Hi guys, here's a few picts of my highboy I finished up the other day. This was a challenging but very gratifying project. Since I've never made a piece such as this, I learned a lot from the experience.
The design is pretty much my own although I did refer to the Highboy plans in Glen Huey's book when creating the basic dimensions. I scaled mine down about 15% from the piece in his book to fit better in the space I have available. Even with the downsizing, I still ended up with a piece of furniture about the size of your average refrigerator!
All the drawers are dovetailed front and back which even using the table saw / band saw method took me quite a while to complete.
Here's the kicker: The entire thing is made from poplar. I had originally thought to use cherry but had an eleventh hour change of heart when I considered I've never built such a piece before and around here, cherry's anything but cheap. In the end I think it was a good call as the first gooseneck molding I made I cut too short.Using 8/4 stock for the molding, it would have been a costly mistake if cherry!
I stained it first with Varathane American Walnut to get a base color. Next a coat of Seal Coat followed by two glaze coats of Zar's Antique Mahogany stain and three sprayed coats of satin Enduro-Var.
A word about that Zar stain - despite their advertising that it excels on soft woods like poplar, I was unimpressed with it on the bare wood - blotchy and gross like every other stain. As a glaze though it blew me away! No lap marks, it doesn't get sticky like a gel stain and is easy to work out to an even color even on large surfaces. I think it's my new favorite stain to use for glazing!
All the hardware is from Horton.
Thanks for looking and suggestions or critiques are always welcome!
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