Victorian table – part two
Well, here it is – the first part of the work, the most difficult is over, this will be a game table.
Dining Table
It was pretty fast work, just two weeks I guess. I took the design from French architect and designer Leon Benouville (1860-1903). I just changed the curve of the legs a little bit. Dimensions of a table top – 10 x 15 cm, height – 7 cm.
Morris Chair
I started a new project from Scale Cabinetmaker magazine – two Morris chairs. I couldn’t find the right prototype on Internet, but you’ll get the idea, I hope.
First Fitting
I started making drawers, at first I cut them out with band saw, then sand with Proxxon rotary tool.
Victorian Style
I would never consider myself as a huge fan of Victorian style, probably because I haven’t seen the examples that would look just right for me. And this time I think I’ve found some. One of my latest commissions:
Bombe Chest – Almost There
My bombe chest is almost done. I need to make the inner parts of the drawers and also sand the trims of the outer parts. For two lowest drawers I needed to shape the sides, very easy to do, I used alder.
Read the news about Sketchup, they leaving Google and becoming the part of Trimble (never heard of them). It is said that they will keep a free version, I’m curious which direction the developers will take. Here’s official Sketchup team post about it.
New Old Book
This book has been in my wish-list for quite a long time. I didn’t see any good reviews of it, you know, I’m too curious, always wanted to know what was inside. “Making Miniature Furniture” is out of print, I saw it on Amazon available from different buyers (mostly US), but later found it on biblio.com. The book was available from UK, so I decided to give it a try.
This particular copy is 1997 edition, originally printed in 1988. It’s had a bit different approach than of Harry W. Smith, though I quite liked it. No metalworking chapters, only wood. Lots and lots about instruments, principles of work. There are no furniture projects like Victorian table or something like that, but mainly general – building frames and doors, drawers.
I liked these small references on different styles, nothing new, but still interesting.
Color illustrations are great too, just loved marquetry work here:
Too many details on this photo 🙂
Carving legs
I finished carving these legs last week. I’m almost pleased with result, I was even thinking of making another version of them but I have other projects to do too, so I decided on moving on. I really liked working with cherry, though with pear wood it would be absolutely different experience. The only problem I had is, when I was finishing working with spheres, some of those small claws started to split and fall off so I had to glue them back. But I liked how the joints and claws turned out.
Carving spheres was fun, they look just right from every angle.
The other details above the leg were supposed to be carved by Dremel, but I didn’t like the result at all, simple V-shape micro chisel 0,5 mm was the best option.
I also bought a set of Narex chisels lately. They are quite good for their price, but require additional work. Kirschen is still my number one choice.
I also started working on drawers, two of them were shaped according to the profile of the sides. The most difficult part here is done.
Bombe Chest
I decided to try one more project from Harry W. Smith’s book that I really like.
This chest is made of mahogany in the book, but I really wanted to try cherry for this one. The most interesting part was to make curved sides. Usually I follow all the tips from this book, but this time I was a bit confused. I didn’t like the way of shaping these parts – with a small drum sander held in a flexible-shaft machine. I tried it and found the results inconsistent. Working with a bandsaw was absolutely different experience, very easy and precise. The original thickness of a stock was 8 mm and I shaped it to 2 mm.
Then I cut dovetails for the dividers and glides. All fitted nicely.
The back was also easy to make. Then I needed to carve four claw foots. Something like this:
I’ve seen several how-to videos about carving them, I highly recommend those from Popular Woodworking. Though they all are really helpful, especially their references on different shapes and forms. I’ve been working on them for the last week or so, not really happy with the result but I’m close to the OK version 🙂 Hope to show you them soon.