Fellas,

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Still not 100% on the final design of the desk, but I figured I'm close enough to start a new thread over here. I'll post a revised/working sketch when I finish it...

Anyway, went to "Stones River Hardwoods" on Wednesday; the place was awesome. Everything they had was at least 15 years old, and air dried... I could have spent the entire day digging around in there. So, I ended up going with cherry. Picked up 3 nice 5/4 boards about 16" wide. Price was pretty resonable, at that. The best part of the day was meeting Alfred Sharp (http://www.alfredsharp.com). We chatted for a little while, and he even invited me to check out his shop... pretty cool.

Got everything back to the shop, and spent a couple of days mulling over laying everything out.


Chopped it up Friday night, and was finally sufficiently motivated to clean/organize/rearrange the shop. Finished cleaning about lunchtime today, and spent the afternoon milling while listening to another excruciating Titans game.

Here's where I am now:


I think I'm going to give it a week or so before I finish milling. (It has rained for 2 solid weeks around here).

Anyhow, I'll keep ya'll posted.

Have a good week-

Whit

Hey Whit, nice haul on the cherry. It will make beautiful funiture. Good luck with the project. Looking forward to seeing frequent updates.

Rat

So cherry it is eh? Hard to beat cherry, it'll be an excellent choice for the type of project you're making Whit.

Rick

What's up everybody...

Hope y'all had a good weekend. I got to drive to Texas for a wedding...fun...

Anyway, spent the 12 hour rainy drive back thinking/jonesin' about really getting started on the desk. Tonight, I finished getting the sides glued up, and started doing some post glue-up flattening and smoothing...

Not much to report, but:


Hopefully I can sneak away from work long enough tomorrow to pick up some poplar so that I can get the bottom and writing surface glued up.

Speaking of, question:

Assuming bracket feet end up going on this thing, would you all leave the bottom of the case 3/4", or make it a little heavier? (So that after the waist mould/base cap (term?) is applied at the top of the skirt, it can overlap the case bottom an 1/8" or so, leaving 3/4" of the bottom showing to match the rest of the dividers.) Does this even make sense? Or am I over thinking this?

Whit

On the slant tops, we've just been setting the case on top of the base moulding. The base is a frame, mitred on the front, tenoned in the back. The feet get glued to the bottom and the whole thing is screwed into the bottom of the case. This way you don't have to worry about milling things different sizes or fitting the case into the frame.

Eli

This is all assuming I'm picturing the situation correctly.

here is a what eli is talking about...i am on the tail end of another slant desk,this is how we make and attach the frame and feet...

Gotcha...

Thanks, Tommy and Eli.

Whit

Hope everyone has been doing well...

Anyway, HELP!!!

Here's the rundown;

I cut the dovetails in the case sides and bottoms a couple of weeks ago. Work's been crazy, so I didn't get to the top until today. Got it finished about an hour ago, and was excited to finally get the case all put together for the first time... Everything was great until I got to the bottom...


Over the course of the last two weeks, the bottom has grown at least 1/4"! The pins weren't even close to lining up any more!

So,

1. What would you all do?

2. If I had assembled it right after it was cut, do you think it would have cracked the case sides, or do you think the cherry would have kept the expansion to a minimum?

Thanks in advance,

Whit

P.S. I've got the bottom stickered on top of a vent in the dining room as we speak... I gave the poplar about a week in the shop before I milled it. Do you think 30+ year old air dried cherry vs fresh kiln dried poplar made a difference?

Whit,

The AD cherry has an MC relative to where it was storedm ie it was already expanded due to ambient conditions. The KD poplar was probably in the range of 6%. Had tou put them together, the cherry probably would have split.

My advise is to get some poplar thats been out of the iln for a while or get more of the fresh stuff and let it acclimate to your shop for a couple of weeks. Either way you're going to have to recut the bottom.

My $.02!

Dick

That's the answer I was scared of, Dick!

Anyway, just stuck the poplar in the bottom, as well as a few of the big unmilled boards that I bought at the same time (been in the shop about 3 weeks now)... both around 6.5%.
Cherry: between 8-9% (seems a little high?)...

I dunno, something doesn't seem to add up to me... maybe my meter's on the fritz...

Your take?

Whit

Ouch! . I'm with Dick on this one, or you could bring the boards into your house for about a week or two and see if they fit. But i think in the long run you may still end up with the cherry splitting. With each different species being dried different ways, i don't know if it would hold up.

It's obvious i have never run into a problem like this. This may sound real hokie, have you thought about splitting the poplar in two and using biscuits to keep them aligned, no glue? It may work with the wood movement??? I wish I could be of more help.

Dang Whit, that sucks for sure. I don't see a way around making new parts, at least the poplar bottom piece.

Rick

Good choice of projects. I'm looking at doing a Hepplewhite desk just after the the holidays. I've given thought to this as part of my pre-planning.

What I like to do:
1. Purchase wood from a great source.
2. Rough cut and mill boards. Labeling them for sequence.
3. Sticker them and let them accumulate in the shop for a few weeks to a month.
4. Mill to finial dimension.
5. Again, Sticker them and let them accumulate in the shop for a few weeks to a month.
6. Then start building.

Thats what I do. However I still have had a few issues with wood movement this year. I have a little cup issue going on with one of the Shaker Step Stools that I'm building and the other was with couple of drawers to a writing desk that I did back during the summer. Even though the drawer fronts are not large they did have a 1/16 -1/8" in movement causing the drawers not to go into the carcus.

Well good luck and keep us posted.

Bud

hey ..good advice guys...since its the bottom..i would plane the bottom even with the sides..back cut the tails a bit and glue it up....the pop has expanded as far as it ever will...since it didnt split the sides now ,i dont think it will over time... make sure you put finish on both sides of the bottom...

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

In the end, I just ended up starting from scratch on the bottom.

Finally got the case put together...



Anyway, sorry I didn't take more pics, but I did get to really use the MLW tools for the first time, though... sweet. Money well spent.

Couple of lessons learned:

1. I cut the angles off the sides of the case before gluing it all up. This made clamping everything very difficult during glue up...
2. Forgot to rout dados for the lid support dividers into the bottom of the writing surface before gluing it in place. They aren't going to be much fun to put in later...

I feel like I've finally got some momentum going. I'm trying to decide whether to work on the drawers or the gallery next.

Hope everyone has a good week,

Whit

Whit,
The desk is really coming along nicely, great save on the the replacement bottom. Oh and I love that cathedral grain cherry..

As for what to work on next.. I would say move onto the drawers.. save the gallery "dessert" for last.

yeah..cutting the angle first is a mistake for sure...i just finished a desk and we are building another for a dvd....seems like you can skip that one smitty....
what kind of feet are you going with...ogee? its looks good!!

Looks very good.

Just throwing this out for my own curiosity - Is there any difference in running the back vertical vs horizontally? I always run mine vertically, but I don't know if I'm missing something.

Thanks

Whit and Tommy,
both of your comments about cutting the angle on the sides leave me a little confused. Why wouldn't you cut those first before glue up?? I would think the accuracy would be better when everything is apart. Please clarify. Thanks.

BTW, the cabinet is lookin very nice. are the sides and top one piece or glued up panels?

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Scott, I think I'm going to take your advice and save the gallery for last...

Tommy, I think I'll buy the DVD anyway. Then I'll know how I should have done everything! Still not sure about the feet, though...

Barry, cutting the angles on the sides made the bottom difficult to glue up. The back of the bottom was easy to get clamps on, but there wasn't anything left when clamping the front of the bottom (the writing surface wasn't there yet...) Don't know if this makes sense or not...

The top is one piece, but the sides are two. I was kind of bummed that I didn't have quite enough material to make the same board wrap around the sides and the top, but maybe next time...

Bud, I don't know enough about the backs to say for sure... (most of the pieces I see are in books, not many pics of the backs!)

Take care,

Whit

Not too much to report from the last couple of days, but got the dividers and runners finished up. I underestimated how long the dovetailed dividers would take... Also, I figured that I would use the little bit of oak that I had left over from the blanket chest for the runners... Hopefully they will wear a little better than poplar over the long haul.



Otherwise, I was having a great day in the shop until I miscut one of the drawer fronts... bummer... I think that was my single most expensive mistake to date... trying to figure out if I can recover with the lumber I've got, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy another piece to get all the drawers/lid out of...

I'll let ya know...

Whit

Whit -

Looking great. You are moving well on this desk. Bummer about the drawer front - how short did you cut it? Cal

The OBVIOUS ANSWER IS: TOO SHORT

How about cock beading on the drawers? Oh wait, your probably doing half blind dovetails, with the drawers going right to the outer parts of the cabinet. Never mind I think I just answered my question.

Whit,
The desk is looking good man. Keep up the good work. I also cut the angles on my sides first. You are right about it being a pain for clamping. But I think that next time I build a desk I may still cut them off, but just hot glue them back in place so I can clamp off of them. Then again, I may just leave them on. We will worry about that hill when I get to it again.

As for the pigeon hole assembly, just keep in mine that there is a lot of work there. More then you maybe thinking. I did mine before the bottom drawers. I don't think that it matter to me witch order I did it. For me it was the surprise how much work and time the interior took.

What I would do next is get the lid glued up and flattened. But don't take it to final dimensions yet. Let it sit, then reflatten it again after you are done everything else.
Good luck, and just keep plugging away. Once the interior is done then your over the hill

Justin