Drawers

1680s cupboard, Massachusetts Historical Society

The lower case of the cupboard houses 4 drawers. I started making them in the last few days. They are all oak, some period drawers have softwood bottoms but these use thin oak boards running front-to-back. 

The drawer sides are 3/4” thick and join the fronts with a half-blind dovetail on three of the drawers.  At the back, a rabbet joint. Both joints are nailed. Yes, right through the dovetail. The bottoms tuck behind a rabbet in the drawer front. (I’ve yet to make the deep drawer, it has through dovetails front & back. Who knows why? Not me.)

These, like most 17th-century drawers in case furniture, are side-hung. Meaning there’s a groove in the outside faces of the drawer sides that engages a runner set between the front and rear stiles. First step after prepping the stock is plowing the groove in the sides for the drawer runner. Mine’s 1/2” wide, set roughly in the midst of the drawer side’s height. It’s about 5/16” deep. 

plowing the groove in the drawer side

Me showing step-by-step of dovetailling is absurd. Go see someone who actually does it more than every other year or two. After plowing the groove, I laid out the single dovetail on each drawer side. I estimated the angle based on photos of the originals. Steep. Then sawed that out,

single dovetail

and transferred it to the end of the drawer front. Chopped that out. 

Some back & forth fitting the joint. Below is good enough for me. All it needs is a rabbet in the drawer front, then nails through the dovetail.

Like this. Next step from here is installing the bottoms.

As I said, the bottoms run front-to-back (some 17th century shops ran them parallel to the drawer front). I rive out thin oak boards, aiming for 6″-9″ wide. I rough-planed them, then aired them out in the sun to dry for a couple of weeks. Then I re-planed the top/inside surface and hewed and scrub-planed the bottom surface until they were either 3/8″ thick or slightly less. The boards for the top & bottom drawers are about 20″ long. For the smaller recessed drawers about 16″ long. At this point, I just nailed boards to each end of each drawer – these serve to keep the drawer square & solid while I rive and plane more of this thin stock. Below I’ve lined up the board just inside the drawer side and bumped up to the rabbet in front. This board has not been squared off to its edges, so I set it in place and scribed the front end to trim it. Then I nailed it in place and trimmed the back end.

Here’s the top drawer in place. I’ve been recording some videos about the drawers – it’ll take a bit of doing. But in the end it will include the runners/grooves and the vee-shaped tongue & groove between the drawer bottoms.

Then I went & rived some more thin stock.

(pt 19 Essex County cupboard project 2021)

Carving Drawings, set #2

detail from set #2 Carving Drawings

I spent the day wrestling with the blog pages/posts. They changed it around to make it easier, which makes it harder. But I got mostly what I needed in the end, or something like it. I finally have the 2nd set of my carving drawings done – 8 months late at least.

This batch is 5 pages this time, the strapwork designs got their own page of step-by-step instructions. That was the hangup, Jeff Lefkowitz had already done his wizardry, then I added the 5th page. Back to Jeff for more layout, etc. But we’re done now.

Yesterday just as the wind began to blow around here, I crawled out of bed and shot an introductory video showing the contents of the pages. Not much action, but it’ll show you what’s what.

I’ll begin shooting videos to go with these in the next week or so. In between the cupboard bits…

To order the set, which is $75 plus $6 shipping in the US, see https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/carving-drawings-17th-century-work-from-devon-england-and-ipswich-massachusetts-set-1/ (disregard that the link says “set 1” – I finally gave up, close enough!) As it stands, set one is out of stock right now, but should be back before long. Really.

Earlier today, I posted a free PDF of the various gouge shapes I use regularly. It’s here https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/carving-gouge-chart/ – it’s part of the set of drawings, but also a stand-alone bit. You can print it out and it should be the right scale to show the various curves…

Carving Gouge Chart: free download

a few carving gouges, old, new & otherwise

I’ve frustrated students for ages whenever they ask me which gouges they need. Mine are a collection of old, new & in between. English, American, German & Swiss. Which means they don’t have a common marking system to designate the curvature, or “sweep” of the gouges. I took to just blamming them into a piece of scrap wood and handing it to the students and sending them off with that. Not so effective over the web or through the mail.

I’ve been working with Jeff Lefkowitz on my 2nd set of carving-pattern drawings (now officially 8 months late, my fault! Hopefully ready to post today or tomorrow – Aug 23/24) – and as part of that set we devised this new diagram of 11 gouges in my kit. I had seen a system used by Hans Karllson https://klensmide.se/?lang=en in which they described each tool by the circle it’s a segment of – then by its width. So that’s what Jeff & I have tried here. It’s a free download below – here’s an example – this is a gouge that is a segment of a circle 1 3/8″ in diameter and it’s 1″ wide. So it’s designated as a 1 3/8 – 1 gouge. Sweep/width.

gouge-size-chart_final-2Download

It’s for 11 gouges, not counting the V-tool. These are not magic gouges in any way – they just happen to be the shapes I’ve found that best fit the patterns I want to carve. If you have something close to these, you’ll be able to carve designs close to what I show. Slight variations are perfectly fine.

PS: I tried to post this on the sidebar, to leave it there for a while. But it didn’t work there. So I added it to the upper menu. I’ll keep tinkering. I hate this part…

The Cupboard project; carved drawer front

carved drawer front finished

I worked on the only carving in the whole cupboard just about. This is the front of the 2nd drawer from the top – of the lower case. Here’s the original –

It’s 3 repeats of one pattern – here’s the pattern isolated:

I made a video of the work, it’s chopped with a gouge rather than cut with a V-tool. So something a bit different.

But one of the first things I said in the video is a lie – turns out I found afterwards measurements of the carved bits. Partial measurements anyway. I came close to what I measured in 1999 – close enough.

(pt 18 Essex County cupboard project 2021)

Heather Neill’s paintings

We all miss somebody these days. Well, many somebodies. One I miss in particular is my friend Heather Neill. But every year about this time there’s a daily dose of Heather’s paintings as she prepares for her show at the Granary Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard. And lo and behold, I made another appearance. I had completely forgotten posing for this one.

The bookbinder Heather Neill

To see more of Heather’s work, and to read the stories behind each one, see her blog with its “painter’s notes.” https://heatherneill.com/studio-blog/

Thanks all around

Wille & Jögge Sundqvist

The fundraiser yesterday was a huge success, thanks go out to people all around the world. (Jogge has to be careful in that photo above, he’s almost got a smile started.) First, this note from Jogge’s Facebook post this morning –

“A big and humble Thank You! to all the fundraisers for Willes tools. Some words explaining this situation: The auction after my father is set up by the new owner, his widow, who now is the owner of the estate. I´ve been really thinking about how to solve this. I would like my father’s tools to be owned and used by the people who knew him and who can tell the outside world about the importance he had for the spoons, for carving and for spreading slöjd internationally. We are three brothers who had to buy out some tools before the auction. With the help of the GoFundMe money, we can now inherit those tools free of charge. There is also an idea that Bjurholm municipality should set up a memorial room after Wille where some tools and implements can be found. Any surplus of the sum will be added to the Sundqvist-Coperthwaite Fellowship. Again, deep thanks!”

Drew Langsner & Wille Sundqvist

I have written before about Wille’s impact on the green woodworking sphere – it was through working with Wille that Drew & Louise Langsner got the inspiration to start their school Country Workshops, which they ran for 40 years. I started there in 1980 and was in & out of there a lot over the years.

I’m going to carve out time (did you like that play on words?) this weekend to watch again the film Jogge made about his father’s career The Spoon, the Bowl and the Knife – the physical disc you can buy here https://pinewoodforge.com/product/the-spoon-the-bowl-the-knife-dvd/ or the streaming version here – https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/the-spoon-the-bowl-and-the-knife

Wille Sundqvist spoon

Wille Sundqvist’s tools

Wille Sundqvist

Help Jögge save his his father’s craft heritage

Since Wille Sundqvist passed away in 2018, I have from time to time talked with Jogge about his tools – what will happen to them, etc. It’s a long story but right now the pressing part is that there is an auction in a few days. Ty Thornock has set up a GoFundMe page with the idea that we’ll help Jogge get these tools so he can then do with them what he sees fit. Time is of the essence – if you can help Jogge preserve his father’s incredible legacy, follow the link below. thank you very much

https://gofund.me/28bec702

a video and some blog upkeep

carved box front

The carved box front above is the subject of the most recent video. It’s a mostly-free-hand drawing/carving. Some basic centerlines, then jump in from there. The video runs about 80 minutes and shows just about the whole process. I’ll insert it at the bottom of this blog post. I tried to post it yesterday & this morning to youtube, but the file I was uploading was incomplete. Hopefully it will be corrected now.

The Blog

I rarely tinker with the blog and it shows. Too often there’s out-of-date pages left up and then it seems that WordPress changes stuff on me. Recently (really months ago) the title & header of the blog became unreadable against the photo – so I spent what felt like an eternity trying to change the font color on the title – finally gave up & changed the background photo to a drawing of a carving. I hope I don’t have to mess with it again for a while.

Right now I have several custom pieces to make, but often have stuff ready-made too. So while I was housekeeping in the blog, I created a page “Furniture for Sale” – there I’ll stick the stuff I have kicking around that’s available for purchase. The link to it is up in the header or here https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/furniture-for-sale/

The Drawings

strapwork pattern

It was months & months ago that I said set #2 of the carving drawings was almost ready. But then I hesitated. The then 4-page set contained some drawings of strapwork designs and I decided they needed some step-by-step explanations. So I waffled around a bit, then drew them up step-by-step. Jeff Lefkowitz and I then went back & forth with captions, etc. At the same time, we monkeyed with the gouge-ID stuff. All of which is to say we’re just about done now, and have sent the set out for some test-prints. Once we see those, Jeff makes whatever last-minute changes we need, then I’ll have them printed & available. For real this time. This set will be 5 pages, 24″ x 36″ – details soon. Should be later this month I hope.

The video – Carving a box front.

I hadn’t done much carving lately at all, then got an order for a carved box. Perfect time for a carving video. I had some trouble uploading this, so broke it into two parts. I call them part 1 and part 2. Here’s part 1

and part 2

Bolection molding

Well, I have a few blog posts coming through the pipeline. First thing is I got the sensor on my camera cleaned. So for a little while the photos will have fewer spots. I’ve been working on the upper case of the cupboard and fitted the door the other day. Today I took it back apart and began the process of figuring out the moldings that mount on it. for review, here’s the original’s door.

cupboard door Massachusetts Historical Society coll. Photo Gavin Ashworth

There’s three frames that create quite a dynamic effect – the outermost one is simple, a 1 1/4” wide oak molding mounted on the door frame. I used a rabbet plane and a hollow to form it. I got the technique and the plane from Matt Bickford, the molding wiz. My main decorative bag is carving. I can make moldings but it’s not something I do frequently. So each time, I have to review what Matt’s book does. https://lostartpress.com/products/mouldings-in-practice

simple molding

For the middle frame I decided to take my own advice and practice first. In pine. Aside from the shape of this molding, it has another feature that I had never done before. It’s hard to see in the black & white photo above, but this molding covers (& hides) the drop between the door frame and the panel. I learned to call this sort of molding a “bolection” molding. It doesn’t refer to the profile, but to the manner of mounting it. 

Many years ago, Jennie Alexander used to keep a copy of Cyril Harris’ Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture in her bathroom. Sent me a copy so I could do the same. I did for a while, but nowadays it’s in the shop bookcase. There, I looked up the definition of “bolection”:

“Bolections, balection, belection, bellexion, bilection, bolexion  – A molding projecting beyond the surface of the work which it decorates, as that covering the joint between a panel and the surrounding stiles and rails; often used to conceal a joint where the joining surfaces are at different levels.”

And Harris’ illustration: 

That’s clearly what’s happening on the Essex County cupboard door. I went to the Massachusetts Historical Society last week to take some more measurements and notes – and shot another view of the door showing just a snippet of the three frames on the door. That escutcheon is a replacement. At the bottom corner, behind the outer black frame you can just see a peg securing the mortise & tenon joint and the junction of the stile & bottom rail. And the next 2″ wide molding sits on the frame at its outer edge and on the panel at its inner edge.

Here’s a not-so-detailed view of my progress late yesterday. it took doing it to make my head wrap around how the miters and the back rabbet co-exist. Turns out it’s dead simple.

But somewhere there are bolection planes – even in the 17th century. Randle Holme’s Academy of Armory (1688) notes:

“The several sorts of plains.

The Strike Block, is a Plain shorter than the Joynter, having the Sole made exactly flat and streight, and is used for the shooting of a short Joint; because it is more ready by the hand than the long Joynter; It is also used for the fitting and framing of Miter and Bevil Joynts.

The Miter-Plain.

The Revaile Plain.

The Scurging Plain.

The Moulding Plains, are for the working off of several sorts of Moulding works, which Plains have names according to their several Operations; as

The Hallow Plain.

The Round, or Half Round Plain.

The Belection Plain.

The O-gee Plain.

The Back O-gee Plain. The Cornish Plain.

The Phalister Plain. [An undated note in the copy of Randle Holme in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, reads “Carpenters have a plane called a phalister or feliciter, a corruption of the Italian falcitello.”]”

Well, the only thing that makes a molding a bolection according to Harris is a rabbet on its back surface so it can slip from the panel to the frame. But what is a bolection plane then? Holme says nothing more about it. I don’t think it’s in Joseph Moxon’s book, I haven’t looked in a while. I don’t remember it there. 

Colonial Williamsburg has some early 18th century planes they call bolection planes, referring in these cases to the shapes. Here’s one of theirs by Francis Nicholson 

photo from Colonial Williamsburg’s website

I looked in John Whalen’s book The Wooden Plane (Astragal Press, 1993) to see what he said about bolection planes. He’s got the same definition as Harris, but then segues into talking about profiles and their complexity. One thing he notes is a construction I’ve not seen – a rabbet to fit the panel, then the molding to pin it in place. But he doesn’t cite where/when this is used.

Whalen illustration

One last stop – Goodman’s British Planemaker’s 4th Edition edited by Jane Rees (Astragal Press, 2020) – but all that one cites is the Randle Holme quote. But I think somewhere, very early on, the profile became the marker for a “bolection” molding – possibly in addition to the mounting format. Otherwise how could you have a bolection plane?

But if you’ve made it this far, I have something for one of you. I just got Jane Rees’ new edition of Goodman’s book, which means I have the 3rd edition (1993) to send free to a good home. First one that wants it & leaves a comment gets it. Today I’m off to split a new log, then hopefully make some oak bolection moldings.

(pt 17 Essex County cupboard project 2021)