Looking for plans Newport Low Boy

[Roger Kriz]

I've never seen a dovetail plane or saw. A couple of years back my friend traveled to PA to look at some classic repro furniture. I don't remember the place he went to but it was somewhere in the Lancaster area. He was disappointed a little in the quality coming out of the place. High end stuff, nice wood and nice prices but the final fit / finish just wasn't there. He was especially disappointed that they offered a distressed finish if the customer wanted it. Trying to make stuff artifically 200 years old. Just not his style. He just couldn't see a colonial cabinetmaker doing anything short of his darned best to make a piece as perfect as he could. And that was the only way he would build anything. Let time and use create it's own distressed finish. They even went to the extreme of artifically cresting watermarks from drinking glasses.

I've never tried a sliding dovetail. Might look into it and see if it's something I may give a go at doing. I guess I've never built a piece where it would have been useful. We'll see.

[John T Barker]

You might remind your friend that sometimes in business you have to do what the customer wants. It is nice if you have enough business that you can say no. We made a simple footstool for a customer when I was with Irion and gave it the full treatment of distressing. Buried it, soaked the ground periodically with water, put it in a kiln, bleached the wood (walnut) with acid, dragged it through the gravel parking lot. Then we finished it and delivered it. It had to go in a room of 18th century original pieces and it would have looked "off" in the room with those pieces. Distressed it fit in. (I don't think your friend visited the shop I worked in as they were among the best in the biz...check FWW. I would be curious to know who it was though since it is a small dysfunctional family of repro people out there.)

Oh, does it go without saying that I have always done the sliding dovetail with router bits? It is not a brainless operation but it is much easier than with hand tools.

John

[ray hampton]

someone forgot to tell the readers what state that Newport are in
I know that this is not Newport ,KY [wrong kind of lowboy]

[John T Barker]

someone forgot to tell the readers what state that Newport are in
I know that this is not Newport ,KY [wrong kind of lowboy]

Rhode Island.