Jewelry Chest on Stand - Progress Pics and Input Requested

[Cory Newman]

I haven't posted here often, I'm afraid my penchant for jocularity would be frowned upon, so I tend to just lurk. However, I'm looking for some input.

I finally got a little shop time in over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to an upcoming long weekend in the shop. I am making a jewelry chest on stand for LOML, from walnut her father harvested 20 some odd years ago from the farm she grew up on. The carcass and stand are essentially complete, the drawers remain.





The raised panels are curly walnut I got from Mike at Curlywoods.

Here are my design questions:

1. Presently I am planning on nine graduated drawers, hung from the sides with a cleat on the carcass set into a dado on the sides of the drawers. No face frame. The drawers will range from 3 inches deep on the bottom 3, 2 1/2 inches deep on the middle 3 and 2 inches on the top three. Design and use wise I think that makes more sense than nine drawers of the same size. Agree? or Disagree?

2. I plan to make the drawers of 1/2 inch maple, with maple dividers for jewelry organization. I plan to make the drawer faces from this slab of walnut root. Should I make the fronts the entire thickness of this material, with half blind dovetails, or should I make the entire drawer of maple, and put a thin 1/8 or 1/4 inch of this material on the face like a veneer? I could make the maple drawers through dovetails, and by adding this walnut to the face simulate a half blind dovetail.








3. Lastly, regardless of the approach in question two, how would you approach selecting the layout from this walnut slab? As the drawers will be all adjacent and not separated by any face frames, how would you divide this slab up into drawer fronts? Should I try to match each set of 3? I am stumped at this point on how to accomplish this last task. Obviously, if I go with a veneer approach I have more selection opportunites with the slab.

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Erik Rudd]

That's some nice work there Cory. I wish I could offer you some suggestions but I'm sure that someone here who knows more will be around to help out soon.

[Bob Atchison]

Cory~

You have passed my skill level so I can't answer any of your questions but it looks great to me!

Bob

[scott spencer]

Cory~

You have passed my skill level so I can't answer any of your questions but it looks great to me!

Bob

Same here....I have a hunch you'll make the right decision.

[Hugh Jaskok]

Holy xxxx! Nice job. No way I could give any advice either.

[Dan Oliphant]

Question #1- Agree
Question #2- Veneer, drawer will look very nice in maple.
Question #3- if the slab is thick enough (3 inches), match each drawer consecutively.

[Bob Childress]

Cory,

That's a really nice looking carcasse.

#1. IMHO, make the drawers various depths as you have planned. Not only will it look nicer (not top heavy) but it will be more functional. A woman doesn't need very deep storage for most jewelry (DAMHIKT ) just for a few items.


#2. My personal preference would be to make the fronts solid walnut w/half blind tails. But either approach would work.

#3. Can't help you much there. Slab has some nice figure though.

Good luck. I'm sure more seasoned pros than me will chime in.

[Bob Atchison]

Hey Hugh!

I didn't know you where a member here!

Good to see you!

Bob

[Bud Zysk]

Man, that is amazing. It's a shame I can't show that to LOML.

I don't see anything wrong with maple drawers with walnut faces, but that's me. You could half blind the maple drawer sides into a walnut drawer front. That would look cool too!

[Geoffrey McPharson]

Nice craftsmanship - I'd consider using veneer drawer fronts, but use walnut for the remainder of the drawer front. Having a thin veneer on maple might look kinda funky.

[Neil Lamens]

Hi Cory:

Regarding your good looking Jewelry cabinet.

Question #1: This depends on what you want to do with that root stock you are planning to use. Because you won't have rails, you'll want a nice flowing grain pattern, but with differing sizes on your faces, finding an ascending or decending matching pattern will be difficult. You'll resaw, but will change the width and therefore matching grain pattern as you make smaller width faces.

As for question #2, personally I wouldn't veneer a face onto the maple. I wouldn't like the look from the top, seeing a "stripe" of dark everytime I opened a drawer.

If you are determined to use that walnut you're showing, I'd veneer that to some nice striaght walnut you've go stashed.

Then go after your 1/2 blind dovetails contrasting the maple and walnut. What wood were you going to use as the drawer slide???

That also answers Question #3.....If you resaw cleanly you could assemble a nice ascending "bookmatch" having the hump you are showing as your #1 (bottom) drawer. Then flip the number 2 in order to grain match. The hump would appear as an oval? Not having that wood to look at closely, has me hedging a bit on its stability.

Hope that helps...........Neil

[Jesse Cloud]

Beautiful piece! I can't help on the technical questions, but I sure wish you would post more often. This forum could definitely use more jocularity

[John Fry]

Cory,

First let me say that is a very nice piece! The wood is beautiful. Your craftmanship and skill is evident.

Having noticed your abilities, and having said that, I'm sure you don't need to be reminded that your side hung runners should only be attacthed to the stiles of the carcass and not the insides of the raised panels. But, I just thought I'd mention it anyway.

As to your questions, I agree with most everything Neil and Geoffrey say.

#1) I absolutely agree that you DON"T want nine equal drawer sizes.

#2) Veneer would be fine, but use straight grained solid walnut of close color as a substrate and I'd keep the veneers at an 1/8" maximum thickness, maybe less.

#3) You didn't really give us the dimensions of the root stock, but I think by slicing veneers, you could get a good bookmatch all the way up the nine drawers, (with some careful harvesting and some good luck). You will just need to lay out all your slices and then cut the widths of each "size group" at the same time to keep the tops and bottoms with a good grain match.

If the wood is not stable enough, or not large enough, I don't think another visit to Mike at Curlywoods for another batch of that awesome curly walnut would look bad for drawer fronts either.


I really like your piece.

[Cory Newman]

Thank you for your comments John, the root stock is roughly six inches wide by 10 inches deep and a little over 3 feet long. I hadn't thought about going with walnut substrates on the drawer fronts, not sure why it didn't cross my mind. I have some left over from the carcass that was too thin to be used elsewhere, it will make perfect drawerfront substrates as the color is almost a perfect match to the root stock.

[Corey Hallagan]

Very nice Cory. That is looking good. Can't wait to see it finished!

corey