Comments

Why Woodworkers Should Write About Furniture History — 3 Comments

  1. If you can’t see it from 3 ft way it ok. If you want perfection pay me more.
    Or as I tell people we deliver goad, fast, cheap work, pick one.

  2. Hi Bob,

    I’ll take a shot.

    The molding on the first photo has a rabbet below the cove that is considerably undercut. First thought was it was a quick and dirty job, but doesn’t matter because from the show side look, it will be clean and sharp. Only the back view reveals the “flaw.” But on further consideration, I see that the sides of the rabbet are not 90 degrees. So either the angle of the iron or the bed of the plane was purposely set up to undercut that rabbet. The result was intentional. The result is a very clean look when you view the molding.

    The drawer is fine, but a bit amateurish. The proportions of the dovetails are awkward, both aesthetically and functionally (though still very functional for a drawer that size.) The side shows a lot of tear out. Maybe just sloppy or maybe because the drawer needed considerable planing after assembly and could only be planed in one direction for fear of blowing out the face – “good enough” was the best they could do at that point. Face and fit were fine – ship it.

    So if the casework and overall craftsmanship and proportion of the piece reveal a higher caliber of work than the drawer, it could mean the drawer was built by someone else less skilled. Could mean that the shop was moving toward more of a production workflow and one person was not responsible for the whole piece from rough lumber to finished product.

    Frank Vucolo

  3. I’m not sure I’m observant enough in the first pic beyond what has been commented here re: the unsquare land. which had no negative impact on the shadow line (maybe a wider surface to hide brads?). I do note that it was cut to length on the piece though, which also has no negative impact on the wall side.

    The second pic shows an applied face to a through dovetailed drawer box, which would speed production.