Bombe Secretary (picture heavy)

[janus frey]

Yur getting annoyingly good wid dis woodworking thang.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Peter

The shaping came out fantastically. My compliments.

The question is, with the shaping in mind, why not either veneer a cheaper secondary wood (such as Poplar or Pine), or laminate to shape? Both these methods are infinitely more sparing of the Walnut, and probably more stable as well.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Carl Grover]

Looks great. Are you building this from plans or is it your own design?

[Jim Pilsner]

Carl Grover said:

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Looks great. Are you building this from plans or is it your own design?

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Hehe, you beat me to it, I was just about to ask the same thing.

Also, how is it that you cut the shape on those panels? Do you have a bandsaw that with 23" capacity?

[Peter Tremblay]

Plans of a Bombe chest of drawers... the gallery/secretary is of my own plans.

Edit to add: I also cut the shape using the dado stack on the table saw. I set the depth to crosscut the slabs and slowly worked the shape with each pass. I adjusted the stack for each cut so it took me about 6 hours to cut both slabs to shape.

[Peter Tremblay]

Derek Cohen said:

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Hi Peter

The shaping came out fantastically. My compliments.

The question is, with the shaping in mind, why not either veneer a cheaper secondary wood (such as Poplar or Pine), or laminate to shape? Both these methods are infinitely more sparing of the Walnut, and probably more stable as well.

Regards from Perth

Derek

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I did it this way because this is the way that it was done by american craftsman back when this was popular. It is an attempt to keep this as much as a true "reproduction" piece as possible.

It also vastly effects the final value of the piece when done this way. I have no plans to sell this. In fact it is the first thing that I have ever made for myself aside from shop "furniture". But if I ever did sell this it would be worth far more if it were done this way because then it is a true reproduction.

[Peter Tremblay]

K. L, McReynolds said:

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There are times when a craftsman has to seemingly destroy something in order to make the final product beautiful.

I think this desk may well be one of those instances.

Now, once you get it to your liking---or run out of wood, you will need to find out how to do a finish that preserves the beauty. That may well be more difficult than working the wood.

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I've already picked the finish. I'm going with general finishes "seal a cell" and "arm a seal"

I used it on my last project (the blanket chest that went up for auction) and it is wonderful.

[Richard D.]

Beautiful work Peter!

I understand using solid slabs to make it an authentic reproduction but are the GF products you mentioned authentic as well? Wouldn't Shellac and wax be more appropriate?

[Window Guy]

packerguy® said:

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[blockquote]Superglide said:

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Wow!!
Gonna watch this thread.

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+1

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[/blockquote]


+ 2 ....... oh this is going to be fun to follow, Peter "congratulations" on taking this on looking good so far. I can see Dave and his Wife defiantly took care of .

Thanks for sharing and looking forward to a great read on coming.

Steve

[Peter Tremblay]

Richard D. said:

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Beautiful work Peter!

I understand using solid slabs to make it an authentic reproduction but are the GF products you mentioned authentic as well? Wouldn't Shellac and wax be more appropriate?

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It would be more appropriate for an exact replica. But I'm going for a reproduction which means that I will "modernize" a few things.

But, and I defer to Dave as the expert on this, reproductions today tend to emphasize wood choice and design faithfulness to the original. There is no one (that I'm aware of) that is making furniture to be used and still using just the old finishing techniques.

I make the compromise in that I will use power tools to make this and I will use a modern finish. The design and the wood will be true to the period as best as I am able.