Better Together

Ivys on oak

It’s time to look back on another year of life and its lessons. By all measures, 2024 was a productive one in the workshop, with 6 furniture pieces, a set of cabinet doors and drawers, and 4 clocks completed. These were all fun Projects that stretched my abilities and padded my confidence. Most gratifying to me was that five of them could not have been completed without the collaborative efforts of new partners. It’s true! We are better than Me.

To start the year, my friend Brian came by once or twice a week to work beautiful ash planks into a new table for his landlocked galleon (aka carriage house). Here’s how it went: I provided the tools and encouragement while he did the bulk of the work. Now, we both have the experience of creating a Stickley classic, as well as a blog post.

Next, my other friend David stopped by with his van Isabella and, together, we created a refreshing new interior of yellow birch cabinetry. Those homey confines provided an off-trail oasis for David during a thru-hike of The Long Trail later in the year. It’s touching when furniture gives back.

Two wedding clocks were completed this year and both owe their existence, not to mention charm, to the talents of others. My son, Andrew, did the fine laser cutting and inlay for the Voysey clock. Not only did he perform the work, but it was his inspiration to reproduce the original dial by this method, gently ushering me away from more amateur approaches. Ideas are just as valuable as technique, indeed more so.

The Square Rose clock is nothing but a wooden case without the finely decorated glass on its door. My sister-in-law, Chris, applied her talents toward a novel method for reproducing the decalcomania work of 160 years ago. Her spot-on reproduction of an old design through the clever blend of cut vinyl and paint is truly art in the furtherance of craft. It made that clock.

The beauty of my latest clock, a replica German wall clock, relies heavily on the turned half-columns provided by my new friend and colleague, Josh, of Still River Woodworks. I look forward to working with him as often as I can.

I also fancied this year’s solo Projects, but that new experience of co-creating is what will stick with me most. I put a five slide collection together as a tribute to my co-laborers of 2024. Lastly, my other son Ben generally takes the final “money shots” for my website and blog. It’s about time I acknowledge his art, as well.

Thanks all, and Happy New Year!

Repeat Costumers

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Back in 2022 I made a simple furnishing for myself that I’ve appreciated every day thereafter, a costumer. This sturdy partner helps to keep that area around my dresser tidy, and glancing at its form, a dutiful marriage of cherry and brass, can put a smile on my face to boot. Witness the power of furniture! For Christmas this year my wife and I decided that our sons would enjoy the gift of costumer ownership, too.

Design

I love the mission-style of my costumer, the plans for which were found in a 1917 Middle School wood shop manual, and I even saved the pattern jig used for shaping the leg braces thinking it would come in handy again some day. However, I have yet to re-make any of my Projects and this would not be the one. These costumers would be variants of the form. Though not a popular item today, if you dig back a hundred years you can find many costumer examples. This makes one wonder why the demand for this useful item ever petered out? I blame walk-in closets and washing machines. Anyway, I found a couple of distinguished specimens among Gustav Stickley’s 1912 catalog offerings and decided to give them a try.

from: Craftsman Furniture, April 1912, p.17.

found in: The 1912 and 1915 Gustav Stickley Craftsman Furniture Catalogs, Dover: New York, 1991.

As far as woodworking goes, the feet represent the only challenge here and with no physical construction plan I was left guessing at the joinery used to fasten them to the pole. My hunches were either mortise and tenon (Gustav’s “go to” joint) or else dowels. Then I had the idea to search online auction sites for “Stickley costumers” and the potential to get a closer look at genuine examples. This proved eye-opening. First, that $12 double costumer (No. 53) now sells for well over $1,000 as an antique. And second, the feet are mated to the pole using a T-bridle joint. That joint makes sense, although I would never have come up with it on my own. The feet “pads” also appear to be attached with wooden dowels. Hunh! Learn something new every day.

No. 53’s underside as glimpsed on eBay

As for No. 52, I could not find a recent auction price nor could I definitively determine the joinery used, which kept mortise and tenon, as well as, dowels in play. Anyway, some good insights on proportions were gained. The internet is a wonderful thing, when used properly.

View of No. 52’s joints from a MutualArt auction listing

In the end these would be my versions of Nos. 52 and 53, not exact reproductions, but knowing how the originals were made is valuable just the same. A quick sketch, including some possible variations on the No. 52 feet, was all that was necessary to get things started in the workshop.

Costumer plans

Materials

I have yet to find an example of Gustav Stickley costumers made from a wood other than quarter sawn white oak, which is no surprise. However, some contemporaneous L. & J.G. Stickley costumers can be found in cherry and that is the species I was leaning toward for No. 53. It’s a lovely wood to work, and seemed to be the proper choice for son No. 1 and wife. I went with soft maple for No. 52, thinking it could lend a more modern look and knowing that it would blend well with the other custom furnishings built by son No. 2. The planks were purchased at Highland Hardwoods and the hooks for both were procured online from House of Antique Hardware.

5/4 maple and cherry planks

Dimensioning

In principle, making the 2 x 2 inch square poles was straightforward: prep the 5/4 rough lumber to approximately 1 1/16 in. thickness; rip these planks to approximately 2 1/8 in. width; glue two together with attention to matching the grain flow, and then joint/thickness plane the sides to uniformity. In practice, some detours were taken.

No. 53: The four cherry half-poles were diverted mid-process for some dado work that would create the required central mortises upon glue-up. This is a shortcut that I have used on occasion and one most likely not taken in the Stickley shop. Hey, whatever works! I find it easier to let the table saw cut a couple dados than to hump my mortiser bit through two inches of hardwood. Of course, if I had a better mortiser …

Two halves make a “hole” (ha!)

No 52: The maple pole for this one posed a different challenge: color. It happens that the heartwood buried within the center of my soft maple plank was a deep blue-green color, whereas the bulk of the wood shone creamy white. Maple is sometimes like that. At the lumberyard I had convinced myself I could cut around this area with no problem, but in the shop there turned out to be no way of avoiding a green streak in my pole. I glued up the half-poles anyway and then concluded that this was too ugly to proceed. That’s when I realized that one of Gustav’s 125-year old tricks could save the day. As mentioned above, Gustav Stickley worked almost exclusively in quarter sawn white oak; a mill cut which is as beautifully grained on the face side as it is gruesomely streaked on the edge side. In oak, you learn to take the good with the bad. To produce a beautiful, 4-faced pole one can invest the effort to make a so-called “quadralinear” part, as I did for legs on the No. 220 Prairie Settle, or else take a shortcut as Gustav often did by applying a face grain veneer onto the edge sides. In like manner, I decided to cover that green streak with a creamy maple veneer cut from extra material. Only one side of the pole needed remediation, and I’m not crazy about the extra seam lines, but I think it was worth it.

Maple pole before and after cosmetic surgery

With the poles in hand it was now time to work on the feet. While digging into old Craftsman Furniture catalogs I discovered that both the foot shape and hook hardware had changed over time. Feet on Nos. 52 and 53 from the 1909 catalog appear to be thicker and less elegantly curved than the 1912 versions depicted above. Also, hardware on the earlier costumers consisted of two-pronged hooks, whereas, an additional point had been added to every antler by 1912. It would be interesting to learn the intent behind the design evolution here, but, for this Project, I now favored the 1912 style for No. 53, and 1909’s for No. 52.

Costumers from the 1909 Catalogue of Craftsman Furniture.

found in: Gustav Stickley After 1909, TURN of the CENTURY EDITIONS: New York, 1990.

No. 53: Recall, the feet of that double costumer were mounted using a T-bridal joint formed by the insertion of a double footed board into an “open mortise” cut from the pole bottom. I used the band saw to slice (two) 5 inch deep incisions at the base of each pole, and then a hand chisel was employed to remove the remaining waste. This created a 1 in. wide opening for the joint.

Cutting the open mortise

The foot boards were fashioned from 1 1/4 in. thick cherry stock into which a central “waist” was dadoed at the table saw. The waist will fit snugly within that 1 in. mortise opening. Before shaping the feet, a template was prepared from 1/2 in. medium density fiberboard (mdf). This template was used first as a stencil to trace its shape onto the cherry and then the two boards were clamped together so that the pads could be defined by boring holes at the drill press.

Defining the pad edges, two at a time (note void defects visible on the board at lower left)

Following a rough cut of the foot profiles at the band saw, the mdf template was mounted to a cherry foot part with screws, and this now served as a pattern for smoothing at the router table using a flush trim bit. An unfortunate void (cavity) within the cherry wood caused a blowout along one edge, but this could be repaired.

Cherry feet and template

No. 52:

Preparing the feet for No. 52 was more straightforward. A different mdf template was created for these parts and then the same cut-out & smoothing operations were conducted, as above.

Maple feet and template

There was one more thing to do on No. 53 before assembly and that was to create the bridges that join the two poles together. These 5 and 6 in. wide boards are tenoned at both ends to fit within the mortises that were created upon pole formation. I used a quarter sawn cherry board in my possession to make these. To begin, I scored the shoulder cuts at the sliding miter saw to give me the cleanest edges. The bulk from each tenon’s cheek was then hogged-out on the table saw using a dado blade. Manicuring the rough tenons and mortise openings proceeded, one pair at a time, in the bench room using a hand plane and chisel to achieve a snug fit.

Bridges complete

A final sequence of cuts was used to create the peak at the top of every pole. Four slices, each, at the sliding miter saw followed by a little polishing with sandpaper made quick work of this.

Assembly and Finish

After smoothing all parts it was time to put them together. The goal being that the poles stand straight and solid once assembled.

No. 53:

To begin, the bridges were glued into the poles, nice and square. No joint is more satisfyingly steadfast than a trough mortise tenon.

Assembling No. 53’s pole structure

Once cured, the ends of the tenons were cut flush to a spacer board that laid 1/8 inch above the pole surface and then the edges were rounded using a hand plane and sanding block. Next, the two feet parts were glued into place. This makes for a very solid construct, but Stickley chose to also pin his tenons with dowels, and I would do the same. With today’s glues this is undoubtedly overkill, but the decorative effect of that extra fastener is well worth the effort. A couple 5/8 in. diameter cherry pins were pounded-out on a dowel plate and then a simple jig was used to register the hole to be bored at each bridal joint. Dowels of 1/2 in. diameter were made for the bridge joints, and instead of going all the way through I cheated and inserted “half “dowels, one from each side. The structural benefit is the same, but this way I eliminate the potential for blow-out on the back side while drilling. Finally, the dowel ends were cut flush and planed smooth with the poles

Drilling holes for the dowel pins in No 53

No. 52:

For No. 52 I used dowels to attach the feet to the pole. This meant drilling dowel holes into the center of the pole that matched those drilled into the foot parts, and for this I used my handy “Dowl-it” jig. Once the pieces are marked to register the proper height, this jig makes it easy to drill holes into the geometric center of any part. 5/16 in. diameter holes were drilled as required, two per foot.

Have jig, will dowel.

With all the holes in place the feet were attached using store-bought dowels and glue. In theory, the costumer should now stand perfectly upright and stable, but there is a slight wobble to this one which I corrected by applying a thin maple platform to one of the soles.*

* “It’s always something!” - anonymous.

All feet glued into place on No. 52

Now, it was time for the finish. Gel polyurethane was used on both pieces. Two coats, with a gray pad treatment in between, and a good buff at the end did the trick. Of note, the end grain on No. 52’s maple became maroon when hit with the finish, once again revealing some surprising colors in this reputedly boring hardwood. It will be interesting to see the patina that builds over time. After applying my dojang, stamped onto 1 inch dia. maple discs, the last step was to mount the hooks.

No. 53’s T-bridal joint and dojang

Unlike Stickley, I chose to stagger the hook heights on No. 52. It seemed more natural, somehow. I marked the two different heights, drew my square lines in pencil and then mounted the hardware. Everything looked fine until I stood it upright to discover that all the hooks were listing 5° to the right. I had forgot to check that the two mounting holes on the iron hooks were fashioned level with one other during manufacture, and they were not*.

*Ibid.

To correct things, I removed the left screw from each and rotated the hooks out of the way. I then drilled the screw holes wider, filled those voids with 1/8 in. dowels, re-drilled new holes at the proper positions, and remounted the hooks. Only one screw head was sheared off in the process.*

*Ibid !

Re-mounting the hooks on No. 52

In contrast, the hooks for No. 53 were attached without issue. Mounting the back-to-back hooks on that one inch thick bridge was accomplished by slightly staggering their vertical positions. This was to obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle as it applies to screws.

Hooks on No. 53

And that’s a wrap. Two rough boards and some iron used to create useful furnishings and a story. In addition, enjoyable memories were created along the way. Merry Christmas boys!

Nos. 52 and 53 in 2024

die Wanduhr

Wand (wall) + Uhr (clock) = Wanduhr (Ger.)

For some reason I am attracted to German wall clocks (what collectors sometimes call “German box clocks”). One of the six timepieces in my collection is an early twentieth century example; a Wanduhr purchased on eBay in 2005 from a seller in Alabama, USA. It hangs unwound and silent in my library, inspiring while not disturbing my ability to muse blogwise. In truth, its country of origin is unknown to me but the look and construction are unmistakably German, and there are other clues. The dial is zinc and finely painted, but it bears no maker’s logo which makes me think it came from a small shop. The case has simple teutonic inlays and carvings which tells me that its maker cared. Otherwise it is a hodgepodge, and unlike anything I have seen since. The woods are a combination of oak and mahogany veneered fir, and the glasses are pocked with impurities. Once, while having it serviced, my clock guy informed me the works were an assortment of brass and steel parts. This made him believe it was created during or shortly after World War I when German brass was scarce, and that jives with the evolution story that follows. Anyway, it certainly has an interesting history, and I find it to be overall enchanting.

My motley Freund

Recently, I was approached to make an heirloom clock for a customer, and after some back and forth we settled on the German wall clock “type” given the decor and space considerations of their living room. Great … but there are hundreds of German wall clock patterns to choose from, and that does not include the cuckoo variety. (For example, typing “antique German wall clock” into eBay, just now, generated 538 results. A few are not relevant, but I doubt there are many duplicates among the majority that remain). Remaking a large portion of these would serve just fine, but not all of them. Some were much too ornate and that got me wondering about their design story. Woher kommt die Wanduhr?

It is fun to think about the history of clocks and, specifically, about their evolution of form, although at the outset it can appear overwhelming. The renowned Swedish naturalist/taxonomist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), when confronted with a similar challenge, began his Systema Naturae by dividing all of the world’s objects into three Kingdoms: animal, vegetable and mineral. It turns out that the pioneering binomial classification system introduced in this work (e.g., Homo sapiens) may have been developed by earlier thinkers, but his clarifying Step One of placing each of Nature’s innumerable members into just a few big buckets was genius. Now, there have been a lot of different clock forms (types) created over the past 400 years but, à la Linnaeus, a simple start toward classifying all timepieces* would be to place each into one of three categories based on their place of rest:

1. wall clocks

2. case clocks (aka grandfather)

3. shelf clocks (aka mantle)

*This system neglects outdoor clocks (my term) such as tower clocks and marine chronometers but you get the point.

Pendulum-governed wall and case clocks go back to the mid-1600s, whereas shelf clocks came along a century later. Clocks from each of these “buckets” chart independent (and discernible) evolutionary paths as their cases and mechanisms morphed in response to both technological advances and the commercial pressures of taste and price. Interesting books, such as E.J. Tyler’s Clock Types, have been written on this subject, and learning about the evolution of timepieces is a good way to appreciate the field of clock collecting.

To summarize my understanding of things, our Wanduhr descended from earlier Continental wall clock types by a stepwise reduction in both size and extravagance. We can begin 200 years into their journey with the ostentatious Vienna regulator clock (see illustration below), a large and accurate, weight-driven timepiece popular for decades with the wealthy of nineteenth century Europe. Near the end of their reign, to suit the constraints of a growing middle class, this form spawned the so-called German regulator; still ornate but often spring-driven, more affordable and of manageable size. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the artistic movement known as art nouveau, coupled with the advent of mass production, caused German regulator cases to drastically simplify and become recognizable as a new form, the so-called German wall clock, a timepiece that still looks appropriate in today’s interiors. This species remained brown in color and with a visible pendulum that now hung from a simple wooden stem. In terms of ornamentation, the case became minimalist and largely utilitarian, the dial changed from porcelain to metal, and new breeds within this species exploded with the emergence of additional makers. We’d better get back to the story now.

125 years of evolution

Design

It would be easy to conjure up yet another “unique” Wanduhr based on the features described above but we had our eye on a particular individual, first spied while prospecting on eBay. Built in 1920 and described as “art deco” this small and sturdy version looked to have it all: beauty and class. I would try my best to replicate the case, while replacing the unavailable dial and pendulum bob with reasonable doppelgängers: doppel (double) + gänger (walker).

German wall clock of interest

The rough plan was divined by measuring features from a printout and then scaling to fit the dimensions of the dial I was able to purchase.

Wanduhr: rough plan

Materials

The eBay listing for that art deco Wanduhr claimed it to be made of “walnut”, but the wood appeared too orange and fine-grained to pass for that species. My bet is that it was made from a tropical, mahogany-like species. Anyway, ours would be black walnut, to match the deep brown color desired by the customer. I purchased a nice, 10 foot long, 4/4 plank from Highland Hardwoods that looked like it would work.

Rough plank marked for parts

The clock components were purchased online. I found a reasonable substitute for the metal dial at Klockit, and the remaining quartz mechanism, pendulum parts and hands were secured from TimeSavers. These would all be assembled in the final step.

Clock components

Dimensioning

Cutting the case parts to rough dimension, and eventually to their final size, went well in the machine room. I like the way walnut behaves when being shaped by steel: slick and crisp. The first steps were to fashion the sides and door frame parts. Most German wall clocks had glass sides, which I believe is an evolutionary hold-over for when it was useful to look into the case for a peek at the weight cables. With nothing to see in our version, I would use this panel space to show off the beauty of wood instead. The stiles and rails were made of quarter sawn boards but I had some nice flat sawn scraps lying around from an earlier Project. One of these was resawn to make book-matched panels that were then treated with a course of boiled linseed oil before assembly.

Dry-fitting the side panels prior to glue-up

Next came the door. On German wall clocks, the door plays a starring role. It frames the dial and shows-off the pendulum as it should, but the stiles are also decorated in some manner as a muted tribute to their rococo kin. Many, like my own version, include some carvings within this frame member but our “art deco” version possessed actual half columns. We’ll get to making those shortly, after the door is assembled.

The seams of the original door are covered by those half-columns, and so it is unclear to me how they were joined. I chose to use mitered corners and this decision essentially converts the door into a segmented picture frame. The opening of the frame needed to be just narrower than the dial’s width and so all dimensions were scaled accordingly and the familiar framing sequence of creating parts, rabbeting their undersides for glass, and then cutting the members to length at a 45° at the table saw ensued. The parts were then glued together with the aid of a band clamp.

Band clamping the door

After fashioning a muntin, and carving out a couple slots to hold the shop-made grilles, these could all be glued into place.

Muntin and grilles glued into place with the aid of a square spacer board

There is an “extra” layer along the top of that original door that seems to serve no purpose other than decoration. It is a small, rough board that looked to be both hand gouged and dubious, for it referenced no other component of the case. Anyway, it looked a bit shabby for what I had in mind and so my version replaces this part with a beaded board reminiscent of the shelf feature.

With the height dimension of that extra layer now fixed it was time to make the half-columns. These would need to be fashioned by turning on a lathe, which I do not possess, and so collaboration with a skilled lathe owner was required. As it happens, there is a professional furniture making shop just down the road from me, Still River Woodworks. Josh, the craftsman there, is a terrific guy who graciously offered to help with the wood turning. I provided him with a walnut “blank” and a pattern from which he carefully shaped the column on his tool. He even took a pic upon completing the job and it came out wonderful. Thanks Josh!

Column completed on the wood lathe

To finish-off this part all I needed to do was slice the column in half and then cut the ends to length. Bisection was done at the band saw where an auxiliary table and fence were installed to keep things centered through the entire cut.

Two half-columns formed

Before attaching the half-columns I wanted to complete the cabinet portion and hinge work, as it would be easier to get the hinges placed properly without having to deal with that irregular column shape. The remaining cabinet parts consist of a bottom “shelf”, a top and a back board. The bottom of the original case looked to be a shelf made of decorated moldings fastened with miter joints which I would try to copy. First, a double bead pattern was created along the edge of a board at the router table. This fancy plank was then trimmed to final width and a groove was added at the table saw to house an interior panel before chopping the mitered ends. A short “connector” piece for the backside was formed in a like manner, along with that panel, making for a 5 part shelf.

Shelf components

Next, the top was formed by rabbeting the edges of a 3/4 in. board so as to fit within corresponding rabbets created along the top edge of the side pieces. This fixed the width dimension of the case, and with that dimension now known, two stopped grooves could be (carefully) routed into the shelf to house the sides. Finally, the back board was prepared to fit within rabbets created along the cabinet perimeter. Lots of futzing enjoyed here.

Cabinet parts

It made sense to prepare for the hinges at this stage, before glueing the parts together. And since the door frame overlaps the case on German wall clocks this turns out to a be trickier-than-normal operation. To begin, a double-depth mortise is cut into the case side. By this I mean that the mortise is deep enough to house both hinge leaves so as to present the door’s flap flush with the case. So far so good. The last step of mounting the door without an edge to reference is the dicey part. We’ll save that for later.

Double-depth hinge mortises

I jumped ahead here to fashion the decorative “bracket” (for lack of a better term) that completes the bottom portion of the case. It just seemed easier to manipulate things on the underside of the shelf at this stage without that bulky cabinet attached on the opposite side. The bracket consists of four parts, a back, two arms and what I’ll call a frontispiece, and making these involved executing freehand cuts along curved edges. I started by sketching a few cardboard patterns based on the eBay photos. In the workshop, these shapes were then traced onto some prepped walnut and cut out at the bandsaw. A drum sander at the drill press was used to smooth the curves and they came out nice. To assist with mounting the bracket to the shelf, a biscuit slot was cut into both the back piece and shelf.

Bracket parts

Assembly and Finish

At last, it was time to put it all together. There remained a few trim elements to complete on top, but these would be best addressed once the bulk case was in-hand. To create the cabinet portion, the side parts were slid into glue-filled grooves within the preassembled shelf. Glue was then applied to rabbets along the back and top of the sides, into which the back and top boards could be slid. The nascent case was then clamped square to cure.

Case glue-up

The top, possessing weak end-grain seams, was further secured using two small screws, and then it was time to mount the door. As mentioned earlier, the trick here is to get the proper hinge placement on the door stile without any edge to reference. Fortunately, this turned out to be easier than expected by using the assistance of double-stick tape. With the case laid prone on the bench, the brass hinges were nestled into their mortises and then tiny cardboard spacers were inserted between the flaps so that the door’s leaf sat flush with the case surface. Onto these flaps a small piece of double-stick cellophane tape was applied. With a metal rule laid at the base of the door frame to act as a “spacer” the door was then carefully centered over the case and pressed down firmly to gain adherence of the taped hinge flaps. Lifting-off the door and then laying it face-side-down on the bench revealed the hinges stuck in their exact position for mounting. Screw holes were drilled into the door and mortise openings and the door was then attached. It worked great.

Door hinges taped to the door underside and ready for attachment

I decided to get the glass for the doors cut at this stage, even though it will be not be installed until the end. A local glass supply store, Country Glass, was selected and they were a pleasure to work with for this small job. Once the door was back from their shop it was time to add the remaining parts. First, that “extra” layer mentioned earlier was attached along the top edge of the door with glue (and clamps). Next the tops and bottoms of those two half-columns were trimmed to their final dimension and the column parts were then glued on to the door stiles.

The original clock contained some brass metalwork on the upper columns. It is unclear if the function here was purely decorative or whether some fastening role was also at work but, in any case, I decided to replace the metal with wooden dowels which would serve to anchor the top of the column to the door. With the help of a simple drilling jig to center the holes, (4) handmade cherry sapwood dowels were inserted, and the ends sawn flush. This creates an “honest” decorative element in the spirit of Arts and Crafts.

Completed door, sans glass

The completed door was then re-attached to the case so that the top trim (cornice) could be applied. This molding piece was shaped using a cove bit at the router table, then cut to final width before chopping 45° joint ends at the miter saw. The three pieces were glued into a “U” prior to attaching the resulting construct to the case.

Cornice added to the top of the case

The next step was to figure out a way to mount the works. Quartz clocks, in general, are easy to build as the lightweight mechanism bolts directly to the dial; mount the dial and you’ve mounted the works. The one niggling issue is that the clock’s owner will need to periodically access the back of those works for battery changes and time adjustment. To fiddle with my wall mounted quartz clocks I simply take them off the wall to expose the back of the works, but this clock is heavy and, with no flat sides, it would not be easy to set down and open up the back. I decided that the way forward was to make the dial, itself, removable. After playing around with some scrap boards I managed to form a cradle that securely mounts the plywood dial board within the case using magnets as fasteners. To change the battery, one merely removes the pendulum and then snaps off the dial from its magnetic mooring while the case remains wall-bound. I think it will work fine.

Dial board and cradle

Final case assembly involved attaching the bracket to the underside of the shelf, constructing a bonnet (pediment) to place on top, and adding a door stop and wall mounting fixture. These all proceeded without incident and it was at last time to finish the wood.

Unfinished clock case

Finishing began with two applications of boiled linseed oil, the first cut 50% with mineral spirits, and the second wiped on a day later at full strength. After curing for four additional days, a light coat of gel polyurethane was wiped on to seal things up. The goal was to preserve the variety of natural walnut tones present in all 36 wooden parts while maintaining a lively appearance over time.

Finishing the wood

Only three steps to go. First, the glass panes were set in place and then thin walnut strips were glued onto the door frame to hold them there. I used a couple dots of water soluble wood glue on each strip for this. Still removable, if needed, and cleaner than nails. Next, the hinges were reattached, and the door mounted to the case. Finally, the fancy brass colored dial was cemented to its backing board and the quartz mechanism bolted into place through the central opening. Two hands, a battery and decorative pendulum complete the ensemble which can now take its proper place on the wall.

There’s something exciting about this clock. I hope you enjoy it.

Wunderbare Wanduhr!

Chisel Chest

Up until recently I had neither a chisel chest, nor a chest for my chisels. I now possess one and may even begin working on the other (ha, right!). Here’s the story.

After completing the Canterbury cabinet I remained interested in exploring Shaker furniture and was also bent on continuing to de-clutter the workshop. There’s much more to do! For example, I have a couple chisels sets that, while not homeless, could use better homes.

Chisels from East and West

Oh, don’t be fooled by that velvety narex® box. It looks precious, but the heavy polymer finish on the wood attracts every single particle of sawdust in range and I am continually wiping it down. It needed to go, along with that attractive yet flimsy cardboard box from Japan, and so I decided to make a second Shaker-inspired cabinet to house these fine tools.

Design

A simple, 2-drawer stack was the scope here . No fancy ornaments, with dovetail construction for the carcass and drawers. Although I did not have an example to copy, keeping the dimensions slim and symmetric, with authentic knobs for the drawers should pull it all together as Shakeresque. A simple sketch and a few constraining dimension were all that was required by way of a plan.

Rough plan

Materials

I had some red pine left over from the last cabinet that would work nicely here for the case and drawer parts. Depending on the look, I might add a finer wood for the fronts of the drawers. For the pulls I obtained some souvenir turned knobs at the gift shop during a recent visit to the Shaker village at Hancock, MA that would be perfect here.

Rough pine boards chopped to a working length

Dimensioning & Assembly

Four sides, a center shelf and a back are required for the carcass. In each case, the individual parts were made by glueing two smaller, previously prepped boards together, smoothing the surface and then cutting to their final dimensions.

Glued-up exterior case boards

After dadoing a groove down the middle of the side boards to hold the shelf I set about making dovetail joints along the ends. Creating “dovetails” is nothing more than a defined series of marking, sawing and chiseling operations that go back centuries. The goal is to join appropriately modified boards together while demonstrating woodworking prowess in the formation of tight seams. I decided on the bulkier, so-called “carpenter” style dovetails for the case, and they came out okay … for me.

Value-added case parts

Because the joints are tight, assembly required only sparing amounts of glue and some hammer head persuasion. Clamps and cauls also help.

Clamping the joints together using homemade cauls

With the four sides joined, the shelf and back board could be slipped into their groove and rabbet, respectively. I tacked the back in place with finishing nails, whereas the shelf was held using a bit of glue. After some hand planing and sanding to make everything pleasantly smooth it was time to tackle the drawers.

Carcass complete

I chose to make inset drawers for this cabinet, which should keep the look nice and clean. And with a few glue-ups to make the bottom parts I had enough pine leftovers around the shop to make it all work. Only quarter sawn scraps were selected, as this cut is the most dimensionally stable. Quarter sawn lumber’s linear grain pattern would also set the drawer fronts off from the rest of the piece (which is what I think I wanted). The joints up front will be half-blind dovetails, with lock corner joints in back.

Sparing the details of board prep and joint-making you will be pleased to know that the two drawers came together nicely in their “plump” dry-fit state. That is, when first fashioned, inset drawers squeezed into their cavities are expected to present a tight fit all around, and these had that.

Dry-fit drawers

Some custom tailoring using a hand plane along the top and sides facilitated the constructs fitting properly within their chambers and it was this state that got the glue.

Glueing the drawers

When making inset drawers it is good to mark and drill for the knobs at this stage to avoid a drawer getting irretrievably stuck in its chamber while working the final fit. The Shaker knobs that I am using required a 3/4 inch hole in the drawer fronts, which were marked and then bored using a Forstner bit at the drill press.

Drilling holes for the drawer knobs

Since I wanted to finish the knobs separately from the chest, all that was left was some final sanding and planing to make the, now permanently assembled, drawers run smooth.

Unfinished chisel chest

Finish

I kept the finish simple on this piece, giving the carcass and drawers a coat of boiled linseed oil to jump start the patination process followed by two coats of clear shellac to prevent resin bleed over time. All parts were then buffed smooth with a gray Scotch-Brite pad. That went well. The knobs were another story …

I do not know the wood species used to make those turned Shaker knobs (birch maybe?) but treating them with mineral spirits to glimpse their final, varnished color revealed that they would look pretty bland and unattractive on a pale pine drawer front. And so I decided to dye them what TransTint® calls “reddish brown” to boost their appeal. That was a bad decision, for I had forgotten about the presence (and porosity) of end grain wood. Not being a woodturner, I failed to appreciate that atop the crown of every lathe-turned knob lurks the end grain of that board. And it happens that end grain wood can soak up as much as 100 times the moisture of edge grain wood, revealing its true function in Nature: liquid transit. Soaking up vastly different amounts of a water based dye can lead to trouble as I discovered upon dipping the first knob into my “reddish brown” bath. The result might look appropriate on one type of “chisel chest” but not this one.

Learning lessons with wood grain

They say that much of woodworking is “correcting mistakes” and I’ll submit this applies to wood finishing, as well. I was no longer on a mission to color wood, but rather, to color-coat. The plan now was to make the lighter colored wood as dark as the central dot, and for this I turned to a “cedar” colored wiping stain. I happened to have a can of this stain lying around and it proved to be a fine color-match for the knobs. I applied one coat of stain to the whole surface, and while that did not completely extinguish the dot it greatly diminished its prominence and I decided to stop there while glimpses of wood grain still remained. Three coats of gel polyurethane were applied to seal it all up with a hint of glisten. The knobs were then glued into their holes to complete the cabinet exterior.

A chisel chest

The final task was to customize the drawer interiors for proper chisel storage. The bottom drawer would house my set of six bevel edge chisels, and to support the chisel handles I needed to create a series of semi-circular cradles. I would again use my Forstners for this, and while I did not own the exact dimension bits required to reproduce the original, they were within 1/8 of an inch and so I made do. In the event, I first fastened two boards together with metal straps and then drilled three 1 1/4 in. and three 1 in. diameter holes centered at the seam. Removing the straps gave me the proper cradle, and a spare.

Creating semi-circles at the drill press

The cradle piece was then trimmed to size, finished with polyurethane and mounted to the drawer bottom using screws. To support the chisel blades I attached a resting board to the bottom of the drawer. After placing the chisels into their spots I could then measure and saw the interstitial “plates” that, once glued in place, would serve to define custom nests to fit each blade. This is better described in the picture below.

Bevel edge chisels in place

I decided to leave the top drawer un-customized. Those Japanese chisels are used only on occasion and, in the end, I could not part with their beautiful box. For now, they would be tucked into the top drawer along with other small tools and my shoulder plane. Were I to acquire some more carving gouges or mortising chisels I could create an appropriate crib for them here.

Top drawer tools

And that completes the chisel chest, a sturdy and beautiful addition to the workshop.

Shop scene

Square Rose Tribute

Chauncey Jerome

American clockmaker (1793-1868)

Allow me to explain …

It all starts with the nineteenth century American clockmaker, Chauncey Jerome. His is a remarkable story of unrivaled success shattered suddenly by financial ruin. Alas, such was life before the social and regulatory “safety net” age that we enjoy today. Working in pre-Industrial Revolution America, Jerome is recognized as a pioneer of modern clockmaking. He began on the trail blazed by his former boss, Eli Terry, as an early mass producer of clock cases, using water wheel-driven saws to cut his boards. Attempting to further improve the affordability of his wares he went on to invent a method for stamping-out clock parts from brass plate that replaced the use of wooden or cast metal gears. Remembered more today for his casework, it was the technological advance of using brass plate, along with ingenuity and hard work, that propelled the Jerome Manufacturing Co. at mid-century into “the largest clock manufacturing operation in the world”*. Jerome’s business was at its peak in 1854 when he was elected the mayor of New Haven, Connecticut. But within a year, following a cascade of poor business decisions, rooted in the chicanery of one P.T. Barnum, he was wiped-out financially. And his wife, Salome, also died. Upon losing the business, Chauncey Jerome went on to work with a few other clock companies which only served to drain his remaining wealth and he died penniless in 1868.

* Bailey, C.H. From Rags to Riches to Rags: The Story of Chauncey Jerome, NAWCC BULLETIN Supplement #15, Spring, 1986, p. 101.

Fortunately for our story, Chauncey’s son, Samuel Bryan Jerome, continued the clockmaking tradition and even went on to gain a few U.S. design patents for clock cases. One such design, patented in 1857, was for a handsome shelf clock produced by the Waterbury Clock Co. that became known as the Square Rose.

Oct 20, 1857 design patent for the Square Rose.

Unless you are into clocks, this drawing might not look like anything special. There were clock cases aplenty during the golden age of timepieces, many more ornate than this one. You can still find these at antique stores and on eBay, where it will become evident that not all designs hold their attraction over decades of changing tastes. I think that is where the Square Rose shines. Its particular combination of wood, moldings and painted glass still gives pleasure, today. Perhaps it is the proportions more than the components but, whatever the allure, I felt compelled to make my version. It will serve as a heartfelt gift to my niece Lauren and her beau Travis on the occasion of their wedding, and also as a small tribute to clockmaker Chauncey Jerome.

Square Rose, 30 hour, spring-driven clock c. 1860. reproduced from Cottone Auctions website

Design

Most of what I have learned about this clock comes from the website of an enthusiastic Jerome collector named Mike Bailey. From pictures of his clocks, and others found on the internet, I have a good idea of the shape and proportions of this 20 1/2 inch tall case. The above photo enabled me to divine the dimensions sufficiently to produce my own working plan which was scaled-down to a 19 1/2 inch height to best accommodate the dimensions of the dial I purchased while maintaining the original’s proportions. The case is essentially a box decorated with moldings, the specifications of which make up the bulk of that 1857 U.S. patent. This three page, handwritten document is packed with the precisely vague legal vernacular that would be further perfected during creation of the 10+ million U.S. patents to follow. However, even these descriptions were no match for actual photos and measured profiles generously provided by Mr. Bailey via email correspondence. These were invaluable to me for creating a construction strategy. Thanks Mike!

Three-part molding profiles of an extant 8 day Square Rose clock case, courtesy of Mike Bailey

Even supplied with this information, the exact dimensions of every feature, as well as the construction plan of my clock case would differ from the original. That speaks more to how a modern furniture maker builds a single case, as opposed to a mid-nineteenth century factory trying to turn out thousands. But, since there’s more than one way to do everything, I think that’s okay. After all, I am not trying to reproduce the article, just the article’s presence. Here is how the dimensions were gleaned from the original picture.

Every feature measured and then scaled-up from a photo printout

And here is the working plan derived from these numbers.

Construction plan (front view)

Materials

I believe the example above was made of rosewood, an exotic species now banned for commercial use, and I have seen other examples that appear to be made from walnut, but I should do more research. Anyway, I would like to make this one from cherry. I found a brightly figured 8 foot long, 4/4 board at the lumberyard that looked perfect.

Cherry board

The clock parts were ordered from Clockworks, my favorite supply store for good reason: they partner with you to ensure customer satisfaction. On this occasion, because I was ordering both the mechanism and the dial, I also took advantage of their dial drilling service to get the arbor holes “right” while losing not a wink of sleep in the process. The remaining components (glass, hinges, nuts, bolts, screws and a knob) were procured from local stores and Etsy during the build.

Clock parts and mounting hardware

Dimensioning & Assembly

Before tearing into the cherry board, I used some scraps to practice molding-making, as well as the general construction plan. Those elements above and below the door, referred to henceforth as “top” and “bottom”, were the subject here. Although these layers of the original were individually crafted, as evidenced by Bailey’s photos, my intention was to use the same 3-component strategy to build both the top and bottom portions of the case. Parts A, B & C, which differ in dimensions (top vs bottom) would otherwise be created in an identical manner in the workshop. For simplicity, the description below will focus on just the bottom portion and sprinkle-in some of the patent terminology for effect. My plan called for a plinth (part A, see below) to provide both mass and a bottom frame element for the door. For this clock, a groove cut into the backside of A would also support the case floor. Covering most of part A will be an outer panel (B) possessing beautifully figured grain and a cove cut-out along the top to serve as both the wreathing and quirk elements described in the patent. The seam where parts A and B meet will be augmented by a semicircular astragal component (C). In an inverted fashion, the top would contain these same elements and be crested by a full board covering the entire case. To provide better orientation, a model of the bottom portion is shown below.

Dry-fit model of the case bottom showing association of parts A, B and C.

With the construction plan validated I could mark-up the cherry board, selecting ‘which portions to use for what’. Surprisingly, this clock case would consume the entire 6 board-feet of material!

Board marked-up “butcher style” prior to making the first slice

The material was sectioned accordingly and the individual molding components milled to their proper dimensions using tools in the machine room. The transformation of raw wood into purposely designed parts never loses its appeal, and the scale of constructing clock cases makes this process particularly intimate. Without documenting every step I provide a few glimpses below.

Molding parts “A” prepared at the table saw

Cutting a cove on the “B” moldings at the router table

Four passes with a round-over bit (router) and four with a dado blade (table saw) prepare the “C” molding stock

C moldings were cut free at the table saw and then hand planed to trim the parts

Glue-up for the bottom section, top section complete

With stock for the components in hand it was time to create the mitered joints. For this I used a finishing blade on the table saw, tilted at 45°. During the cuts I used a sacrificial backing board on the miter gauge and some painter’s tape on the astragal to avoid tear-out. I then dadoed grooves into these pieces to house the case floor and sides.

Prepping for the miter cuts

From here it was a matter of fashioning the rest of the parts, cutting to rough lengths, fitting grooves and matching thicknesses. I eventually needed to establish a final case depth, and this required the mechanism. Still without a clear plan for how the clockworks would be mounted within the case, at this point I simply needed to be sure the cavity would be large enough to accommodate them, keep the hands clear of the door and allow the the gong to strike. I settled on an interior depth of 4 1/2 in. and a height of 14 in. which was close to the original design plan.

Sizing up the cavity’s depth and height

With these dimensions fixed I could complete the remaining case parts, cut the side moldings on top and bottom to final length, and create the back. To ensure a stable construct I inserted splines in the miter joints of the top molding assembly, whereas the bottom section would rely on the enclosed floor board and some corner blocks for support. The parts all came together nicely in a partially glued state.

Dry-fit case

I chose not to complete the case glue-up until I had a chance to drill holes into the door frame for the hinge screws. At this stage all I needed was a tight and square assembly so that I could take some final measurements and fashion the inset door. I made the mitered joints for the door at the table saw, but this time with the blade at 90° and with the assistance of a picture frame jig built a few years back by my son Andrew. When picture framing, it does no good to cut a true 45° miter if you cannot also guarantee that the paired horizontal and vertical members are identical to one another in length. That is where this jig excels. After creating rabbets on their backsides to house the glass, the four frame parts were individually mounted onto the jig and cut to final dimension at 45°.

Making an accurate and reproducible “length cut” at the table saw using a picture frame jig

Into the righthand stile I chiseled mortises for the hinges. The “door”, indistinguishable from a picture frame at this point, was then glued-up using a band clamp. To further stabilize the corner joints, splines were inserted with assistance from another jig at the router table. I then cut the door’s central muntin to length at the miter saw, and made rabbets for the glass at the table saw. Finally, this part was secured in place with a couple small wooden dowels that began their career as toothpicks.

Completed door laid atop the clock face

The last thing to do before glueing the case was to mount the door hinges. After drilling holes in the door and fastening the hinges with screws I applied double stick tape to the remaining hinge plates and then, with spacers beneath, slid the door sideways within the dry-fit case opening until the plates were stuck to the frame. The frame piece and door were further wrapped with painter’s tape then carefully disassembled from the case. “Opening” the door revealed the exact position to drill the screw holes there. A new assistant showed up while I was about to photograph this step, and stayed to help complete the task.

Hinging the door with “help” from granddaughter

I could now glue the door frame and sides to the top and bottom portions of the case. Then, following installation of some bracing blocks, the back was cut to final dimensions and installed with screws. That left the top as the only remaining case part. This element was not present in the original, for what looks to be a “top” there is actually a feature of the molding that surrounds a false top within, but I prefer the real thing. To make it, I thickness planed a beautifully figured cherry board to 5/8 in., cut it to final dimensions and then rounded three edges at the router table. It will be attached using desktop fasteners during final assembly.

Completed cabinet and door

While the case is distinctive, to me the Square Rose is defined by the ornamented glass that surrounds the dial ring (called “spandrels”) and decorates the lower pane (the “tablet”). According to Bailey, these would have been created on the original using a printing transfer technique called “decalcomania”, with the surrounding field painted afterwards. I chose a twenty-first century method to decorate my glass: vinyl cutting. And to pull this off I solicited the assistance of my sister-in-law, Chris (aka mother of the bride). Crafting with cut vinyl is one of the many creative talents Chris executes with great skill. For this clock she was able to extract patterns from that photo of the original shown above, correct their imperfections(!) on the computer, scale the dimensions appropriately to fit a photocopy of the dial, input the coordinates into her machine and then create exact vinyl replicas for this clock. (I wonder if anybody has done this before?) The gold colored vinyl designs were carefully applied to the interiors of two glass panels which she then spray painted over in black. And they looked perfect!

Glass art

Finish & Final Assembly

In the meantime, I was able to finish the cherry wood and prepare for mounting the mechanism. With the top, door and back removed, the parts were sanded uniformly to #220 grit and then finished using two applications of satin gel polyurethane. This livened the grain and left the surface with a nice touch. Once the glass panels arrived, they was inserted into their panes and held there by thin cherry backing boards.

Mounting the works was the final challenge, made a bit more difficult by my choice of a rear pendulum placement. The Hermle movement used for this clock is not like the Waterbury original, nevertheless, its a fine machine and close enough for our purposes. (I need to get more experience with the various movement configurations.) The issue with this one is that the gong strikes below the works and, as such, a front pendulum version would have been best for ease of access. Undaunted, I found that by mounting the works to the back of the case and inserting a small wooden block to hold the gong base, I was able to make it all work. Here’s how it went.

The metal clock dial was first secured to a 3/8 in. thick plywood board attached to the front of the works. Then, with the case laid prone on the workbench, the movement was positioned so that the time track on the face was centered within the vinyl ring on the door glass. Held in this position, the mounting brackets at the rear of the movement were fastened to cleats on the back of the case using screws. Next, the back was removed and the gong parts installed.

Movement and gong mounted

Finally, the top was affixed and the back re-attached to the body. Everything fits. Accessing the pendulum is perhaps trickier than it should be but, on the plus side, the strike sounds beautiful!

Works and top in place.

No matter the location, it’s always a “destination” wedding if you are a gift clock. This one needed to find its way from Massachusetts to Wisconsin for the ceremony and, ultimately, on to Iowa for its final perch. I have always used my carry-on luggage for transport and, fortunately, there was one old bag in the basement large enough to serve that purpose.

Note to self: the Square Rose defines the outer limits for wedding clock case dimensions.

Congratulations Lauren and Travis, and hats off to you, Chauncey Jerome. Time to enjoy a wedding!

Square Rose, ver. 2024

Shaker Cabinet ep.2

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In the last episode freshly lumbered red pine and a modern plan were used to reproduce the carcass of a 150 year old cabinet made at the Shaker community of Canterbury, New Hampshire. While the original use for this piece remains unknown, my intention is to organize and store the hardware that has accumulated in my furniture shop. To complete the cabinet, a door and 10 small drawers needed to be fashioned and fit.

Materials

I’ll admit that a door and ten drawers would have seemed a daunting challenge for me a few years ago, but with experience comes confidence. To be sure, there are a lot of cuts to make in fashioning the 65 parts required here, but the cuts are pretty repetitive and the diminutive size helps. The door frame would be made from the same wood as the carcass, with antique “pine” (an undetermined conifer species) used for the panel. I decided to make the drawer fronts from the same antique pine with the drawer’s sides fashioned from quarter sawn cherry and the bottoms from white pine, both sourced from the left over scraps of earlier Projects.

The antique pine is meant to be the star here, its fine grain and darkened patina lending the character appropriate for this classic design. Looking along the end grain of this old board it is apparent that all of the growth rings arc in the same direction, and this means that the plank was derived from one half of the log, never crossing the center. Counting those grain lines revealed that this tree was at least 180 years old when it was harvested. And, given that the salvager told me it came from a structure dating back to around 1800, it is very likely the seed for this tree sprouted about the time the first religious Pilgrims were setting foot on Massachusetts soil. Neat!

Grain lines tally the years since germination

Dimensioning

During use, the exterior of this board had been painted a couple different shades of blue. That paint served to protect the wood from the elements, but it was no longer needed and I had no desire to muck-up my tools with it. Thus, the first job was to shed its skin at the bandsaw. After removing three square cut nails and making a couple rip cuts to remedy warp, I jointed the “bare” sides smooth and was then able to cleanly remove the outer 1/16th of an inch in a re-sawing operation to reveal clean wood. The boards were subsequently thickness planed to their desired depths.

Skinned pine boards

Next, I set to work making the door frame. The plan called for “bridal” joints here and that meant cutting 1 1/2 in. deep slots on the ends of the stiles to mate with similarly sized tenons on the rails. But first all members were cut to length and width and then a 1/4 x 5/16 in. groove was dadoed into the edges to house the door’s panel. To slot the stiles I used a ripping blade on the table saw along with my homemade paneling jig. This jig allowed me to accurately move the upright member into the cut, flip, and re-cut to ensure a perfectly centered opening. The 1/4 in. wide slots were excised nice and square by this method. To make the tenons on the rails I also used the table saw, switching to a dado blade and cross-cut sled to hog-out most of the material. The mating edges were further “trimmed to the line” using a hand chisel to achieve a pretty clean joint.

Paring away to the tenon’s shoulder line

The 5-part door came together nicely

Finally it was on to the drawers. In the Fine Woodworking article*, author Christian Becksvoort uses tiny, 1/8 x 1/8 in. lock corner joints to assemble the drawers. That’s a new method for me, but one that proved simple by following the magnificently detailed diagram drawn by Christopher Mills and reproduced below.

Drawer plan

*Fine Woodworking 2023, 305, p. 38-45.

Slicing up the cherry sides with grooves and rabbets was done on the table saw using a 40 tooth 1/8 inch “combo” blade. My only change to the plan was to use a thicker drawer bottom, which was beveled with a hand plane on three sides to fit the 1/8 in. grooves.

Beveling the drawer bottoms, all parts in-hand

After cutting to dimension, the edges of the antique pine drawer fronts were also shaped with a hand plane and then smoothed using #220 grit sandpaper. When making ten of anything the operations become a production, the result of which is that the last few are quite good when compared to the first. This imparts an overall “handmade” look that is just fine with me.

Rounding-off the drawer fronts: 1 down, 9 to go!

Assembly & Finish

At last, it was time to start putting things together. The 5 drawer parts snapped together nice-and-tight and so just a dab of glue in the cherry grooves was all that was needed to forever bind things together. The drawer boxes were assembled one-by-one and then tucked within their chambers to cure.

Drawers and drawer parts

Before assembling the door I wanted to finish the panel board, and while I was at it, the drawer fronts too. I would be using shellac on the carcass, a film finish that would stop any resin from bleeding through as the eponymous Pinus resinosa aged. The antique pine panel and fronts would also be shellacked as a final coat but I felt they could use some “freshening” first and so I gave them a dose of boiled linseed oil, thinned 50% with mineral spirits to promote penetration. I also obtained some cherry knobs turned in a Shaker style from an online store called nice knobs!. These were treated with boiled linseed oil to darken, followed by Arm-R-Seal wiping varnish for a sturdy satin finish.

To complete the door, the stiles and rails were glued together, allowing the panel to float free within. The door edge and face frame were then mortised with a chisel to receive the hinges. A test-mount of the hinged door revealed the small amount of wood requiring removal from the non-hinged edge to achieve a nice fit. After disassembly, this was accomplished using both care and a hand plane. I used a homemade magnet catch to keep the door shut. I may get an authentic door latch, one day, but this works for now and keeps things “clean”.

Door in place

Next, the door was removed and all of the pine parts were finished using clear shellac diluted by 25% with ethanol. That fresh pine readily soaked up the coating and so a second layer was applied to give an even, but still non-gloss, sheen. Once dry, the drawer fronts were glued to their boxes, which will remain otherwise bare (unfinished).

Adding fronts to the drawers, pairwise

Final assembly proceeded with ease. First, the back of the cabinet was affixed using screws, and then the hinges were re-mounted to the frame. A Shaker knob was added to the door, which was then attached to the hinges. The final step was to put knobs onto all of the drawer fronts. Before shaping their edges I had marked the geometric center of every drawer front with a punch. Drilling a hole at this position and then screwing a knob on from behind (x10) completed the drawer assembly. The interior shelf was then set in place to finish the piece.

Cabinet complete

This Shaker Cabinet was a very enjoyable build for me. The various woodworking operations, carefully marked or measured and then performed repetitively, surely improved my technique. And while not a flawless product, I am happy with the result. Plus, it holds a lot of hardware! I’m certain that seeing this utilitarian “art installation” hanging in my workplace every day will inspire me no matter what the current Project. Thanks for helping me get it on the wall, Christian.

Shaker Cabinet ep.1

See if you can spot the lesson in this photo.

Shaker Design: Out of This World, Burks, J. M., Ed., 2008.

In the workshop, horizontal surfaces are precious; as a place to set things they are indispensable. But without super-human discipline these flat spots inevitably become the place to store things, and that’s not the intention. Fortunately, all that is needed to reclaim this setting space is proper storage space. Kitchen designers have found all manner of storage systems to preserve the countertop, but it seems some woodworkers have been slow to see the analogy. That’s about to change under the Red Top with the creation of a hanging Shaker cabinet.

Design

Let’s first remind ourselves of the Shakers (formally, the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing), a religious movement that began in England way back in 1747 and later thrived in the United States before dwindling to a current membership of two. Held together by their beliefs, the Shakers were an industrious and inventive lot who formed farming collectives based around communal villages. These Shaker communities were largely self-sufficient, but to obtain non-food necessities goods such as seeds, clothing, chairs and other handcrafts were sold to the “World’s people” (non-Shakers). Their villages multiplied through the early 1800s, providing refuge for people seeking a pastoral life with purpose. Depending on the source, the Shakers are listed as having 4,000-8,000 members at their peak, but ultimately their ways, including strict celibacy, were their undoing. Of the 19 major villages established in the Eastern and Central United States, four were in Massachusetts, including one in the town where I reside (Harvard, est. 1791-1919, max. pop. ~200) and the neighboring town where I purchased the lumber for this Project (Shirley, est. 1793-1909, max. pop. ~100).

In later years, the Shaker’s grew sensitive to being known only for their handicrafts but I believe these articles, especially Shaker furniture, are the reason why we remain familiar with this group, as opposed to the many other utopian movements that sprouted and waned in nineteenth century America while failing to leave behind any artifacts. Today, authentic Shaker chairs, tables, cupboards and clocks are treated as art pieces. “Shaker” is also a recognized style that woodworkers love to copy. The designs are not complicated but, for just that reason, they demand fine workmanship . This will be my first serious attempt at a Shaker piece.

The hanging cabinet of interest is the one featured on the cover of the book Shaker Design: Out of This World (see above). It was built between 1860-1880 for use at the Shaker village in Canterbury, NH. This lovely spot, now a National Historic Site, was a home to the Shakers for two centuries (1792-1992) and is one of the several open air museums dedicated to that group’s heritage. I toured it with my wife in 2022 and found the buildings and grounds to be inspirational.

Canterbury Village Dwelling House (1793), Canterbury, NH

While the Canterbury Shakers provided the design, the working plans for this Project come from a recent article* in Fine Woodworking magazine by the noted Shaker furniture maker/scholar, Christian Becksvoort. Colorfully illustrated articles of the modern Fine Woodworking contrast with the B&W, text-heavy version that I recall in my father’s shop. And although today’s version is less meaty, the content serves to both inform and motivate me; it is my favorite of the diminishing number of periodicals received at our house. I intend to follow the plan on p. 39, along with the helpful hints contained in Becksvoort’s article to make this cabinet.

*Fine Woodworking 2023, 305, p. 38-45.

Shaker Hanging Cabinet plan, created by Christian Becksvoort and reproduced from Fine Woodworking

Materials

The original cabinet was made out of pine with cherry knobs and mine will be too. Knot-free, furniture grade pine is a lumber mill (i.e., not a Big-box store) product. I got my red pine boards up the road at Farnsworth Lumber, a small and friendly yard in Shirley, MA. I also have an antique pine board, purchased from a barn salvager, that I can use for the drawer fronts and door panel should that seem the right thing to do when I get there.

Pine boards, new & old

Dimensioning & Assembly

The work begins by marking out the case components and cutting these to rough widths and lengths. The parts were then jointed flat before thickness planing to 5/8 inch. Several cuts were then made to prepare for the box-making to follow. After recently working with oak, birch, cherry and ash it is startling how soft a pine board is to cut. Red pine (Pinus resinosa) is surely lumber’s Brie de Meaux.

Notching one of the side boards at the table saw after having created a rabbet along the back edge

The seams of the box will be joined using half-blind dovetails, a feature most typical of drawer construction. After re-familiarizing myself with the strategy and techniques surrounding this joint the tail components were marked and cut into the top and bottom boards. To accommodate the face frame of the door compartment, the sides are one-half inch narrower at the top than at the bottom and so two independent sets of dovetail dimensions are required.

First come the tails,

Following the tail cuts, pins were marked-out on both ends of the side boards and then made. These joints were sawn and chiseled by hand, and, while functional, they could be better. Mercifully, they will be covered-up during final assembly.

… then the pins.

Before glueing-up the box, 5 shallow grooves to hold the horizontal drawer dividers needed to be fashioned into each side. I used the dado blade at the table saw to make these cuts, employing the cross-cut sled and four plywood spacers to keep things uniform as the cuts proceeded. Worked well. I also drilled a few holes for the shelf brackets at this time.

Spacer boards inserted (right) to register the sequential dado cuts at the table saw, a final board laid on top.

Glue-up of the dovetailed box was easy, as this joint naturally keeps everything nice and square.

Box assembled

I next prepared the horizontal dividers on which the drawers will ride. These were cut to length, grooved, notched and then cut to final width at the table saw. Before installation, two 1/8 inch thick strips were applied along the front of the case to hide all seams.

Gluing the face strips using painter’s tape as “clamps”; dividers at left.

Following the creation of five tiny vertical dividers the drawer chambers were formed by repeating a simple 3-step process, beginning at the bottom. From the backside:

1. tap a horizontal divider into place;

2. tap the vertical divider in below;

3. drill a pilot hole in the center of the horizontal piece and then join the assembly together with a small finishing nail; repeat.

A thin trim piece was then inserted into the vertical groove at the front.

The divided box

Next, two panels that form the face frame for the door were glued in place, and the proud edges made smooth using a hand plane. The whole case was sanded at this point and then the back, top and bottom boards were fashioned from appropriately milled stock. To keep the look consistent I used the same, quarter sawn pine board for all parts comprising the exterior of the case, but inserted wood from a flat sawn board for the horizontal dividers and trim pieces, as these would present a similar striated grain pattern on their edges. Glueing the top and bottom on was the final case assembly step.

Sandwiching the case between its top and bottom.

With all of the case parts in place the dimensions are now “fixed” for the door and 10 drawers that complete the cabinet. Please stay tuned.

Canterbury cabinet case

Clock a la Voysey

That’s Charles Frances Annesley Voysey, of course, the English architect and designer. Some 120 years ago he was also a major player in the Arts & Crafts movement’s response to the perceived vacuousness of Victorian factory wares. A member of the Arts Worker’s Guild, C.F.A. Voysey designed buildings, wallpaper, fabric and furniture over a long career. Refusing all attempts to be lumped with pre-existing categories he developed a particularly British aesthetic that shaped the efforts of many who would follow. In short, he was big. Many of his buildings still stand but his work, today, is largely appreciated in museums with some residual demand for wallpaper and small furniture reproductions.

C.F.A. Voysey (1857-1941)

My current interest is in one of his clocks. Around the turn of the twentieth century Voysey conceived a couple of shelf clocks that have since become design icons. On first impression these cases appear downright Dr. Seussian but upon closer examination their statements (and beauty) come through.

C.F.A. Voysey shelf clocks

For this Project, I was looking to make an heirloom clock as a gift for my niece Hannah and her fiancé Jake on the occasion of their upcoming nuptials, and the dark wood specimen shown above caught my attention. Minus the three-tiered “superstructure”, this would still be an impressive clock and one that might situate itself better with surrounding keepsakes on a mantle. Poking around on the internet for a better picture I happened upon a specially commissioned version of this clock, constructed sans steeple, for sale at a high-end British antique gallery. Dating from 1921, it is reputed to be Voysey’s final clock and came complete with a 100 year-old, hand-drawn diagram as provenance. Irresistible!

Ebony clock case plans (1921)

Design

a la (Fr.) prepared in the manner of.

Translating the dimensions from this reduced-sized printout to a full-sized plan was a treat, aided substantially by the HxWxD numbers found on the Museum of the Home’s website. The 2024 version would be 9 1/2 inches tall and carry the proportions of the original features throughout. However, I planned to alter some of the details. For one, the radially symmetric dial with Arabic numerals would be replaced. This dial configuration, used extensively to good effect with Roman numerals, always seemed a bit wacky to me when used with “Arabics”, as was the practice a hundred years ago. I think it’s the upside-down “6” that bothers me most. Orienting all numbers upright would be my change here. And, since I planned to make the case from figured, quarter sawn white oak, the shaped moldings present in the original would be replaced by simple chamfers so as not to overcomplicate the look. I would strive to keep everything else true to design but with some additional changes in material.

“Clock a la Voysey” rough sketch

Materials

The original clock face did not have visible winding arbors and I also wanted to preserve this clean look. It must have been wound from the back through the sliding door feature. Further, the new clock would not have room for a pendulum and so a movement employing a balance wheel (think: pocket watch) was used instead. This new fangled invention (c. 1675) was used as an alternative to the pendulum (c. 1656) to govern the rhythmic escape of a clock’s potential energy. Both were invented by Christian Huygens, although in typical fashion Robert Hooke would claim to have conceived of them first. (He may have a beef here, but that’s a topic for another post.) Happily, I could find a movement that both wound from the back and employed a balance wheel, along with hands, key and special clock mounts from my favorite clock shop, Clockworks. The movement also used a bell instead of a gong. I’m not sure about the original, but a bell seemed fitting for this compact clock.

Clock parts

That takes care of the insides. For the outside, nearly every other material would be different yet still sum to an honorable version of the original.  To start, the exotic ebony would be replaced with white oak, stained to mimic the “Centennial” finish of Stickley mission furniture; still dark, but sustainably so. In that vein, the ivory inlaid dial face would become acrylic; something simpler (and legal). The plan was to also replace the copper hands with some golden colored metal, and the round bronze feet with either brass or wood. I wanted to see how the case looked before making some of these final calls. That original was some clock indeed!

Original Voysey clock

reproduced from the dealer website: Hill House Antiques & Decorative Arts

Dimensioning

The framed panel design of this clock case makes construction a bit more involved than a simple box, but not complicated. The only challenge looked to be the rather unique sliding door that makes up the back of the case. Anyway, that’s 19 oak parts in all, which were dimensioned to specifications using leftover boards from the No. 220 Project (details kindly omitted by the author).

Case parts

This clock Project has one operation that falls midway between Dimensioning and Assembly: face making. During their heyday, clocks were manufactured in massive quantities and the metal or paper dial faces were, by necessity, also mass-produced to keep up. Not so with Arts & Crafts clocks, where each face was typically created on the clock, one at a time.

The original version of our clock used inlaid material for the numerals and tick marks and that’s what I wanted to use, as well. However, with no time to learn this craft I resorted to the use of late-twentieth century technology, the laser cutter. Now, I had no time to learn the workings of this machine either but my son, Andrew, was already a master and had access to a good one, thus a collaboration was formed. My part of the co-labor involved securing the dial design on Etsy in the form of a .svg file and, later, coloring the wood. Andrew did all the rest.

Here’s how it went. A 1/8 in. thick mdf board unto which a white oak veneer had been applied served as the clock face material. This was then covered tightly with masking tape and the clock face pattern burned through with a laser cutter, previously programmed with a right-sized version of the dial pattern. A second 1/8 in. mdf board was then glued beneath. The numerals and tick marks could be laser cut in a similar fashion from an adhesive-backed 1/8 in. thick white acrylic panel. It was so easy that a duplicate was made … just in case.

Laser cut clock face with acrylic inlays

Once the components were delivered to the workshop, the face board, including the tiny wooden interiors of the 4, 6, 8, and 0 (taped to the bench) were dyed, glazed and then varnished similar to the procedure used for the clock body (see below). Next, it was time to inlay the dial. This was accomplished by removing the tiny release paper from the adhesive on each acrylic part and then gently tapping those parts into their place on the dial - all 81 of them. Following this, the numeral cavities were filled with their dyed wooden plugs. There is a delicate rhythm to the inlaying process which Andrew got very good at by the end.

Laying-in the dial face

I have to admit, the result was better than I had expected. The face looked wonderful!

Crafted clock face

Next, I had to figure out how the clock movement would mount inside the case. Enlarging the laser-cut hole for the hand shaft at the drill press was easy, but because that shaft was quite short, the 1/4 inch face board proved to be too thick. When pressed together, the winding arbors and the three attachment nuts hit the back of the dial preventing the hand shaft from protruding far enough beyond the other side. To remedy the situation I was able to mark these touch points on the mdf and then carefully drill & chisel 1/8 inch deep cavities so that the metal pieces could snuggle themselves into the back of the face while the shaft poked through the front. This was a dicey maneuver after having put so much effort into the dial, but it worked out.

Cutting-out divots on the back of the face to accommodate the mechanism

Now that the mechanism was mated with the face I just needed to find a way to firmly secure it into place. For this I swapped-out the clock’s three flat mounting plates for dog-eared versions and installed those backwards compared to their usual configuration. This produced a 5/8 inch gap between the mounts and the framing of the case which I could fill with scrap oak spacers, thus giving substantial material to screw the works into. These scraps were glued to the inner sides of the case frame which was dry-fitted for the purpose of drilling the pilot holes to complete an operation that, with apologies, was far easier for me to execute than explain.

Clock mechanism mounted to the framed face

Assembly

At last it was time to put the pieces together. I started with the spherical brass feet, which were purchased online as “knobs” from a cabinet hardware shop. Wooden knobs would also work, but I had grown fond of how the bronze material made that original clock appear dauntless. They mounted with bolts recessed and inserted at the corners of the beveled base board and worked perfectly for this purpose.

Brass feet in place

Next the case was assembled. The two sides were glued-up first (four frame parts and a panel, each), followed by the door which had been previously notched for a finger hold to facilitate opening. Then the front and back rails along with the clock face were glued to complete all sides of the box.

Case glue-up and door

At this point, a cardboard mask was fashioned for the face to protect it during all subsequent operations. The sliding door was then worked into smooth operation by hand planing and sanding the various contact points. It will be waxed at the very end to enhance the glide. The rest of the case was planed and card scraped to level all of the joints and then the whole case was sanded to 180 grit.

The final assembly step was to join the case “box” with the top and bottom boards. This was accomplished by first gluing some scrap oak blocks to the inside of the box along the top and bottom. Once dried, the exposed block surface would then be glued to the top and bottom boards, themselves. It might have been proper to use a couple screws here, but I think glue will be enough. In the end, I waited to fasten the top until after the finishing steps were completed simply to make things easier to handle.

Pre-finish glue-up (case, top and door)

Finish

With everything but the clockworks in place it was time to finish the wood. I decided to leave the interior unstained, but would apply a varnish coat there to avoid uneven water exchange between the inner and outer sides of the boards, which could invite warp. On the exterior I was aiming to create a dark brown body with highlights of darker grain and lighter rays; a uniquely rich look, only accessible with quarter sawn white oak and a bit of finishing care. To create what the L. & J.G. Stickley catalog called their “Centennial” finish I used the 4-step Jewitt process described in previous posts: dye (dark mission brown)/seal/glaze with gel stain (Java)/varnish. I used two coats of the glazing on this one as I found that the rays were still too “wild” for my taste following the initial application. After the final varnish coat, the top was glued into place and it came out well (if I do say so).

All that remained was to re-mount the works and fiddle with the hands some. First, I needed to change the color of those black hands and so I gave them a spritz of metallic gold spray paint. They now match the ball feet and provide a better contrast against the dark dial. The mechanism was screwed into place and, gratifyingly, everything operated properly within their cozy confines. Next, the hands were mounted and the minute hand adjusted to synch up the bell strike with the hour. With this balance wheel movement there is a small, threaded bolt near the top of the works that is used to adjust the speed and I spent a week or so fiddling with this to achieve accurate timekeeping. A final wax of the door edges then completed the clock. Voysey rides again!

Clock a la Voysey

Congratulations Hannah and Jake! Time to enjoy a wedding.

Screen Play

The interior of our 73 year old ranch-style home is a pleasant space, made even more so by a series of renovations conducted over the decades. By the time we purchased the 2019 version, several walls that had once partitioned the dining room and living room from an adjoining bedroom were gone. We enjoy the wide open expanse of this living area, but there is one nook, used as an office by the Chief of Domestic Operations, that would benefit from having its own space. She didn’t want a new wall, just a room screen. That’s the Project here.

First, let’s consider the room screen. Thought to have been invented in China during the 4th century B.C., screens have a considerable past. While I would venture that very few homes use a screen, today, we all have had encounters with them, either live or in photographs, so they are not that far removed from the present. One can readily conjure scenes from old movies where dressing screens played a major role, or from Japanese woodblocks where papered screens were used to divide rooms. They always looked nice and practical, didn’t they? Indeed, screens are useful objects that for some reason we rarely choose to use.

Kitagawa Utamaro, The Silver World (Gin sekai 銀世界) Japan, 1790.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design

Unlike proper walls, screens are a part of the room’s decor, which means they need to fit in. Our screen will be like those from early twentieth century America, modest and made of wood. Gustav Stickley was a fan of room screens and sold two designs in his catalog for years. They were priced around $25 at the time, but I see one example listed today for $9,500 on an antique dealer’s website. Hmm … !

Screens offered by Gustav Stickley in the 1909 Catalogue of CRAFTSMAN FURNITURE

Of the two Stickley screens, No. 91 seems the best suited for a living room. The long waist of paneled oak is striking, however, sheepskin is not right for our purpose. Restored versions of No. 91 often have replaced this material with a linen or burlap panel but we wanted to admit some light into our sectioned-off space and so our version will possess wooden slats. I sketched a plan that included a mullion and a couple of shaped slats in each upper panel and it looked right.

Room screen: rough plan

Materials

All that is needed to construct this screen is quarter sawn white oak, some double-acting hinges and glue. I picked up the lumber at Highland Hardwoods and got the hinges from a nice online store called Furniture Knowledge.

Screen materials

Dimensioning

Each section of the screen contains 13 elements, which are made in triplicate to form the whole - a little production run, of sorts. The joinery is not complicated: a few mortise and tenons with some grooves for the flat panels and slats. The primary objective is to make all parts flat and straight so that, in the end, the screen stands with integrity. I had to work some to make the semicircular slats, but in general, once a tool was set up to produce an accurate cut, part preparation went quickly. Captioned pictures below give you a feel for the process.

All frame components planed to 1 inch thickness with the raw panel wood lurking in back

Cutting grooves into stiles at the table saw

Creating deeper mortises within the leg grooves to house the rails

One of the joys of working with wood is to celebrate the grain. Quarter sawn white oak, in particular, is rich with grain character and I find it is important (enjoyable!) to harmonize the grain flow, color, rays and flecks of adjoining parts when possible. It gives the wooden components an additional purpose and helps to create a personality for the piece. With 3 versions of every part, each containing two sides and two vertical orientations there are many permutations to consider in selecting which eight frame members go into each of the three sections, and why. Fortunately, with quarter sawn oak there are no wrong decisions, just ones that are more right.

Frame parts grooved, cut to final length and assigned to their respective sections (A,B,C)

After creating tenons for the rails at the table saw, the methodical process of planing cheeks and cleaning mortises was conducted to achieve a nice and snug dry-fit of the frame parts.

Dry-fitting the frame together

Next it was time to make the thin panels; these would be fashioned to tuck snugly within the grooves created above. 4/4 boards chosen for their grain figure were cut to rough widths at the table saw, run through the thickness planer just enough to get an even surface and then resawn into two slices at the band saw. The best 15 of these boards were then thickness planed to 5/16 in. and assigned to the respective sections.

Rough-cut panels of proper thickness

I used the trusty circle-cutting jig to create the semicircular openings in the upper panels. First, small wood scraps were glued along one edge at the circle’s center to facilitate drilling a pilot hole at that position. These panels were then taped together and cut as pairs at the band saw. Worked well.

Book-matched panels with pilot holes ready for cut-out

Cutting a pair of panels at the band saw

Getting close to assembly, it was time to card scrape the mill marks from all surfaces and trim the panels to their final dimensions. A subsequent dry-fit of the sections, one-by-one, gave assurance that all would go well during the glue-up.

Dry-fitting all parts in section C, while sections A and B look on.

Look closely at the picture above and you can see that a groove is visible in the frame by the semi-circle opening. This does not belong here and, with a bit of effort, could have been avoided during part prep. Instead, I chose to fix things at this point using leftover wood from the circle cutting step. Here’s how it went.

The small scraps of wood used for drilling the jig holes were, earlier, affixed using water-soluble glue. Thus, soaking the discarded cut-outs with water for a couple minutes followed by a sharp rap with a chisel was all it took to cleanly liberate the oak “half moons”. I then used the table saw to rip a 5/16 in. strip along the flat side of all six discards. These were exactly the right length to glue back into the exposed groove of the dry-fit sections. Upon disassembly, the proud surfaces were hand-planed flush to the frame.

Creating a “groove filler” at the table saw

Assembly & Finish

I began the finishing step prior to the glue-up. As the panels will be left to float in their grooves any shrinkage of these, over time, would risk exposing bare wood were they to be finished only after assembly. A primary coat, applied now, eliminates that possibility. Stickley’s Craftsman furniture employed ammonia fuming or other stains to color the wood, but I decided that a simple oiling would be all the finish needed for this Screen. The inspiration comes from the English Arts & Crafts designer C.F.A. Voysey. Working at the turn of the twentieth century he directed that his furniture be left unfinished or, at best, lightly waxed. Voysey was particularly adamant about this, and who am I to argue? Today, his oak furniture pieces look absolutely stunning; simple shapes enriched by naturally aged surfaces. That’s what I’m going for here, using boiled linseed oil as the agent.

“If you want to set my teeth on edge, talk about staining wood - especially brown. … I refuse to fume or stain it. It is best as Providence made it and I will not be a party to its degradation.”

– C.F.A. Voysey

All went well during the three glue-ups and, once cured, a hand plane was used to even up the seams along the top edge.

Scene during glue-up - the thin panels sporting a coat of oil.

The next step was to peg the mortise and tenon joints using oak dowels. Eight, 5/16 in. diameter pegs per section would be needed and these were pounded out from scraps at the dowel plate. Three drilling jigs were also constructed from leftover wood to ensure that the top, middle and bottom pegs were positioned identically within and between the sections.

Pounding out pegs

It was now time to complete the finish. I chose to do that with the sections propped upright so that both sides could be oiled at once. The first coat was applied to all surfaces, and after a couple days to cure the frame members received their second coat. Buffing with a gray Scotch brite pad followed by a cotton cloth gave the wood a smooth surface with very little sheen. The color is now a bit darker than raw wood and the grain character is enhanced some, though not enough to have triggered Voysey (I hope).

Finishing the sections

The final assembly step was to install the hinge hardware. Section “B” is the star here as all six hinges attach to it. These were affixed at appropriate intervals with screws and then the other sections mated alongside. I had never worked with double-acting hinges before. They are an ingenious invention and easy to mount, using a 1/4 in. spacer stick between sections to keep everything even.

Mounting the third section using double-acting hinges and spacer sticks

That completes the room screen. It now stands, nice and practical, between our office and living room, while adding life to both spaces.

Room “screened”

Tavern Clock Heir

I have a good friend, Bob, who is a tireless entrepreneur and small business owner, with a day job besides. Happiest when busy, he has recently leased some maker space and is establishing a new workshop there. Soon Bob will need a workshop clock to help him compute the amount of time that has elapsed since he was expected home. I aim to satisfy that need with a new twist on the classic Tavern Clock.

First, some background on the clock. According to Martin Gatto’s wonderfully informative website, Tavernicus, Tavern Clocks are a distinct type of British wall clock that you may also know as Act of Parliament Clocks. They date back to 1715 and had evolved through several recognizable forms prior to their eventual extinction around the turn of the nineteenth century. Beautiful and bold, the defining feature of Tavern Clocks is their enormity, often having dial diameters measured in feet. These clocks were created to hang on the walls of Taverns and Inns to provide a reliable time reference for patrons waiting to catch a coach, or adjust their personal carriage clocks. As such, they needed to be accurate and easily read from a distance, both of these traits being enhanced by size. I was unaware of their existence prior to a recent London visit when I happened upon one at a Kensington clock shop that took my breath away. Encountering a Tavern Clock at eye level was like seeing a sauropod skeleton for the first time. Did these things actually exist?

Tavern Clock looming over the lesser species at Howard Walwyn Antique Clock Dealers

I soon developed an urge to make one of these giants, especially the round-dialed, dark and gilded breed that roamed The Land of Hope and Glory, c. 1760-1780. However, I could not fathom an excuse for such folly. Then I scaled-down a classic American clock during a recent Project and it hit me that if I really cut down the size of one of these guys I could make it relevant today. It wouldn’t actually be a Tavern Clock, but perhaps a suitable twenty-first century heir.

Design

As mentioned, there were a few distinct styles of Tavern Clocks that served the changing tastes of Georgian times. Gorgeous all, these were essentially defined by the face shape, trunk shape and material and I invite you to consult Tavernicus for a better description, including their blog which lists a stimulating rundown of recently traded examples. Toward the end of their reign, the dark chinoiserie decorated cases were superseded by beautiful brown mahogany. One day I may make a mahogany version but I wanted to start out with that black “japanned” look. Also, I had been reading about methods to ebonize wood using iron and this clock case would give me the chance to try that technique, too.

First, I needed to see more examples of Taverns so that I could settle on a design. The intention was to get a feel for the form and then cop features from a few nice ones to create my “own” version. When trying to virtually inspect furniture or clocks I have found that auction websites are the best. Auction houses need to show-off the inside and outside of their lots, and so one can gain a wealth of useful anatomical information from the various poses on display there. For run-of-the-mill clocks in particular, eBay is a boundless fount. A workshop clock need not be gussy and so the main features of my design were taken from the two simple examples shown below.

Tavern Clock exemplars

By the way, that brown clock on the right is over 7 feet tall! and lists for $15,300. Mine will be just over 2 feet tall and probably less valuable. Like the example on the left it will possess a round wooden dial with a similarly proportioned door. The trunk will sport a decorative element along the side, similar to that featured on the right hand example. The bottom will be closed up as in these examples, but lacking the trim line. Even without a firm idea on how to treat the edge of the circular face, a rough plan could be drawn that allowed construction to start.

Working plan

Materials

I chose red oak for the clock case as this wood is loaded with tannins reported to behave well during the ebonization process. A couple of planks leftover from an earlier Project were enlisted to the cause.

Red oak stock

Quartz clock movements are the best for dusty workshops and I picked up one, along with the appropriate hands, from an online dealer, Klockit. I tried my best to match the distinctive Tavern dial design in stencil form (Roman numeral hours with Arabic minutes along the chapter ring) and found one of those on Etsy, of course.

Non-wooden parts

Dimensioning

The familiar quartet of miter saw, jointer, table saw and thickness planer were used to rapidly convert the flat sawn oak boards into meaningful part stock. The clock face is comprised of three, 3/4 in. thick boards glued together. All other parts are 5/8 in. in depth and it is only the thicknesses that were fixed at this stage, the lengths, widths and joinery features would be established during the proceeding, high-value cuts.

Oak parts in the raw

One-by-one the raw parts were refined into clock case components. This involved shaping grooves, tongues and rabbets with a dado blade at the table saw, a bit of chamfering at the router table, and then cutting all parts to their final lengths at the miter saw.

Case components ready for assembly

Portions of the door frame and door were cut with the aid of a circle-cutting jig at the band saw. The round clock face was also cut there using the same, 6 inch radius setting. To house the works properly, a 3/16 in. deep cavity beneath the center hole was carved out using a hand held router.

Cutting the door and door frame at the band saw with a swing on the circle jig

Following some experimentation on scrap wood I came up with a suitable edge profile for the face which was then carefully cut at the router table. I used a 1/2 in. radius cove bit to lighten the perimeter and then eased the backside with a round-over bit. Rotating the inverted face board along the bearing on top of the bit while also registering against the starting pin and a wooden stop made this an easy and safe procedure.

Shaping the edge of the clock face at the router table

To complete the woodworking portion of this Project, I drilled a larger hole in the face for the clock shaft and then cut mortises into the door frame for the hinges. Assembly came next. The case was pretty easy to glue-up in the prone position and, once cured, a few dowels were added to further secure end grain joints. Finally, the wood was sanded to #150.

Glueing the case

Finish

All that remained was to color the wood black, paint the dial in gold and then assemble the clock parts - coloring the wood being the most interesting step here. It is likely that black lacquer was used on the originals, applied lightly in many layers, to “coat” the piece and effectively smother the wood’s grain. I like wood grain, and so my goal was to color it black with retention of character. Paint was out of the question, and the typical petroleum-based stains would not blacken things enough. Modern dyes or even Japanese ink would likely work, but I was intrigued by results I had recently seen using iron to color wood black in a process called “ebonization”. This trick is intended to make common, tannin-rich woods such as oak look like their exotic cousin ebony (Diospyros ebenum). Let’s review the chemistry.

There are many references to ebonization in the woodworking literature, but the most thorough treatment I have found is a recent paper by Robert Q. Thompson in the Japan Wood Research Society’s Journal of Wood Science. In this work, a study of several common iron (II) and iron (III) salts revealed that the reaction of iron (II) acetate with wood tannins gave the darkest and truest black color. By comparison, commercially available iron salts possessing a chloride, sulfate or gluconate counter ion gave an undesired blue or green tint to the blackened wood. Certainly, acetate was the way to go and, fortunately, iron acetate is easily prepared in the kitchen by the reaction of steel wool as an iron source and white vinegar (aka acetic acid) as a source of both protons and acetate ions. Thompson even provides a simple recipe for this.

Add 170 mL of distilled white vinegar to 2 grams of #0000 steel wool in a glass jar; stir occasionally for 5 days and then pour through a coffee filter to remove any solid residue. (Important note: hydrogen gas is produced during the iron oxidation step so be sure to poke a hole in the top of the jar lid.)

When the resulting colorless solution is applied to a tannin containing wood, such as red oak, the iron (II) ions bind to the phenol groups lining the tannin structure (see below) and rapidly autoxidize to form iron (III). These iron (III) acetate-tannin complexes absorb almost all visible light, giving a deep black color as a result. Thompson shows that this all occurs within the first 60-80 microns of the wood surface (human hair width). But that’s enough!

Chemical structure of a typical tannin. The phenol groups (-OH) of the gallic acid rings complex with the freshly formed iron (III) ions.

Still with me? Here’s how things went in the workshop. With the clock face and door removed, all case parts were coated with the homemade iron (II) acetate solution using a foam brush. I applied a good amount of liquid with each stoke but not enough to leave puddles. Within a minute the wood goes gray and then continues to darken so that after 45 minutes it is a uniform black color - truly remarkable. I let things proceed until thoroughly dry (3 hrs) and then, following a light sanding, applied another coat as before. This made the wood a darker black color and I decided to stop the process there. How easy is that!

Disassembled case prior to the iron (II) acetate wash

Following two applications of iron (II) acetate

The grain of red oak has many fine crevices that are difficult to darken by this process, presumably due to surface tension effects of the aqueous solution. To catch these I first treated all parts with a wood sealer (Seal-A-Cell) followed by a light glaze using a dark brown gel stain (Java). Now uniformly colored but with the grain still on display, I then applied two coats of a satin wiping varnish (Arm-R-Seal) to seal it all up. Black is beautiful!

Next, I used the stencil and gold spray paint to create the dial pattern on the face. I also painted the hands a golden color. Not gold leaf, but still striking.

Clock dial and hands

To complete the project I fixed a small brass knob to the door front, reinstalled the hinges and then mounted the door back into the mortised case. On the original, this door provided access to the pendulum and weights, but on my version it merely conceals a storage compartment. Next, the quartz movement and hands were a cinch to attach to the dial front. Bob will need to get at the backside of the works to set the time and replace the battery, and so I decided to mount the round face to the top of the case with a hinge for easy access.

Hinged face allows access to the clock mechanism

And that completes the 21st century “Tavern Clock”. This scaled-down version serves as a workaday wall clock today, and also a reminder of magnificent timepieces past.

Tavern Clock heir(loom)

Best wishes, Bob. Enjoy every minute!

Bob, clock and me.