I really enjoyed Japan when I lived there in 1970-72. The culture, the food, the architecture....all of these things had a profound impact on my life. The first picture is of the Japanese o'tori (gate). The second is of a Japanese bridge. The red wood is blood wood. Black is ebony. The mountains are cocobolo and cherry. The water under the o'tori is highly figured elm burl. The water under the bridge is poplar that has routed with various sized core box bits and then  colored.

Apothecary cabinet

My version

I was in Park City Utah a number of years ago and saw a roundish cabinet for Singer sewing notions.  I was intrigued by the number of drawers. The drawer fronts were flat and not radiused. I love doing curved surfaces so I thought that it would be fun to make a similar cabinet. All of my drawers fronts are radiused. The original cabinet had dead spaces between rectangular drawers. My drawers are pie shaped. There are 100 drawers in total. The cabinet is 33" tall and 18" dia. The vertical and horizontal dividers are Sapele. The drawer fronts are figured Makore. 

 I began with 1/2 maple ply. (I detest  baltic birch). I started with the idea of having 120 drawers that would all be the same size. However, I changed my mind and made 4 columns of ten that were 45° and 6 columns of 22 1/2°.

I googled how to make a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw and used the bandsaw to cut 4 mdf circles that were 18" in diameter.

(just a note here. If you do not have a bandsaw, the circles can be cut on the table saw but it puts out a tremendous amount of sawdust that will take days to settle. )

This is a picture of the 4 pieces being glued together.

 This is one of two completed circle gluing templates.

After gluing the two jigs, they were drilled to accept clamps. I found that I needed more clamp holding holes and drilled smaller holes in between the larger holes. At this point, I assumed that I could form an entire circle without any problems. I was wrong. No matter how careful I was, I would get warping and gaping of layers in  the 1/8" bending ply. In other words, I used only 1/2 of the jig. Once I figured out that I needed to do halves rather than full circles, the bends went extremely well.

At this stage, I added the Sapele vertical dividers.

The horizontal edges needed to be shaped to fit the shelf bottoms and rabbeted. Although the shelves were close to 45° and 22 1/2°, it was necessary to fit each edge to all 100 drawers.

The drawers were made of soft maple. I resawed a large piece of maple and was able to make all of the drawer sides.

This shows all of the drawer sides ready to be made.

The radiused fronts all needed to be fit to each opening. I labeled each drawer to make sure that they were put back into the proper opening. Each drawer front was rabbeted to receive the sides. I need to state here that I used only hide glue for the entire build. Why? Because it had a longer open time and cleanup was much better. I also gives a ridged glue line that will not creep like aliphatic resin glue. (yellow glue) The drawer bottoms were held in place using drawer slips. If you look close you can see the slip pieces.

 This is a picture of the drawer fronts ready  to go to the spray booth. The entire cabinet  had shelac coated on it during construction. Pre-cat lac was used as the final coat.

This cabinet was a ball to build. It is my personal cabinet and holds all of my specialty knobs, screws and what ever else I need it to hold. Hope you enjoy.

step stool

I had back surgery in Dec. of 2018. I was not able to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. I hurt to say the least. But, I was very bored. While I was getting to the point that I could move around, I designed this little step stool out of some pine that was given to me. The pine that I used was very pitchy and a mess to work with. The front legs are attached to the back legs with a sliding dovetail. (hand cut). Sawing took me about 2 hours because of the back pain. The steps are attached with double tenon mortise/tenon. Two coats of milk paint.

 The picture above does not look like pine, but it was---really.

Demilune table

This table was re-purposed when the movers destroyed the mortised and tenoned table. I inlayed holly and walnut to make the flowers. The walnut table itself is locally harvested walnut. The walnut in the west is certainly not the dark homogenized walnut of the east.

 The table has loafers that pull out in the back to support the table top.

Secret drawer under the top

 This view shows the table completely opened supported with the loafers in the back.

Lap Desk

So I have been very busy after my return to the US after an 18 month mission for my church in Kiev Ukraine. This cabinet is a lap desk. Lap desks were popular in the 17 and 1800s as a mobile desk. This particular desk is made of Cherry for the carcass with figured poplar for the background of the flower blossoms.

Lock and handle. 

 Interior Belize. Belize is the same material use for billiards.

Interior view. 3 secret compartments.


The carcass was dovetailed by hand.

I built this bracelet shelf for my youngest daughter. The furniture that I have built her is very Asian inspired so the shelf needed to be also.

Latest project

I have re-located to Kyiv Ukraine for a period of 18 months so I hurried and finished this cabinet. I built this for myself, but I have no place to put it as the house is full

     The picture above is of the back leg. The flowers are holly and the vine is lac. stick.





Close up of the legs. If you look closely, you can see the vine but it is difficult to see with the pics that I have taken.

This is the front view.

 Open view with the scrolled  shelves.


















The top is on a slide that allows the cabinet to slide to the middle so that the weight is centered.

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Bow front dresser

I just finished a bowfront dresser for my grandsons. They are currently using an antique that was owned by my late father-in-law. It is made of quartersawn red oak stained with deftoil medium walnut stain and finished with a pre-cat lacquer. 
I made a form and glued up 5 pieces of 1/8" baltic for the fronts and used the vacuum bag to bend. I then added the qsro front. I always use unibond on my glue ups. I also tried for the first time using blu motion slides. They work nice, but are a royal pain in the back side. to install. I guess that if I did more that I could get the hang of it, but I struggled with the slides. All of the drawers dovetails are hand cut. 

Tage Frid chair construct

 I spent three days at Snow College to attend a class taught by Cris Gochner. We constructed this chair, all with hand tools in those three days. In the picture above, you can see the hand cut dovetails that are angled at 9 Deg. The seat to the left is made by hand hewing from a piece that is 1 1/8" in thickness. The seat slopes from the back to the front 1 1/8" to about 5/8". The legs are oval in shape as are the rungs. The legs are splayed 4 deg. to the front and 12 deg. to the right and left. The back leg is 20deg to the rear. It may look awkward, but it actually is quite comfortable.  For more about the designer who passed away in 2004 go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tage_Frid

Wonderful craftsman! I wish that I had known him.

Chess/ backgammon table

 This is a top view of where the removable chess/backgammon board is housed. I could have just put the board on the top of the drawer guides that you see, but where is the fun in that? These are cherry. The table itself is Quartersawn white oak. The top flower is holly and the flower stem is cherry. The stem is proud of the top and the flower is flush. The bottom flower is Nicaraguan red heart with some sort of yellow wood for the flower center. Again the flower stem is proud of the surface and is cherry. The little dot that you see on each joint is a wooden peg that is driven through offset holes in the mortice and tenon. This draws the joint tight and makes it nearly impossible to come apart.

 Here is a closeup  of the red flower. The border of the chessboard is cherry that is rounded over for comfort. The cross band is mahogany. Then there is a band of ebony and Holly with the chessboard field bordering the holly.

Here is a closeup of the holly flower. The flower petals are sand shaded for contrast.

 This is the table. The pattern at the bottom of the table apron is a modified cloud lift. (arches slightly).

 Each of the two drawers have divided drawers.

Flush ring pull drawers round out the  drawer. The drawer itself has cockbead around the drawer.




Very enjoyable project.

Sea Chest for Christmas 2014

 This is a sea chest showing inlaid black eyed susans. The wood was colored pine and the pine soon lost its yellow color. The brighter yellow was osage orange. The remained yellow, so I am not happy with the outcome of this inlay. Karen's favorite flower is the Black eyed susans.

 This picture is a close up of the hand cut dovetails. They are cut at an 8 deg angle. I do not like evenly spaced dovetails, so I make the dovetails with separate spacing.

 This is a picture is a view showing the hemp handle and wood bracket. The wood is holly for the snow and figured walnut for the soil portion of the mountain. Cloud lifts are found on the bottom of all of the chests.

The cherry does not look very good here, but the pansies are nice. The red pansies are holly and Nicaraguan redheart. The yellow are osage orange.

This walnut chest shows stargazer lilies from holly and paudouk. 

This white oak chest is for a daughter that is a nurse practitioner. The medical symbol is cut out and then the black epoxy is added. I have some really nice black ebony on hand, but it is so brittle and difficult to work with that I elected not to use it. 

All of the chests have a solid wood top that is prone to warping. To avoid that, I used what is called a bread board end. There are three tenons that are pegged with a riven pin. The end board has three mortises. The hole in those mortises is offset to the hole that is in the top board that is the tenon. By having them offset, when the riven pin is driven in, it draws the two together tightly. Only the center tenon is glued. This allows for expansion and contraction of the top.