The Fujiwhara Chest - Project of the Week
This week’s project is from my good buddy Tom Iovino of Tom’s Workbench. Let’s hear his description:
It’s called a Fujiwhara Chest. (BTW - the Fujiwhara effect is when two hurricanes start to rotate around each other if they get too close… The swirls in the door veneers reminded me of that). Basically a Krenov-inspired chest on a stand. The legs are made of Sapele my hardwood supplier had in the burn pile, and the aprons and chest parts are made of hard maple. The legs are tapered through their bottom ten inches to give some motion to the bottom of the case. I wanted to get more of a circular flow into the piece, so I decided I should cut the stretchers in arches. That gave me a chance to really tune up the bandsaw to get matching curves. All of the parts are joined with mortise and tenon joints, cut with a plunge router and a dado blade on the table saw.
The chest was made of hard maple. The corners are joined with variably spaced dovetails made with a Keller jig. Yes, you can do it!
The tower in the middle is made of some free walnut that was - again - in the burn pile at my hardwood supplier’s shop. I made stopped dadoes in the piece for the shelves to sit, and the uprights sit in stopped dadoes cut in the top and bottom.
The back is made of three ship-lapped boards set into rabbets on the sides, top and bottom.
The doors are veneered in sapele pomelle, and the doors are made of maple as well. No, I didn’t use knife hinges (kinda thought about that AFTER I put the case together). I matched the curve of the top of the doors to the curve on the apron to echo the shape.
The finish regimen was to sand the piece to 220 grit and scrape the large flats. I sealed the entire piece with 1# cut of Seal Coat, followed by a buffing with #0000 steel wool. Brushed and vacuumed the thing off, then hit it with three coats of Watco natural, sanding between each with 400 grit paper….
Then I rubbed the piece down with a weasel ’till it glowed…
Shoe Cabinet - Project of the Week
This week’s project comes from John. Let’s see what he has to say:
I can’t believe it - the shoe cabinet is done! :) It’s been a long process. With me being such a newbie, and having just a bit of free time to devote each week, it’s taken me something like 6 months to complete! This was a real learning project. Many firsts for me: loose mortise and tenons, edge joining wider boards, flush drawers with half-blind and through dovetails, routed inlays, sliding doors, staining poplar, etc. I based the design on David Marks’ tool cabinet (Woodworks #503), but much larger and with drawers on top. I used poplar throughout, and walnut for the inlays and handles. Finished with a 2lb cut of shellac followed by General Finishes American oak gel stain and 3 coats of Arm-r-Seal.
One of the big lessons from this project is covering up mistakes, of which there were MANY! :) The biggest oops came when I was routing the mortises in the top — the router bit somehow slipped loose and punched right through the top. Not a happy woodworking moment!! After wrangling with ideas about patching the holes, making a new top, etc, I took your excellent suggestion of filling the hole with epoxy, and then routing a complete perimeter inlay over the top of it. Hey, I meant to do that! :) It turned out great!
I also really struggled with the doors. Not having a band saw, and unable to find any good 1/4″ plywood locally, my “beautifully figured” sliding doors are actually just 1/4″ MDF panels. I used the same gel stain and sorta dragged the rag across to produce a fakey wood grain :) For the dovetails, I started with an old rockler jig - and just like you, I ended up wanting to drive a truck over it. I ended up investing in the Leigh Super 18 - nice! After spending so long fine-tuning the half-blind fronts, I was stunned how easy the through dovetails were in comparison! :) Took a crazy amount of time, but I just love those dovetails.
Thanks again for all your help Marc. You’ve patiently answered every one of my emails and given me numerous suggestions which you can see reflected right in the completed project. And I can’t count how many times I’ve come back to your videos for advice, design ideas, the dovetails, edge-joining with biscuits, mortise and tenons, pairing, wiping finishes, etc, etc - even how best to measure and mark when putting the door handles on. Looking forward to the next project.
Bath Vanity - Project of the Week
This week’s project comes from Tom in California. Here’s his story:
The fun began when a friend of mine had to cut down several black walnut trees in his backyard – trees planted by his wife’s great grandfather! In exchange for building them a 76×38 kitchen table, he gave me several large logs. I had him buck the logs to put crotches in the middle of the logs. Then I took the logs to a friend that has a small sawmill. The boards have been drying for the last 30 months now. You just cannot find more beautifully grained wood than California-grown black walnut that has been air dried and not steamed and put in a kiln.
Construction: All the drawer fronts and doors were completely replaced. The outside edge of each door and drawer front has a bead detail of moulding applied proud of the surfaces. The inside edges of the rails and stiles (closest to the panel) have a routed bead detail. Stiles and rails are jack mitered together with loose mortise and tenons. The door panels are floating. Each panel has 1/16″ book matched crotch grain (front and back) veneered to 1/8″ baltic birch plywood resulting in ¼” thick panel. The pull out drawers behind the doors are melamine with custom walnut edges with full extension slides.
Finish: The “new” face frames, drawer fronts, door rails/stiles received 5 coats of Waterlox satin applied with a rag and wet sanded flat before the last coat. The door panels received 5 coats of Waterlox gloss applied with a rag and wet sanded before the final coat.
Lesson #1: I made a rookie mistake when planing down the drawer fronts. If you look at the before pics, drawers 5, 6, 7, & 8 show a perfectly book matched grain pattern before planing. I didn’t plane each bookmatch equally, resulting in a less than desirable book match. Not a big deal, but I am my harshest critic!
Lesson #2: Next time I will just remove the face frames and build new ones. This process was very labor intensive. I milled 3/16″ veneer strips, removed the varnish on the existing face frames with a card scraper, block plane and sandpaper, and glued and clamped each piece separately. The gluing and clamping took forever.
Butcher Block Cabinet - Project of the Week
This week’s project comes from Tim. Here’s his story:
Well, I have finally grown a skin thick enough to submit 3 project pictures of an end grain butcher block cabinet that I made for my parents recently. It just got shipped out to Singapore; cost me $800 for the freight!! I got the inspiration by watching you build your cutting boards, and have made up to about 20 so far. It’s a great way to use up scrap wood!!! Saw David Marks’ version on his woodworks show that day and thought that it would be an interesting challenge to build one. The top is larger than David’s design; it’s about 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep - a nice size for a single person to work at, and just enough counter space. You are probably wondering why I would put a semi-gloss finish on the top? Well, my parents want it as a piece for a corner in the house, so I thought I would spend a little time practicing my varnishing skills for a semi-gloss look.
I used 7 types of wood on it - purpleheart, black walnut, yellowheart, ash, mahoganey, jatoba, maple and cherry. Flattening the top was a major pain!! I have a 22-44 performax drum sander, but still had to use router rails to slowly but surely flatten one side before drum sanding the other. Touched it up with a Lie-Nielsen 7 1/2 bevel up jointer plane. The face frame is made of purpleheart (a major pain to plane, I might add), and the drawer fronts are made of ambrosia maple. Made a little effort to match the grain on the drawers + doors as well. The cabinet is finished with shellac (3 coats) via my Apollo HVLP spray unit, and rubbed out to a satin sheen with Howard’s feed n wax.
And yes, I did use casters - double locking ones - they put a strong brake on the wheel plus a lock on the swivel. They actually cost about $20 a piece from Linco Casters at Clairemont Mesa Blvd (next to the San Diego Rockler); They really do look a little utilitarian, but those were the best I could find in terms of durability and stability. Those red shop-grade ones at woodcraft were too tacky for my taste. All in all, it was tiring; but I have to give you the credit for the original inspiration via the cutting board! THANKS
Computer Cart - Project of the Week
This week’s project comes from Dustin. Here’s the story:
“This is pretty much my first finished piece of furniture. I have played around with the idea for a computer cart for awhile now and couldn’t come up with something that didn’t seem so boxy but would withstand constant movement and children. I got the idea for the wings on the front from the hardware my wife picked up at Lowe’s. The wavy stainless handle for the drawer was complimented by the wings with the widest part of the wings roughly parallel to the handle and the skinniest part parallel to the knobs. This way it seems balanced. The wood choice was red oak ply for the carcass and red oak solids for the trim and doors. The joinery used was mainly dadoes and biscuits (gotta love those biscuits!) I picked a water-based stain (rosewood) because if gives a strong appearance to the wood once dry and the top coat was three layers of water-based poly sanded with 400g in between coats. Overall, I believe it contains a pleasing mix of curves and lines without giving up it’s focal point of our office. Thanks for taking a look!”
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