Popular Woodworking 2006-04 № 154, страница 41

A group of stiles for the web frame is clamped together to lay out the joints. Leaving the stack clamped together provides a stable base for the router used to cut the mortises.

I brought the rough white oak into the shop and let it acclimate while I worked on carving the panels (below). I'm a decent carver, but not a fast one, so the oak had plenty of time to adjust. Popular Woodworking will be running some articles in the coming months on basic carving techniques, and full-size patterns for the panels are available in pdf format from our web site, popu-larwoodworking.com. Click on "Magazine Extras" in the menu bar on the left side of the page.

I gave the completed panels a thin coat of blonde shellac before coloring them with watercolor pencils, available from any artist's supply store. The colors are applied dry, then blended with an artist's brush dipped in water. I let the panels dry for several days, then gave them two coats of amber shellac to seal in the color and warm up the background.

The Real Work Begins

I milled all of the oak parts slightly oversized, and let them sit for a few days before planing them to finished dimensions. Absolutely straight stock is essential for a proj -ect like this. The side panels are all joined with mortises and tenons. Once these were assembled, I cut a rabbet on the long edge of each panel so that the faces of the stiles fit in a stopped groove cut in the legs as seen at right (next page). This makes the sides of the case very strong, and if the stiles shrink in width over time, the joints won't open up.

The web frames and dust panels are also mortise-and-tenon construction. I clamped the stiles together to lay out the mortises and then realized that leaving them clamped together would provide a stable base for the small plunge router I used to cut the mortises (above).

Impossible Legs

Like a lot of Arts & Crafts furniture, the legs are an important element. The problem with quartersawn oak in this situation

is two-fold: Thick stock usually isn't available, and the edge grain is ugly compared to the face grain. There are several ways to work around this, and the method I

DOORS CARVED, THEN COLORED

The completed carving is given a wash coat of shel- The colors are blended with an artist's brush lac, then colors are applied with watercolor pencils. dipped in water.

After the coloring is complete, the panels are allowed to dry several days before being finished with amber shellac.

After tracing the pattern on the basswood panels, the design of sassafras leaves is carved.

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Popular Woodworking April 2006