The Next Chapter...

…and this will be where our ambitions meet our abilities, hopefully they keep up!

I look forward to the day when this nightstand will be finished and on its legs! 🙂

Monday was full of excitement, because even though we still had a fair bit of finishing work to do on our nightstands – primarily paint and shellac, plus final finish over paint when ready – we were officially moving on to the big kahuna, our Cabinet on a Stand projects!

As I mentioned previously, we had a lot more degrees of freedom, although some items like tapered and splayed legs, cabinet with sliding dovetail, panel door with hinges and lock, etc. were fixed. I decided I was going to try my hand at marquetry/veneering, a unique wood door panel that isn’t contiguous, and curved legs. So not much! 😂

So this day was about finishing some work on my nightstand (recovered the top from last week, just sanded back slightly and one more thin coat of shellac), and worked up my materials list for the trip to the lumber yard on Wednesday. Also, I played around with different ideas for my veneer and stringing ideas. Some close readers of this might remember that in Week 2 that I mentioned that I had worked on some stringing designs, originally thought of doing in the drawer front, but I have decided to go in another direction. I am going to try and do some marquetry/veneer work on a lower shelf that will be located between the legs about a third of the way up. So stay tuned..

Edgewood inspiration for veneer/marquetry work planned.

Tuesday involved more paint and finish on the nightstand, then worked on leg design which I decided will be another design element. The original has a tapered and splayed leg, but I want to try a double curve that will mimic the natural lines of the door panel and the vase inside. And on that shelf I mentioned, located between the legs. And the veneer design is inspired by Edgewood Orchard Galleries which carries some amazing pieces, and thus this is my tribute to my favorite gallery in Door County, Wisconsin. Not all I need to do is actually accomplish all this. 🙂 (Note: I reserve the right to come back in a future post, and have changed my mind.)

My notes and pick list, and ready to start doing board selection for my wood – Cherry, and quartersawn Cherry at that (game time call).

The selection begins, the big 12/4 board on the trolley is for my legs, since the double curve needs 3″ to work with. Ha!

Wednesday was our trip to the Highland Hardwoods lumber yard. It was a full morning, 9-12pm, selecting our various boards. And as Nick mentioned, the good ones are not on the top of the pile, so lots of shifting big boards, which range from 4/4 (1” thick, ranging from 8-12’ in length) to 12/4 (3′ ‘thick!). But we had a great day, and wound up with a full van full of lumber which Nick and a couple of students were gratuitous for making the trip back down to the North End to unload everything – huge thanks!!

After we closed out at the lumber yard, we all went down the road to a favorite BBQ joint, and we all had a great lunch. They had some amazing veggie sides, so sweet potato, corn and beans was a terrific meal! And everyone else raved about the BBQ. 😋

Nick’s reality check for us, 6 weeks to go, and 4.5 weeks for the basic piece, not counting the time for the extras we have all added.

Thursday we arrived at class with our reality check, in that we have six weeks left and a lot to do. We began with getting our wood sorted and organized so we could all begin rough milling for cabinet parts – we will start milling the stand parts later. The process is to do a rough mill first (joint and edge and face, then plane the other face just enough to take an 1/8 to 1/16 off, then sticker the board and let them sit for at least a day to adapt to the moisture in the new environment/ Then we come back and see if we have any major cup, twist or warp, before we machine down to almost final dimension. I also did some more coats on the nightstand that day.

Drafting of the Orchard design, seeing the proportions within what will likely be the size of the lower shelf.

Friday we arrived, and checked on our parts – all good! – and then got ready to glue up the top, sides and bottom of the cabinet. So milling to almost final dimensions (always leave stuff a bit longer than thickness when doing panel glue ups like this). Given the lumber I had available to select, the boards were not wide enough to manage the full depth, so will likely be ¼” shy which is fine, as can adapt everything to that.

My drawings of potential leg designs with reality check on stock needed (I better have enough).

One of the books I used for reference to understand more about marquetry.

By lunch, I had everything ready, including hand planing the glue joints, and after lunch I glued everything up. And then spent the rest of the afternoon learning more about veneering and marquetry. This is one of Nick’s passions and skills, and he has done some pretty amazing work.

He is always great about getting us some books and providing everyone demonstrations. So we spent a few hours in the afternoon learning about various techniques. And next week I plan to start experimenting a bit with how to cut, and piece together things. Fun times, once again!

Dateline: NBSS Three-Month Furniture Intensive, Oct 24-28 (Week 7)