The Alter- finished

[mattty]

I got this commision a couple of months ago-

To design and build an Oak drinks cabinet/sideboard.

They have an existing one, which is made in a nasty and tatty, cheap pine, however it is much used and affectionately called 'the Alter' by my clients.

They love Oak furniture, and paticularly like Art's and Crafts style and have a real passion about supporting local crafts and skills (bonus!).

The piece is all solid European Oak, with AB Walnut details. The back and drawer sides are American Red Oak. They have an existing long case clock in Oak and Walnut with a curved door that they are paticularly proud of, this was the biggest influence on the design.

So after a couple of meetings, i finally came up with this as a design-

Sorry about the mucky drawings, they have the originals, these are just my working drawing's.

The curved door showing a c*ck bead detail.
I went and selected the timber myself for this one, I wanted quarter sawn boards throughout and there is no way they would have delivered this.


Lots of planing to get some of the bigger glue ups out the way-

Nice quarter sawn

Yours truly shooting the joints on the top-


The two ends are frame and panel construction- The prepared timber


Any questions or comments- fire away, i'll post more later.

[jonnyd]

Looking good so far matt. The timber does look nice its always worth doing a jfc and going to select the timber yourself for a special commision.

cheers

Jon

[simuk]

Looks like a nice project you got going on there Matt, how much a m3 did you pay for your oak ?

Simon

[mtr1]

Should be a good project to do matt. Will the drawers be on metal runners or more trad wooden ones? I take it the curved lines on the drawers are to be ABW inlay? I like the nice thick top, will look good i think.

[mattty]

Thanks chaps,
The Oak was around £1050 per cube. The lines on the drawer are still to be decided, it's going to have a sculptural handle now so possibly no inlay... tbc,
Cheers,
Mattty

[mattty]

Update-
All the bigger pieces, Top, Shelf, Base and side panels are jointed domino'ed and glued up-


The 2 end frames are also cut and assembled-

Once dry, the panel are all wacked through the drum sander down to 21mm, the base is cut to size and notched to fit around the end frame, where it sits on the bottom rail, and is is screwed down through slotted (domino cut) holes- This should allow for any movement, though this will be minimal as it's all quarter sawn. The screws are all hidden by the side panel beading.
The front frame components are all cut and i decided to half lap the joints on this-

Trial assembly-


A back rail is cut and dominoed and the drawer runners are made, the frame is then glued up-


I t&g'd some 14mm oak boards for the back panel and they were nailed on from the back into a rebate on the bottom shelf


The front plinths were fitted and the 2 outside drawer runners-


I then made loads of c*ck bead, i planed up some walnut to 22mm thick, and laned both edges of the planks. I then cut the beads on both edges and ripped them off on the saw- rinse repeat a few times and i have 20+ lengths of bead-


The 2 side panels are cut to size and the internal beads fitted. i then ripped the c*ck beads so it left a nice shadow gap against the Oak and so they finished proud of the surface by about 2mm-

The beads where glued in place...how mank clamps!



Doors time- One curved top and bottom rail was cut and using a template and router was smoothed to shape (sorry no pictures), these pieces where then cut to length- this was to keep a flow of grain running across the piece- slightly un conventional as it means the stiles fit between the top and bottom.
I then made a jig to hold the door componets whilst i cut the stiles to length and formed the curved ends on the disc sander-

Dominoed-


The door components are then stop grooved to take the panels. this was done on the router table using a bearing guided grooving cutter/saw.


The Panels are cut to size (I split thicker boards on the band saw for this to get nice book matched panels), The doors are all assembled and once dry put through the drum sander and sanded to 180 grit with the ros.
The beads where cut to width and then mitred up-


All the drawer componets were cut and machined, each piece is then shot into the opening and dovetail time-


I made a simple jig so i could remove most of the waste from the lapped front-



All cleaned up and assembled. I'll update the rest later.

[jonnyd]

Excellent stuff Mattty. I would just like to add I have seen this piece nearly finished in the flesh and i was very impressed very nice craftsmanship and detailing and exceptional timber.

cheers

Jon

[mattty]

Excellent stuff Mattty. I would just like to add I have seen this piece nearly finished in the flesh and i was very impressed very nice craftsmanship and detailing and exceptional timber.

cheers

Jon

Oy this is a work in progress, it's not finished yet...

Thanks Jon, much appreciated- i'll send you that £50!

[engineerone]

looks very good, and an interesting set of pictures which show a sensible and innovative approach to this attractive piece of furniture.
well done matty, keep up the good work

paul

[sainty]

Loving your work Matty.

I really like the walnut cockbead detail, gives depth to those end panels.

[jfc]

Thats looking really smart mate .

[mattty]

Cheers chaps, Got it delivered today and the customer cried...

Final update- The clients came round to talk about the handles late last week, they wanted sculptural handles similar to another piece i'd made so i knocked up a few different ideas to show them-



The doors were cleaned up to 220g, beaded, and fitted to the openings on the linisher.

The whole cabinet was sanded for a final time and then It was time to get some oil on- The finish for this is Boiled Linseed Oil thinned with Pure turps, 3 good coats applied liberally and then wiped off after an hour or so. It is slow drying and so requires an early start to meet the schedule.

The drawers were finshed and shot into the openings, and then onto the handles- these proved to be a nightmare- the clients decided they would be happy with whatever i came up with, i ended up spending all day on Monday making samples and sticking them onto the doors and drawers with double sided tape..-


Some of the many rejects-


All was sorted in the end and i made some small 4mm&6mm doweling to attach them-


Clamped on for drilling.

Making the dowels (Thanks Wizer!)


Gluing on-

All finished-




There's 2 white patches on the left and middle door that really show up in the pictures but are hardly visible in reality, i've no idea what it is, it's not sap just an odd patch or grain but still annoying

[engineerone]

fan bloody tastic. love the handles what are the dowels, i almost thought they were brass which would have looked even better maybe. wonder whether the light spots are just a combination of the angles of light, and also a grain pattern on the oak.

no wonder the customer is happy.

well done

paul

[modernist]

Great piece of work. Love the walnut/oak combination and the handles.

[promhandicam]

. . .no wonder the customer is happy. . . .

I can't see anywhere that Matty says that the customer was happy. On the contrary he said they cried. Perhaps he should have sent the bill later

Well done mate - looks very nice.

Steve

[mrgrimsdale]

Looks brilliant. Dare one ask; how long and how much?
Re thinning linseed - I reckon it goes on OK straight from the tin as long as you wipe off the surplus reasonably soon. It sits on the surface at first but 24 hours later it's all soaked in, except if it's puddled on the horizontal surfaces. Bloody sight easier than a lot of fine finishing, and looks good too.

PS those light patches - it's not just skimmed into the sapwood is it? If not it's probably fungus - spaltering onset etc.

[mattty]

Thanks fellas.

Jacob, i find the first coat sinks in and lets me get another coat on quicker if i thin it. The other reason is the smell. Realt turps mixed with oil just smells great. Time about 60 hours including delivery (about 3 hours total). It was the fkin handles which cost me on the time front, i was all day yesterday messing about with them.

Cost £2100.

Cheers,
Matt

[mailee]

Beautiful piece Mattty. I would be very proud to have built that mate. As has been said the two woods go together well. Nice.

[jonnyd]

Superb matt. Looks even better now with the handles fitted well worth the hassle of sorting them out. I am looking forward to seeing the other pieces in the suite.

Cheers

Jon

[jfc]

I think you should be published i do .

[jrm]

It looks absolutely fantastic. The handles are superb and definitely worth the effort IMO.

Regarding the light patches, I sent a batch back a while back with the same fault. It isn't sap and it isn't fungus. You will find, on cutting into a board, that there is a patch deep in the centre which is a lighter colour than the outside.



Invisible from all surfaces until you plane enough off to expose it when it suddenly appears, just when approaching final dimension, to spoil your day



The merchant was very familiar with the problem and seems to arise when too quickly air-dried before kilning, thus fastening the colour in the outer fibres while leaving the centre lighter. My theory is that this stuff comes from less temperate climes in land-locked Eastern Europe where summers are hotter. I see plenty of this sort of thing turning up in furniture these days and people seem to accept it but it is a drying fault. Happily, only a couple of small patches in your sideboard which don't detract from it's magnificence.

John

[mrgrimsdale]

Interesting. It's obvious when you see that photo. Could it also be water staining before drying?

[jake]

Lovely piece, Matttttty.

[woodsmith]

Matty very nice work, and really rewarding when the customer likes it that much.

I've had the same problem with oak and I was told the same sort of thing as jrm; the wood is still wet and it is put in a kiln that is run too hot for the first cycle.

[jake]

That's interesting - you can see a similar bleached looking patch on the end of one of Mattty's planks:

[colincott]

Very nice job Matty and the oil finish gives it a nice warm colour.

[cranbrook2]

Beautiful work and great design !!

[mtr1]

Very nice piece matt, I remember seeing oak with the drying faults in ten years ago. They obviously still haven't rectified it, is this a fault we will have to put up with now because of the high demand for timber?

[mattty]

Thanks to everyone for the comments- Much appreciaited.

It looks absolutely fantastic. The handles are superb and definitely worth the effort IMO.

Regarding the light patches, I sent a batch back a while back with the same fault. It isn't sap and it isn't fungus. You will find, on cutting into a board, that there is a patch deep in the centre which is a lighter colour than the outside.



Invisible from all surfaces until you plane enough off to expose it when it suddenly appears, just when approaching final dimension, to spoil your day



The merchant was very familiar with the problem and seems to arise when too quickly air-dried before kilning, thus fastening the colour in the outer fibres while leaving the centre lighter. My theory is that this stuff comes from less temperate climes in land-locked Eastern Europe where summers are hotter. I see plenty of this sort of thing turning up in furniture these days and people seem to accept it but it is a drying fault. Happily, only a couple of small patches in your sideboard which don't detract from it's magnificence.

John

Thanks Jrm, I'll look out for that in future.

Cheers,
Mattty

[simuk]

Nice work Matty

[jaco]

FOR INFO

http://community.woodmagazine.com/t5/Fi ... =328644767

[faktura]

A fascinating piece ! - even the deisign and the workmanship. That is I like in British woodworking: clear, and rich in details.
Concerning the lighter patches: I think it's the fault of kiln drying. A long ago I worked with air dryed oak. As far as I can remember there weren't such lighter areas.

Peter (from Eastern Europe)