Dry fit: Shaker Night Stand - African Mahogany

[Neil Brooks]

Been working on this for a while. It's the first in a pair of his-and-hers Shaker Style night stands, both being made from African Mahogany.

I'm a very new woodworker. I may have bitten off a touch more than I can chew, in this project ... BUT ... it's going okay.

Early on, I made a decision NOT to build any parts of the first and second night stand at the same time. I did this so that I could be sure to transfer any learnings gained from #1 TO #2.

And there have certainly been learnings

This is dry-fit mode on #1. It's all M&T joinery. The drawer faces are not yet attached. Nor is the top. Likely, I'll use Watco Danish Oil to finish it off ... if I ever get to that point

Thanks for looking!

[Ken Shoemaker]

That looks like your off to an outstanding start!! I love the design and your choice of wood.

I'm really looking forward to the finished pictures.

Well done!!

[Jim Rimmer]

You may have bitten off a lot but you seem to be chewing it well. Nice work. Can't wait to see the finished pics.

[Brian Williamson]

That's a really nice design that looks like it's coming along very well! I love the details you put into it like the through tenons and the curve in the bottom stretcher. That wood is really gonna shimmer when you put a finish on it!

[Baxter Smith]

Looks good. Neat design. The next one should go faster!

[John Keeton]

Neil, for a new woodworker, you have taken on quite a difficult project. Mastering so many new techniques on one of your first projects is challenging, particularly on an expensive wood like mahogany. But, you are doing well.

I like the style, and you are including some very nice elements. The only change that I can see is that I may have preferred the side panel grain to run vertically. But, what you have done looks nice, and may have maximized your material.

[Andrew Gibson]

Looks great! remember when it comes to finishing to take you time. When I get to finishing I have a tendency to get impatient and that causes me to not do quite as good of a job as I would like. Right now though I have 4 projects to finish before the end of march so I at least will have something to keep my busy for the finishing of three of the 4 pieces.

[Jerome Hanby]

Looks pretty snazzy to me. How was the African mahogany to work?

[Mike Wilkins]

Off to a great start I would say. Making your own pulls also???

[Joe Leigh]

Nice job so far. It looks more Crafstman style than Shaker style with the through tenons and straight legs.

[John Thompson]

You've done an excellent job on this piece with the execution Neil. Good.. solid design and very straight-forward. You were wise being new not to tackle two of them at the same time so you could minimize over-all mistakes as yes.. you are learning as you go from your statements. When you gain the experience you will find that it will cut build time down considerably to do both at one shot but.. I respect and commend your desision under the circumstances stated to do one and the other latter.

As I was reading the replies I wondered if anyone would comment on one of the first things I noticed and would suggest for future consideration. John Keeton did as it appears we think on the same lines with design. I would have also done the side panels so they were vertical to the legs and opposing the horizonal grain of the top and bottom stretchers and the drawer fronts. Certainly ain't a big deal as we all have different taste but just an observation as JK made for consideration in the future.

Great job so far and the finish you intend should go well as it is pretty straight forward and hard to mess up really. Easy to fix if any boo-boo's from collision.. spills.. etc. down the road also.

Well done...

[Tony Shea]

Very nice job. Interesting choice of wood as I don't see a whole lot of people using African Mohogany lately, yet it is such a beautiful wood. It can be difficult to work though and I commend you for tackling such an involved project with an involved type of wood.

My suggestion other than grain direction of side panels would be about your drawer fronts. I saw where you have said you still need to attach drawer fronts, therefore I'm assuming that they will not be inset. In all honesty, I think you could probably get away with keeping what is there as your drawer fronts and adding pulls of some sort to those. The inset drawer I think would go better with this design. But maybe you already have other plans, which may include inset drawer faces. Just a suggestion. Again, very nice work.

[Neil Brooks]

Thanks so much for all the feedback.

The comment about the grain direction on the side panels is excellent. I don't remember having made a conscious choice, either for a particular look OR to maximize yield from the 5'x5' ply sheets. I'll have to look at that idea for #2. They'll sit far enough apart that something to differentiate them might be just fine!

Yeah: I would have saved some time by overlapping mortising, ripping, planing, cutting tenons, etc., etc. by running the two in parallel, rather than one after the other, but ... I knew goof-ups would cost me double

My brother suggested that -- if I were really worried -- I do a full sized mock-up out of SPF, first. I'd already started, but ... thought it was a great idea -- one that I may use on my next slightly-over-my-head project.

I'm finding the mahogany to be a breeze to work with. Oh, sure, it's more dense than the few other woods I've used, but it's not over-taxing my machines (I had to start with a 3" x 11" x 72" rough hewn slab, in order to get my materials in before Xmas, so I'm getting pretty good with my planer and my jointer ). I'm also being pret-ty patient, in not asking my machines to take big, big bites.

I agree with the comment about extending that patience to the finishing stage. My shop's in the basement, but I'll finish in the garage, where I plan to put a "patience" sign on the wall. Sound advice.

I bought the plans, online. Aside from my own learning curve, I've only found one piece of the plans that probably could use improvement: the legs have a mortise on the very top of the leg. It's open TO the top of the leg ((I'm sure there's a name for it, but ...).

It left the remainder of the top very fragile. I cracked the first two front legs with very little pressure, inserting the tenons into their mortises. I re-made two legs, which ... also cracked.

Next time, I'll cut the legs a couple inches long, make the mortises, and then cut the tops off the legs, leaving them at the final length.

My wife chose the mahogany, at the lumber yard. My total materials cost for the two night stands should be a touch over $500. I was pretty happy with that, and haven't had to scrap anything, yet, aside from the usual cut-offs (which I'm happy to have!).

My own drawer pulls? 'Nother great question.

I have no say in that

I think my wife (usually, she doubles as my Finishing Department, but I wanna' do these pieces) has some pulls in mind that she's found, already. My brother's a turner, though, so I could easily see getting him to make something for the pulls.

Maybe that's another opportunity to differentiate His from Hers.

Pretty new to this site. Visually impaired, so ... I never get all the time I want to, to (work on my projects or) review the fabulous work of the more experienced ww's, but ... I'll try. I'm always in awe of what many of you can do....

Thanks for all the great feedback. Much appreciated! I'll post pics when I get the glue-up and finish done.

[Neil Brooks]

Tony: Sorry. I wasn't clear. The drawer fronts that I intend to use are the ones in the picture. I simply haven't spaced them, and screwed them in to the drawer boxes, from the back, yet.

The outsides of the drawer boxes are the only non Mahogany bits. Even the drawer bottoms are 1/4" mahogany ply. They didn't have the right mahogany ply in stock, so ... I went with my old buddy, Baltic Birch, figuring it would be well hidden by the mahogany hardwood drawer fronts.

I went back and forth on drawer slides. Partly because of a few threads on SMC, I decided to go old-school, with dovetail hardwood slides. I'll install those during final glue-up.

For anybody who's bored, this link should take you to the rest of the pics from this project, so far....

Thanks again!

[John Thompson]

Great follow-up on your part Neil. The drawer fronts as you are using them are simply called flase fronts meaning they will be attached to an already built drawer box. You can over-hang false fronts or recess them to be even with face frames.

But.. the main reason I posted as I just saw your last comments was....

If the mate will be in the same room.. I would not... Repeat.. would not change the orientation of the side panel grain on the second one. Even and un-trained eye will probably catch that move. I would keep it the same or IMO it will be apparent. Just keep the vertical idea in mind for the next project similar to this where it could be applied.

Again... excellent job on this piece IMO. You should be proud and I would certainly be proud as my first piece way back when wasn't even close to how good this piece is. Trust me!

Regards...