An Armoire…

[Christian Hawkshaw]

Just finished up on an armoire. Made of sapele; the door and side panels are pomelle sapele.


armoire_left_front.jpg

armoire_front.jpg

armoire_right_front.jpg

armoire_doors_open_way_left.jpg

armoire_doors_open_left.jpg

armoire_doors_open.jpg

[Christian Hawkshaw]

More pics...

armoire_molding.jpg

Here is a pic in natural light. The color is more accurate than the pics with artificial lighting.

armoire_natural_light.jpg

[Edward Weber]

Wonderful pomelle figure on hte doors
It looks great to me and I'm guessing, almost 7' tall?
Nice work

[Christian Hawkshaw]

Wonderful pomelle figure on hte doors
It looks great to me and I'm guessing, almost 7' tall?
Nice work

Thanks...Yes close to 7' tall. It is approximately 77 1/4" tall.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Christian, very elegant. Well done, Sir!

[Bruce Page]

Exceptional!

[Lee Schierer]

Very nice. I've never worked with that wood. Just for curiosity how much does it weigh?

[Mel Fulks]

Beautiful piece ! But what really makes it desirable to all , is it is lean . People used to like deep pieces , now they don’t.
Lot of them were cut up to make newer stuff.

[Christian Hawkshaw]

Christian, very elegant. Well done, Sir!

Exceptional!

Thanks Ken and Bruce.

Very nice. I've never worked with that wood. Just for curiosity how much does it weigh?

Thanks Lee. Sapele is a little heavier than walnut, and a little lighter than white oak. This piece is not all solid wood (I usually only make solid wood furniture). The door and side panels are veneered ½ inch MDF. The remaining panels are all ½ sapele plywood with the core being some light soft woods (pine and something else it appears). I am not sure how much this piece weighs overall, but it is heavy.

[Christian Hawkshaw]

Beautiful piece ! But what really makes it desirable to all , is it is lean . People used to like deep pieces , now they don’t.
Lot of them were cut up to make newer stuff.

Thanks Mel. The overall depth of this piece is about 22 3/8 inches. The main carcass is 20 inches deep.

[Frederick Skelly]

That’s a piece to be proud of!

[Jim Becker]

That's a beautiful and functional piece!

[Mike Wilkins]

That is a beautiful piece. Proportions are nice also.
Curious question: what type of finish did you use.

[Christian Hawkshaw]

That’s a piece to be proud of!

That's a beautiful and functional piece!

That is a beautiful piece. Proportions are nice also.
Curious question: what type of finish did you use.

Thanks all.


This is the finish schedule:

1. Sand to 180 (I could have gone much higher on the pomelle to enhance the chatoyance of the figure, but I did not want to sand through the veneer).
2. Ammonia fume.
3. Let air out for a week.
4. Door frames only: Applied “Fumed” Rubio Monocoat tannin reactive pretreatment.
5. Apply boiled linseed oil.
6. 3 wipe-on coats of Arm-R-Seal gloss. Sand with 400 between coats 2 and 3.
7. 2 wipe-on coats of Arm-R-Seal satin. Sand with 400 between coats.

For the shelves and drawers:

1. Sand to 180.
2. Ammonia fume.
3. Let air out for a week.
4. Apply boiled linseed oil.
5. 2 coats of Arm-R-Seal gloss applied with a foam brush, sand with 400 between coats. For the drawers, only the fronts got 2 coats, the rest only got 1 coat.
6. 1 sprayed coat of General Finishes High Performance Water Based Topcoat satin. I did this to reduce the gassing off of the oil-based finish inside the armoire.

The fuming and linseed oil helped bring the color of the various pieces to a more consistent color. Not as good as dying, but pretty good. I fumed samples of all of the pieces and went through the finish process to make sure it would look OK before fuming the armoire. The wood used for the door frame was much lighter than the rest of the piece. I have experimented with Rubio Monocoat tannin reactive pretreatments and found that “Fumed” is close to actual ammonia fuming. I also found that using this product after ammonia fuming will further darken the wood. So, for the door frames, I also applied the “Fumed” Rubio Monocoat tannin reactive pretreatment.

I will add some picutures later to illustrate the above.

[John TenEyck]

Oh that is a wonderful piece with some awesome looking wood. The design is restrained but elegant, with great proportions.

Take a well-deserved bow. And get the Bengay because I bet that thing was heavy to move.

John