Popular Woodworking 2008-04 № 168, страница 88

Great Woodshops

Taking work to the next level. A rope-operated elevator moves work between floors in the factory. for assembling drawers.

Drawer fronts are grouped together for matching grain, and these groups are numbered and kept together throughout the manufacturing process. Each drawer is fit to a specific opening in a specific chest.

You can almost imagine being back in time to the 1920s or 1930s until you notice that all of the machinery is guarded to meet modern safety requirements. The other thing that snaps you back to the present day is the CNC router in the midst of the vintage machinery.

All together now. With all the joints milled precisely, Terrell Adams assembles boxes in a quick, well-practiced process.

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Drawer dividers and the box tops and bottoms are fit in stopped grooves milled in the sides of the cases. There is also a shallow groove for each drawer runner - a small piece of hard maple. The drawers are side hung; a groove in the drawer side fits neatly on the runner. We saw chests that were nearly 100 years old with perfectly functioning drawers. These grooves were once cut on pin routers with templates, but the CNC machine has added speed and accuracy to the process.

The cases are assembled at a bench near the CNC machine, and placed in specially made presses until the glue has dried. Drawers are

also clamped in similar presses, saving time and eliminating the need to tighten many clamps repetitively.

When the assembled boxes are removed from the press, they are stacked on carts and are ready to be moved upstairs for fitting and finishing. How they get there brings us back to the historic nature of the building.

Moving Up the Old-Fashioned Way

The freight elevator is manually operated. The elevator is original to the building, and the counter-weighted car moves easily between floors by pulling on a rope. In the 1970s

Home again for R & R. The chest in the foreground is brand new. The other one is a vintage chest, refinished and refurbished to look like new.