One big honkin' piece of cherry

One of the most overlooked parts of many projects is the stock selection.  Not just choosing the right boards, but also finding the best way to integrate grain, hide glue joints, and work around (or even incorporate) defects into the project.  I've found this is one of the biggest trade-offs you can make in quality versus cost.  Typically, the widest, thickest boards give you the most flexibility (and are usually the highest quality sticks in the bin) but also come at a premium price.  I've learned long ago this is the last place you want to skimp.  So in this episode I'll show you how I carefully selected and then laid out the pieces on a $150 piece of 12/4 cherry.

There was actually way more footage than I could manage to use on the actual layout of each individual piece in my stack lamination.  However, I plan to produce a bonus video after the final episode in this series that really does a deep-dive in my process.  If you're a real wood geek, keep your eyes open for that down the road.
Enjoy!



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Stepping it up

Happy New Year to all, and welcome to a fresh new project here at The Bois Shop. This next project is a departure for me in several different ways.  You see, coming up in February is Tommy MacDonald's Boston Wood Expo, and the creative category this year challenges the builder to come up with a new interpretation of the classic step stool. The only rules are that it's primarily made out of wood, has 2 or 3 steps, and would fit in a 30" cube. So I though this would be a great opportunity to really do something different and unique. This first episode, as usual, concentrates on my design process. This project is simple enough I didn't need to draw up measured plans, but I did spend quite  a bit of design on the key design element - the sides.

I don't expect anyone to follow along this build, but I will say that the only tools required for joinery and finishing are a jig saw, sharp chisels, some good rasps, and a lot of sandpaper. A band saw would also help in the process, but you could easily do without. I'll be very interested to get feedback on the early design, as this definitely took me out of my comfort zone a bit.  Enjoy the build!



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The last step - my completed step-front chest of drawers.

You can put a fork in this one, it’s done. I made several mentions along the way that this stepped front chest project turned out to be quite a bit more complicated than I had envisioned. I never expected this to actually create fifteen episodes worth of footage, but I don’t think I’d be nearly interested in woodworking if it were completely predictable. In this case, my real saving grace was my choice of materials. I actually chose butternut initially because I got a good deal on some 8/4 shorts that were perfectly sized for this project. But the added benefit of butternut is its workability. I was really reminder of this when I had to cut dovetails in the maple sides and each cut took about twice as long as it’s mating cut in the butternut.

I have another really unique project underway, and will start publishing episodes right after the holidays. I’m thinking after that I might actually tackle my first chair-building project. Things are already shaping up to be a fun 2012. Happy holidays, and as always thanks for following the blog.




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Builder's Blues

It turns out most people that view my blog videos do so completely outside the confines of the blog itself.  Whether it’s via YouTube or iTunes, the majority of my viewers never actually read my intros.  For that reason, I usually keep them brief and to the point.  But you know what?  This is still a blog and so I’m going to make it a little… well… bloggie once in a while.

First, my apologies for the long wait between posts.  I could blame Thanksgiving and crazy work travel, but the reality is I hit that inevitable part of every project where I got builder’s block.  I had finished all the challenging and creative steps, and was left with a rag tag punch list that included the drawer kickers, fitting the drawers, and closing up the drafty back of the case.  Selfishly, I was emotionally done with the project and was already thinking two projects ahead.  But guess what?  I realized that this is the point of every project that ultimately separates good from great.

It is far too easy to start neglecting details once you get well into a project, but those details are exactly what you as a maker or your customer will come to appreciate over time.  It could be the perfect reveal around each drawer front, or the hardwood back that nobody sees but for every few years.  Or that the drawers slide perfectly in and out without racking even after the thousandth time.  Those are the reasons that make me prideful about my work even years after the fact.  I realized then that the first time I start ignoring those seemingly annoying details is when I have to rethink why I got into this craft in the first place.  So I promptly got my butt down to the shop and made some good drawers into some great drawers.

So with that preamble out of my system, this episode focuses on those details that really do separate good from great.  The things your customer or your wife might not appreciate right away or even in a few years.   Heck, even if nobody notices after 10 years, you will still be left with the pride of knowing you did the job right, and you didn’t cheat that tree that may have taken 100 years to yield your stock.  Leave the corner cutting to the production shops, not yours.

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Bracketology - Part II

As promised, here is part II of the construction of the bracket feet.  This episode covers the coving of the profile for the feet using a combination of power and hand tools, as well as an unlikely jig.  These are smaller feet than you’d see on a full sized chest of drawers, which actually created a little bit of a challenge for mounting to the case.  I’m really coming down the home stretch on this project, as the feet are really the last bit of construction (save for the back). 

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Bracketology - Part I

With the drawers now done, I was able to turn my attention to some of the final details of this build. I went back and forth on what to do for the base, and finally settled on bracket feet. I haven’t done these before, but I wanted to add some curves to offset the stepped-front and also give the base a little more width and elevation. I ended up shooting quite a bit of footage for my process for designing and building the feet, so I’m actually breaking this into two parts. This is Part I which concentrates on the design and glue-up, and Part II will detail the process of coving the profiles out. That may sound to some like the reverse order, but bracket feet are definitely a bit of a unique process. Look for Part II to follow shortly (I don’t want to leave this cliff-hanger out too long).



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The devil's in the dovetails

I knew this project was going to include a ton of dovetails.  I just didn't realize quite how many.  Further complicating matters, few of the drawers are actually the same height to I needed to lay out a different set of tails for each tier in this chest of drawers.  But to make things a bit easier on myself, I really just "eye-balled" the layouts rather than actually measuring everything out.  The first few drawers it really offended my OCD, but by the end I was just happy to have the drawers finished.  I've managed to distill the process down into about 20 minutes of video, but the real elapsed time for this process was probably about 15 hours.  And lets just say I also did my fair share of sharpening along the way as well.




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A woodworker's workout

The long awaited glue-up.  I'm not going to lie, this was one of the more complicated and challenging glue-ups I've done so far.  But while this chest does have a ton of funky glue joints, I was able to sort of reverse engineer the steps to really break the process down into smaller components.  This way the process wasn't quite the mad dash you might expect.  That being said, the whole process probably took me half a day and about three cups of coffee, largely because I repeatedly had to let some glue joints set before I had room to clamp the next assembly.  But in the end, this is one rock solid carcass.  Now I couldn't go through every single detail of each joint, so if you do have questions about any of the steps in the process I'll be happy to answer them in the comments section.  Just don't blink, you might miss something.




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Divide and conquer

In this episode, I wrap up the final construction and joinery details of the casework in preparation for glue up. I had a key decision to make with regard to the final layout of the drawers. During the design phase, I had the top two drawer bays getting two drawers, while the bottom two had single drawers. However, this is a great case of where seeing the actual dry assembly can change your mind on a design detail. Of course I would have caught this had I built a prototype for this piece, but I knew I would have ample opportunity to make design changes at several points during this project. But after this episode, you’ll have a rough sense of what the final product will look like. And you may also have a new appreciation for cargo shorts!




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You gotta have guts

While I felt like I was getting close to glue-up of the tool chest carcass, I almost forgot about all the guts of the project.  That's right, the web frames for the drawers.  While the double drawer blades creates a bit more work, the process is actually not that different from a regular chest.  The biggest challenge for me was just remembering that the web frames for each drawer have to be different sizes, since the drawers get gradually smaller from bottom to top.




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