This is a small wall hung display cabinet with dentil molding and a tradtional barred glass door. It is inspired by many of the larger library pieces in Chippendale's Director. The joinery is plain old lapped dovetails, but in super curly maple. The wood wasn't to bad, just had to take very light cuts and wet the grain before heading through the planer. The case is 21" x 14' x 7' deep.
I started with a full scale drawing and stock list, the standard procedure at NBSS. I chose to start by completeing the case and dovetails and then starting on the moldings. The back panel and cleat will slide into a groove from the bottom that is run prior to assembly. Basically this case is the same construction as drawer with the drawer bottom being the sace back and the case bottom being the drawer rear.
While waiting for my veneer to arrive, I built up the molding. Each layer is milled from the rough stock in order and indexed to preserve grain continutuity and figure across the molding face. I started with the base of the molding off the shaper, applied the dentil molding next (made on the table saw), and topped it off with capital molding, also from the shaper. After this glue up, I had a large piece of molding stock to miter and fit to the case top. Again, keeping the pieces in order allowed the grain to wrap around the case. The base molding was done the same way, except it was a one shot deal, no composite.
With the moldings on the case I could start building the door with offset mortise and tenon joinery, and appliing an edge molding to the interior to create a rabbet for the glass. Nocthes must be located and cut before glue up. The nest step is to build up the glazing bars, which are a two piece contruction. There is ample debate abuout doing the bars first or the molding, which sit on the bars. I worked from the bottom up on a template withthe door frame locked in place with double sided tape. Each bar is mitered and fit in place. Once glued up, the moldings are applied in a similar fashion to the bars. It is critical to keep everything labled here since each piece is cut to fit. Cloth strips are used to reinforce these timy miter joints later.
With the bars contructed, it was time to fit and hang the door. I planed the clearences on the top and bottom door edges to clear the moldings, and planed the door sides flush with the case. Then its was on to the hinges, don't cheap out here, go with the best hinges you can afford. I used Brusso. With the door hung, I trimed the molding ends off, drilled the holes for the shelve pins, and installed the veneered back panel, and made the shelves. Before heading to the finishing room, I took the door off and brought it to a glass cutter. He fit the panes to the individual spaces and labled them for me.
After sanding, raising the greain and sanding..etc. I applied a coat of BLO/turps, waited for it to dry, and sprayed a gloss lacquer finish. Once out of the finishing room, I installed the glass with retaining strips of wood and beauty brads. With all these pieces in place, the dainty glazing bars were actually quite strong. A little steel wool, and some wax and it was time to deliver it and have a beer.
