the details (post six)

The first chore for today was to remove the clamps from last nights glue-ups and clean them up. The wood seldom, despite your best efforts, matches up flush, so a hand plane cleans up the joint. Notice in the picture you can see where the boards joined at the edge, but not in the middle. That's the goal - here's the picture.







Next, the panel is trimmed to size and a tongue was milled into each side. This will become a floating panel - similar to a door or the sides. I used the tablesaw.


















In the following pictures you can see the panel as it fits into the bottom stretcher (it has the tenon on the end) and in the second picture the way the tenon fits into the same groove or dado that the panel fits into. I won't glue these up until I assemble the entire stand.















I also need to put the half-round profile on the under-top glued up yesterday. This is done on the router table. It is very simple - insert the bit, make a couple of passes and the job is complete.


















Here's what it will look like.


















Now, for some hand work. The bottom shelve will fit into a recess in the back legs. This is done by hand - well mostly, I did waste part of the cut with a drill bit. The square is marked out, the center is wasted with a forstner bit and the remainder is chiseled out. The shelve will fit into the hole.










This is part of the "stack" - I'll soon be ready to assemble! I won't make the drawer or the doors until the stand is assembled so I can fit the pieces. I have the rough sizes cut, but before I do the dovetails I need the drawer front to be the exact final size.

Night stand - parts and pieces (post five)

I cut a lot of various parts today and used mortise and tenons joints, but you've seen that so I'll skip the boring details. However, I did stray from traditional joinery this afternoon so I'll introduce that technique.

The furniture I'm patterning my design from both have an "under-top". It isn't a full piece of wood like the top is; it is just a frame that appears to be a base for the top. I milled the pieces for this "skirt". It is pictured to the right. This goes just under the top surface of the night stand, but it is slightly smaller.

Wood can be glued edge to edge and "top" to "top", but it can not be glued on the end grain so I have to fasten the pieces together using some mechanical method. More on that later, but now notice the groove or dado on the inside. I will use this dado to attach the top allowing for the top to move. I will show this when I get to it, but for now remember the groove.

A biscuit is a handy European invention that is now widely used to fasten this kind of butt joint. You can see it to the left along with the biscuits. These are small pressed pieces of wood in the shape of football. They come in various sizes for different applications. I am using the largest size. The idea is simple - a small blade cuts half-a football shaped groove in the end of the wood. Insert the biscuit and join a matching piece of wood; cut the same way in just the right spot, both up and down and left to right, to the first piece of wood. The biscuits expand, the glue drys and you have a very strong and simple joint.



Here is a biscuit in a joint. You can also see where I stopped the dado so as to not interfere with the butt joint. I wasn't precise with this cut and just make a rough mark. By the way, this dado is done on the table saw with a very wide blade that is adjustable in width. It is called a dado stack. I could have also accomplished it with a router, but it is harder to set up - the table saw is quick and easy.




























Here is the assembled piece. I will glue this overnight and use a router tomorrow to profile the edge. This actually is the first piece I have glued. I still am not going to assemble the entire stand,but I will start with some of the parts - I have to - there are almost 50 pieces stacked and taking up room!


















I also glued up some panels for the bottom, or "floor" of the stand. These boards are simply glued together on each edge after being joined on the joiner. A glued joint like this will crack and split the wood before it will break. This is in contrast to the end grain I just wrote about.

Night stand - the carcass comes together (post four)

The next items to make are the stretchers for the front. These separate the two drawers and the area with the doors. In modern furniture it is typical to have one at the top too, but the Victorian pieces have no top stretcher so I will not use one either. Mortises are first cut into each leg. This is accomplished on, of all things, a mortiser. Basically, this is a drill that cuts a square hold. Set-up takes a while, but once you get it going the holes go quickly. The depth of each mortise should be slightly deeper than the tenon. If you call it too close the shoulder won't sit tight against other member. This also leaves a small space of the extra glue that will be pushed in at assembly.






























Once the square mortises are cut they are then cleaned with a sharp chisel in preparation to receive the tenons. Next, I mill up the stretchers and cut the tenons on each end. The bottom stretcher is larger as a design element. This gives the base a sturdy feel and supports the wood on the bottom.
Although, it may look like I use only machines every piece get tuned by some quick hand work. These pictures show trimming the tenon so that it is just the right size and flushing the shoulder so it sets perfectly flush. I set the plane blade to remove .002 with each pass. Obviously, it is better to make the parts slightly oversize and then fit them. It is kind of hard to add once cut!






































WOOPS! I'm always ripping myself up with the hand tools!

















Now to check it out. This is the basic carcass hastily assembled without glue. That will be later.

Night stand - the start (post three)

THE WOOD

It took about an hour to select the wood. You might imagine picking boards off of a pile, but it isn't that simple. Wood, when cut, tends to bend and twist if it isn't carefully selected, so I'm looking at the grain for many characteristics so the table doesn't tie itself in knots when complete. It is advantageous to select boards from one tree, but I don't have that luxury so I have to look at color and grain too. All kinds of different grain will look odd and tend to break-up the overall look calling attention to each individual piece of wood.


Here's the stack. It doesn't look like much - yet. Now, I have to go through and mark each cut so as to plan the use of the wood effectively. Again, I want the the quartersawn pieces in certain places and certain grain in other pieces.

THE CUTTING

I am using 1/2, 3/4, 1, and 1-1/2 inch pieces. Each piece will be milled to thickness using a planner, then joined on one edge so as to have one straight edge to begin ripping on the tablesaw. This process actually takes a quite a bit of time. Once complete I start cutting the individual parts. This is a few of the parts for each of the side where I will start. Next, I start milling the tenons on the parts that need them.













The requires a lot of work on the tablesaw. First I set-up a machine that holds the wood so I can mill the cheeks of each tenon. You can see the first two cuts on the end of the one of the side pieces. Two more cuts complete this operation. Each tenon must be very precise so the glue is not squeezed out, or the fit too loose. It is common to work at tolerances of .01.


















Next, I cut the shoulder of the tenons. As you can see the tenons are smaller than both the width and depth of each piece. This makes for a clean look when assembled. If the mortise was cut to the full size of the board a ragged edge would show and it would be difficult to control the width when clamping.



















Next a grove gets milled in each leg to accept the tenon and the 1/2 inch panels that go between each rail. This picture show some of the pieces after finishing this phase.


















The next picture shows the end of an assembled panel. I won't glue this until much later - it is just stuck together for now. Look closely and you can see that each thin panel (1/2 inch) can move in the space between each rail. Also you can see the tenons of each rail even with the panels which will fit into a groove on each leg.


















I then mill a grove in the legs to accept the rails and panels. The first parts, the sides, are now complete. This is how the sides will look - two on each stand. I still have work to do to the legs, but the side panels (after final fitting by hand) are ready to assemble. The back of each stand is made the same way, with poplar though. Poplar is cheaper and backs won't show and poplar was customarily used in this period. In cabinetry, this is called a secondary wood.