Things are taking shape, literally...

The Gallery cases are definitely taking shape at a better pace now. Through a stroke of very good luck, and very generous new neighbors, I have been able to store all the parts and completed cabinets right next door to my shop. At first the extra 400 sq. ft. seemed plenty generous,

but even with fewer than half the cabinets, its filling up quickly!

Progress has been pretty good since the last blog entry. The three credenzas were the first cases to be assembled. These were constructed using a technique called floating tenons. In a nutshell, matching mortises are cut in the various mating parts, then a matching tenon is inserted upon glue-up. These were made using Festool's Domino mortiser. After the parts were all mortised, they were taped to catch as much glue squeeze out as possible...

Then all it took was gluing in several dozen little Domino tenons and getting them all to line up all at once! The trick in this kind of construction is to get good clamping pressure all the way across the joints. For this an arc-shaped clamping caul is a real life saver. A caul is piece of wood used to spread clamping pressure more evenly across a joint. You can see from the highly technical schematic diagram on the caul itself that one face is left straight, while the other is planed to have a slight arc; in this case, about a 16th to 3/32 inch at each end.

When the curved face is put against the work piece and clamping pressure is applied at the ends, the caul bows applying even pressure across the entire case width, without having to have deep-reach clamps.

The credenza cases are now off at the finisher's, and will get their drawers and doors fitted after finishing.

With those out of the way, it was time to dive into the curved display cases.

One of the big challenges of the display cases is ensuring uniformity, so that when installed next to each other, all the doors, drawers, etc., line up just right. To make that easier, positioning jigs were made from scrap MDF. These were simple square spacers made to help locate each part relative to the others before being joined....

Once all the flat pieces were joined, the double-thickness curved front piece was attached....

Once the basic case assembly was completed, the curved front was trimmed flush with the sides and the outer curved layers were added. Each case has two outer layers, each with a wave-form shaped edge. The process for each layer was the same, and included first trimming the layer to length, then cutting the wave shape, fairing the cut edge by hand (these steps were done with the work piece strapped to the original bending form for ease of handling), then finally gluing it on and applying band clamps....

Mounting of the two outer layers has to be done in the same order that the cases will be installed, so that when installed the wave shape flow smoothly from one cabinet to the next....

Two down, nine more to go!

The Gallery cabinets continue...

Well, the gallery cabinets are starting to roll now. The flat parts are nearly finished being cut, and the curved pieces are almost finished being glued up. The curved parts are all shaped using bending forms. I ended up making 6 different forms for the 8 types of parts needed.

For the toe kick fronts, the forms are simple - multiple layers of MDF with a curved edge, The 2" wide kick fronts are glued together by simply clamping the glued parts to the form ....

The curved display case fronts, though, require more complicated forms. The forms are made of ribs cut to the required radius, which are then joined with cross-braces and solid wood ends. This frame is then skinned with a layer of bending plywood....

Since the edge of each cabinet front layer will be shaped, the layers have to be veneered and bent separately before shaping, then the layers joined together. To maintain the correct radius of each successive layer, all three are glued up at once. It's a little tricky, but with a system, it works fairly smoothly. In a nutshell, each glue-up requires 7 components - the main layer is made of two pieces of bending plywood and a veneer covering, and the two outer layers each consist of one piece of bending plywood and one of veneer - after glue is applied to all surfaces, each layer's veneer and substrate are taped together to keep things from shifting .....

Next, the three layers are stacked and filler strips are added to maintain an even thickness throughout the entire packet. A hardboard caul is then added, and the whole packet is taped down to its form .....

Then the whole thing is put into a vacuum bag and pressed ....

You might also have noticed the big chalk arrows on the veneer faces - those are to help maintain a consistent grain direction an all parts. One of the great properties of the khaya (a type of African mahogany) that I'm using for this project is that, like all mahoganies, it has great luster, but the luster is directional. Meaning that if you were to rip a piece of wood into two halves and flipped one 180 degrees, the two halves would look different in terms of color (one being darker than the other). This is due to the directional nature of the wood fiber cells, and the way light refracts entering and exiting the cells. So, for a consistent look, its important to make sure all the cabinet fronts have their grain running the same direction - hence, the arrows!

Stay tuned .....

Swoopy Gallery Cabinetry

The latest adventure unfolding in the shop is a rare (for me, anyway) commercial project. It involves a number of cabinets for an art gallery in Sedona, Arizona. The project includes over a dozen partially glazed, curved-front jewelry display cases, three storage credenzas, and a couple of point-of-sale stations, all for a new retail space the gallery has just taken over.

The cases are being made using certified veneers of ribbon-grain sapele and khaya, two species of African mahogany. The overall layout of the display cases forms a very organic curvilinear space, and involves four different cabinet shapes, utilizing two different basic radii.

The curved fronts will be given even more dimensionality with the use of multiple layers, which will themselves have undulating edges. The combination of linear-grained veneers and curvaceous shapes will give them an exciting visual presence, but the use of consistent color and grain will ensure that what's inside the cases is the real star.

Stay tuned to watch this complicated project take shape ......

Museum Show Chiffonier

Here's the next installment on the making of the chiffonier that I'll be showing at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History show the coming summer.

Two of the most distinctive elements of this piece's design are the sculpted bonnet and base. Both are made of wenge, a dark, dense, black/brown wood, that will give weight to and ground the piece. Both are stack laminated and then shaped. This series of photos shows the steps involved in making the bonnet:

First, pieces are face-laminated to achieve the required thickness for shaping. In this case, to accommodate the width of the part, it was made in three sections and then glued together after shaping (you can see the mortises for the floating tenons that will help with both alignment and glue joint strength) ....

Next, the built up blanks are rough cut to shape on the band saw....

Finally, the subparts are glued together and the entire piece is shaped ....

The base was created in much the same way, with the pieces in each layer being bandsawn roughly to size before glue-up, then the whole part being shaped afterward ....

Stay tuned for the next installment on the making of this piece, when I'll talk about the distinctive features of it's seven drawers.