Thread: WIP Shaker Sister's Sewing Desk

its good to see others making shaker furniture, ilike to make shaker round candle tables they are nice and simple. john.
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Here's a pic on the web of a nice view of the desk showing the drawer arrangement and another link to an auction result for for a similar original piece.

http://www.willishenry.com/Winter%20...ing%20desk.jpg
http://www.willishenryauctions.com/catalogs/the-mccue-shaker-collection-part-2/lot-29-sisters-sewing-desk/

sistersSewingDesk.jpg

HI Fuzzie
Thank you for the photos looks very nice and im sure it will be a work of love, the sale document was very intersting to john.

I love shaker furniture, nice simple lines...will be watching this WIP with interest.

Originally Posted by desert oak

I love shaker furniture, nice simple lines...will be watching this WIP with interest.

Me too! So simple and practical. Just lent a Shaker book to a friend and hope it gets returned.

Another Shaker fan here!! Will be watching!

This is a nice mainly handtools project and it's a pleasure to be working with the Silkwood after the last few projects in Brushbox and Ironbark. While doing further work on roughing out yesterday I got side tracked into saw sharpening which I have ignored for too long. As well as touching up my usual goto crosscut and carcass saws, (both Ibbotson with red plastic handles,) I thought it was high time I scraped the rust off a couple of other flea market find handsaws I have. A bit more filing work is required today to get their teeth back into shape before starting to cut out the various pieces to length.

The panels in the desk are all meant to be 3/8". I've got some wide boards that are a bit over an inch and the right width, but so far I've never had much luck resawing on my bandsaw. I think I'll have to give the bandsaw some attention and possibly try giving that blade a touch up as well to see if I can split the boards rather than wasting a lot of material by just running it all through the thicknesser.

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

I think I'll have to give the bandsaw some attention and possibly try giving that blade a touch up as well to see if I can split the boards rather than wasting a lot of material by just running it all through the thicknesser.

Franklin

One effective way of resawing without having to worry too much about bandsaw blade drift is to dress the piece of wood on one face and two edges on the jointer, then with the dressed face against the table saw fence, cut alternatively on both edges on the table saw so there's maybe an inch or so (depending on how wide the piece is) of wood left between the two cuts. You can then cut through that last inch or so on the bandsaw so you end up with two pieces that have reasonably clean faces. Less resistance for the bandsaw blade so less chance of serious drift and ending up with an expensive wedge.

Of course all the normal safety rules apply.

Des

Hi Des,

After finishing with the second back saw I didn't feel much like attacking the bandsaw blade! While looking at the blank for the widest panel I need, I thought along the same lines you suggested and decided to try the table saw on the short panel first. I put the 12" blade on the saw (I usually run it with a 10" blade) and screwed a bit of whiteboard to the fence for support and proceeded exactly as you suggested! Actually I decided to run the boards through the thicknesser as well during prep to hopefully end up with a little less work to cleanup later and I cut the final web with my newly sharpened hand panel saw, not the bandsaw!

I've now got the thin boards stickered and hoping they don't cup on me overnight!

panel1.jpgpanel2.jpgpanel3.jpg

One backsaw was missing a handle screw and that made the handle a bit wobbly. After the clean and sharpen I found a small brass nut and bolt that fitted through the openings and when tightened up the handle now feels solid. I don't feel so bad now when I open the tool cabinet as I won't see the rusty saws hanging there mocking me anymore.

backSaw1.jpgbackSaw2.jpgbackSaw3.jpg

Cheers, Franklin

All of the 30+ pieces of primary wood required for the cabinet are roughed out and the boards for the drawer fronts have been put aside. I haven't got the desk top piece yet as it will need to be glued up. Now comes the test of my hand planing and thicknessing skills to convert these raw elements into smooth square pieces suitable for cabinet making.

caseParts.jpg

The boards I used for the panels turned out to have quite a bit of light coloured sapwood and some figure. This is probably for the best as it will give the design some visual interest. The original piece contrasted the panels by painting and I have felt a couple of the pictures of modern reproductions I have seen using all the same species solid timber have lacked something visually compared to the originals.

I'll make the rest of the webframes for the drawers from pine. Although the measured drawing doesn't show any dust panels, I'm thinking at least the top drawer assembly would benefit made with one, so I'll add that to my parts list as well.

OK so everything is planed and dimensioned to the best of my abilities. Small tolerance differences will just give it that handmade look, right?

planed.jpg

The biggest problem I had was with the wild grain on the panels. It changes direction so much across the figure (a branch node?) that I just couldn't get rid of tearout. I'll have to revisit these later. It will be either a case of giving scraping a go or they will have to be sanded. At least they stayed flat.

wildGrain.jpg

The next step before moving on to the joinery is turning the bottom 8" of the legs. I've got my salvaged and restored M900 lathe that I've only turned one thing on so far after I replaced the reeves pulley. The turning is fairly straight forward, but I'm a complete novice and am going to need to spend some time learning to use a gouge and chisel and practising on something else before I attempt the legs. A big problem however is the length of rear legs. Pieces D and C in the bin pic above are the legs, a bit over a meter long now but due to be finished length of 29". Hmmm a bit over 990mm. How to fit that on a 900mm lathe bed?

I think this will be a beatiful piece. I am a fan of Morris style furniture myself. Jealous of all the big tools.

Garcia, if I may quote you "OK so in each project I try to set myself a challenge." I'm just a little further along the curve than you. My first entertainment unit was painted chipboard. My pine plank bookshelves were pretty ordinary. Your pine plank entertainment unit is way better than some of my stuff!

There's not much big machinery to covert here. I've been opportunistically collecting rust for the last 20 years. Nothing much in my shed cost more that about $50 bucks. The saw and the lathe were rusted hulks and cost $150 for the pair. The saw got put to work pretty quickly but this is the first time occasion I've had to use the lathe. It has been sitting at the back of the garage taking up valuable space and gathering dust for a few years.

OK, so I've learnt a few things about my lathe. I've read a book by Ron Roszkiewicz and one by Richard Raffan. I've mounted some bits of expendable old ironbark joist in the lathe and made a couple of not very good spindles. I've gone online and found various youtube videos. Thankyou Brendan Stemp.

The lathe needed some more fixing up. All but one of the little cast handles on the tool rest adjusters were broken and the last one didn't last long in my hands. The tool rest is soft cast iron and very dinged up, actually it was very dished and dinged up. With some trepidation I took to it with a file and flatten then polished it. At least I can now slide a tool along it.

Sharpening. I've discovered turning is more about sharpening than making shapes. I'm still coming to terms with what is required here. For this job I guess I just need a gouge and a skew, so I should be able to handle that. I was tempted by last weeks Aldi belt and disk sander but figure I surely have to be able to do it with what I already have on hand without any more $ outlay.

Dust collection. I won't start... I'll just hang a 4" hose off the lathe bed. Thankyou Soundman.

(edit) Actually I did make a new $3 outlay for a somewhat scratched Armadillo faceshield off gumtree.