Coopered Doors

[Mike Henderson]

I like it.The wood and proportions are very pleasing to my eyes.Now in going to try my hand at a corner cabinet.Always up for a new challenge. Thanks for sharing with us Mike.

One thing I found, Andrew, is that when you introduce curves in the work, the project gets (much) more complex. Even clamping for glue up is more challenging - the clamps don't pull in the right direction.

But curved work is very rewarding, and does break the project away from the rectangular form. I'd love to see your project when you get going on it.

Mike

[Scott DelPorte]

Beautiful work, thanks for sharing

[Phil Thien]

Laying the veneer for the top was a fairly complex veneer job...

That cabinet is a showpiece.

"Fairly complex" has to be today's SMC understatement. That would be fairly complex with a CNC router as your disposal. By hand I think it is somewhere north of "fairly complex."

While I'm not comparing my stupid little fake Krenov (with flat door) project to yours, I did do a couple things I liked. One was hiding magnets in the door stop, which runs the full width of the cabinet. So a flat-head screw in the door (covered by felt), and a neo magnet in the stop, really works quite well.

[Scott T Smith]

Gorgeous work Mike! Thanks for sharing.

[Mike Henderson]

I've shown pictures of the corner cabinet "almost finished" but here are a few of it actually finished.

Here's a view of the front of the cabinet, in it's place in our house, with a lamp on top of it. I put two small black pulls towards the top. It's difficult to choose a pull that will not detract from the veneer design and yet be big enough to function well. This is not a cabinet that people will be going into often so I went fairly small with the handles.

CornerCabinet01.jpg

And here's a view of the top, with finish on it (and without the lamp).

CornerCabinet02.jpg

And finally, a view into the interior showing the veneer work on the inside of the doors. The shelf is adjustable in height, or removable.

CornerCabinet03.jpg

I'm sure my wife has some ideas for my next project, but she hasn't told me yet

And just a few details about the wood. The primary wood is mahogany. The veneer on the exterior of the doors is walnut burl in a four way match, with banding of fiddle back maple and black stringing. The hardest part of those panels was the curved corner pieces. The border is mahogany.

On the interior of the doors, the field veneer is myrtle burl, with banding of fiddle back maple and black stringing. The border is mahogany.

The top is four pieces of crotch walnut, laid in a radial match, with white stringing around each piece. The border is mahogany. Cutting the curved parts of the walnut, and putting in the banding, was the most difficult part of this panel. The difficulty of the cutting was to make sure that the curve cut of one piece lined up with the curve cut of the next piece - on both sides for the interior two pieces.

Mike

[Trevor Howard]

I admire your talent Mike, the cabinet is beyond words to me. I also appreciate your posting and tutorials on the projects you do.
Thanks

[Jared Sankovich]

I'll have to think about how I'd do a pendulum for a 16 inch radius for the inside. The outside is really not a problem. Hand tools and some sanding took care of that quickly.

Mike

I just found these vids the other day, he has a interesting setup for gluing and shaping the doors. It seems similar to Bud's "open box" description.

[Jared Sankovich]

part 2

[Mike Henderson]

Wow, that is major jig making. Way too much for making a couple of doors. And even if you did it, the next time you wanted a door with a different curvature, you'd have some major modifications to make to the jig.

Storing that jig would also be a problem for me. Unless you were going to make a LOT of doors with the same curvature, that jig doesn't make a lot of sense.

But I have to give that guy credit for working out the details of that jig. It's very inventive.

Mike

[richard poitras]

Great build Mike it looks really nice.

For those of you that are interested in learning more about veneering and building things like this I would recommend you check out Mike’s home page as he shows some of his cool projects and tutorials.