Popular Woodworking 2005-12 № 152, страница 43

tion of the Shaker aesthetic, uses nails for nearly all its structural elements. The sides, top and bottom are nailed together. The bottom and back are nailed in place, as is the frame around the door. Only the door itself exhibits the kind of joinery, through tenons, that could be identified as truly appropriate for that application.

But, having said that, I must then remind myself that the cabinet is still intact, 150 years after its construction. Yes, I would have preferred to find in the cabinet the kind of joinery that a first-class modern maker would employ in assembling such a piece. Specifically, I would have preferred that the cabinet's sides, top and bottom be assembled with dovetails, and I would have preferred to find mortise-and-tenon joinery in the frame around the door. But my preferences have more to do with my woodworking prejudices than with the ability of the piece to survive from one generation to the next.

And I have firsthand knowledge that my joinery prejudices aren't necessarily supported by the facts. In the small stand of trees beside my shop, we have a chicken coop that has a door I made almost 20 years ago from some common-grade cherry boards which, because of knots, wane and sap streaks, were just not good enough to be used in furniture. I built the door when the cherry was green and soft enough to be nailed easily. In the 20 years since its construction, the cherry has hardened and shrunk around those nails, clenching each in a death grip with this result: That door will now never come apart.

I know that hardwood furniture nailed together in such a way is all but indestructible, but my woodworking prejudices, honed by 30 years of cutting wood-to-wood joinery, are difficult to ignore.

The Intersection of Joinery and Aesthetics

The hanging cupboard is made of poplar, a soft material usually green in color, often exhibiting wide areas of gray and black. Poplar is an easily worked species, frequently used by Midwestern cabinetmakers as a secondary wood for drawer sides and bottoms, as well as the interior structural components of cabinets featuring more desirable primary woods, such as cherry or walnut. Poplar is not, however, often itself used as a primary wood, except in the case of utilitarian furniture, such as this hanging cupboard.

I am, therefore, more inclined to accept nailed construction in such a piece. Plus, the cupboard was given a heavy red stain which, when the piece was new, probably all but obliterated any sign of the nails in the finished piece.

The Pleasant Hill craftsmen,

however, didn't restrict the use of nails to utilitarian furniture made of poplar and stained red. They also made use of nails in the construction of furniture made of the finest locally available materials, and in the construction of pieces finished natural, used these nails even in places where they could be easily seen.

The chest of drawers appearing below is one such piece. The chest has its mortise-and-tenoned frame pegged together, not with wood pegs, but with nails, the heads of

which are clearly visible.

For many years, I repaired antique furniture in my shop, and I sometimes came across constructions like the one appearing in this detail photo. Usually, however, the nail driven through the tenon was a fairly recent addition. Someone, perhaps the current owner, perhaps another recent owner, had opted to fix a weakened glue joint by driving a nail through a tenon. But I suspect the nails in this Pleasant Hill chest of drawers were driven through the

This detail shows the head of a nail driven through a mortise-and-tenon joint.

Shaker craftsmen used nails as structural devices even when those nails were visible and became, therefore, a part of a piece's aesthetic. This chest of drawers, for example, has nails driven through the tenons of its mor-tise-and-tenon front, as well as nails driven down through the top into the posts on the ends of the chest.

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