Jim Bennett follows traditional shaker design principles to make a special desk for a poet
Some years ago, having retrained as a furniture maker, I relocated from Liverpool to rural Suffolk. The move was a major lifestyle change as I started making furniture on a full-time basis in a larger workshop – a barn on a farm.
Following the move my wife, Rebecca Goss, a writer and poet, became friendly with the well-established poet Pauline Stainer, who lived in our village. In a chance meeting in our kitchen Pauline told me that having written for many years and having numerous books published she had always wanted a bespoke writing table or desk, and was that something that I would be interested in making? Yes, I was. I set to work doing some thinking.
In his book The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking James Krenov refers to creating something as ‘… the adventure that results in the quiet satisfaction of making objects that will endure and serve their purpose well, bringing pleasures to those who choose to live with them.’ Working with someone who is not only very accomplished in her own field, but had thought about what she wanted for a long time, and is going to use it daily as part of creating her own work, made this my own rather special adventure.
As a result, discussions – lots of discussions – took place. Pauline knew that she preferred a lighter, more pared back look as opposed to a heavy one – possibly more like a writing table rather than a desk, which I envisaged having built-in drawers. However, she did need some form of storage. I find the act of drawing very creative and a quick way to explore multiple ideas, good and bad. As a result, I produced lots of sketches showing various options of desks with drawers to the left and right or both, and I visited Pauline to discuss the possibilities.
She showed me where she worked. It was in a room on the first floor of her cosy timber-framed Suffolk cottage – up a very narrow twisting staircase. The house interior said a lot about Pauline’s aesthetic – simple, colourful, a mix of older furniture and more contemporary ‘one-off’ pieces. I immediately realised two things – first that the design of the piece had to sit well within this setting, and secondly that a larger desk with drawers was never going up that staircase. This thought led me to the conclusion that the answer lay in a writing table with separate storage.
Design
As a furniture maker I have always been interested in the Shaker movement. The word Shaker in terms of design has been overused in the past 20 years. However, I had a deeper interest in the process behind the designs, seen in terms of a modern- day maker. I did not want to replicate, but to learn from their methods to create my own contemporary furniture.
The Shakers followed a simple way of life. Their homes were known for their stripped back, austere architecture and furniture. They created proportionate, unpretentious practical furniture that was made to last. Hallmarks of their work include clean lines and gentle curves with tapered legs. As makers they mastered fine hand- cut dovetail joints for drawer construction and used mortise and tenon joints for legs and aprons. The work is restrained, it concentrates only on the essential qualities of design and craftsmanship. Its beauty is in its simplicity.
I had my design. It was to be simple and attractive from all angles, as in future it may be placed centrally in a room, not just against a wall. The top needed to be sufficiently strong to carry out its function but not look heavy.
The subframe was to be supported on four legs – with just the inside faces of each leg being tapered as opposed to all faces – to give a feeling of lightness. The legs were to be jointed together at the top – where they were fully square and strong, by plain timber aprons running between them.
As a result the final design was basically a table. In order to make it into a writing desk I designed a raised shelf to run along the back edge, supported by gently curving timbers to the sides and at the rear. The space formed between the table top and the shelf was divided into three storage sections – one larger central space and two smaller at the sides for balance. The shelf was to be gently curved to the front edge to reflect the subframe. The spaces were to remain open rather than having any form of drawer – simplicity was key.
Timber selection
Timber selection is always enjoyable and a very important part of the process. We had established early in the design stage that the desk was to be made in solid timber. To give the piece a more contemporary feel, I suggested using a lighter timber throughout. I have always loved the colouring and grain of ash and use it whenever I can. I buy most of my timber from local suppliers and managed to get some lovely kiln-dried English ash. Ash has a fairly straight grain and is good for freestanding furniture. Some of the timber had darker streaks – often referred to as olive ash, which I could use to my advantage.
I drew out a full size rod to work from – sometimes referred to as ‘building furniture on paper’. I find on some jobs that you need to see the full size components to refine the detailed design as the build progresses. This is where a client has to trust the eye of the maker.
From the rod, the components are selected from the available timber – looking at the grain direction, colouring and pattern in each case. It is also important at this stage to make sure that there are enough suitable timbers for the larger areas – not necessarily matching – but timbers that will read well together. They were selected first. This is especially the case for the table top, the smaller components being cut from the remaining stock.
All components were then cut slightly oversize from the plank, being selected for strength and visual appeal. The timbers were face edged and squared on the planer thicknesser and left to settle. In my experience, once cut, the timbers will move because of the released tension, so it’s better to leave them before final dimensioning in a few days’ time.
Subframe
The design called for a simple subframe to be constructed comprising timber legs held together at the top with timber aprons. Traditional joinery was to be employed here. The connection of the legs to the apron had to be strong and rigid as there would be no stretchers provided at a low level to prevent any outward movement at the feet. In true Shaker style, a traditional mortise and tenon joint was selected.
The front apron was to be curved partly for aesthetic reasons and also to allow room for a ‘knee hole’. This curve was formed using a router fixed to a long trammel made out of MDF. The radius of the curve was calculated. A piece of ash milled to the correct thickness but larger than the finished dimension of the front apron was fixed on one end of the large workbench. This was oversized as it would have been much more difficult to cut the curve accurately on a finished size timber.
The trammel was fixed at one end to allow it to scribe an arc. The router was fixed to the other end and the radius cut in stages. Once completed, the apron was then cut to the correct size and the tenons cut at either end. The curved-off cut was used as a sanding guide to clean the underside of the apron.
The legs were to have a two-sided taper – the rear and internal faces tapering from 45mm thickness at the top to a 20mm square at the foot, using a jig on a tablesaw and then dimensioned using a hand plane and cabinet scraper. Mortises were cut out of the legs on my old Multico mortising machine, and the tenons to the aprons were cut by hand using a marking gauge and tenon saw.
Table top
I decided to make the table top out of three pieces of ash each approximately 180mm wide. I do not like using wider boards as the tendency to twist in a heated environment increases considerably. Once planed, thicknessed and square edged they gave me a top of about 520mm wide – enough to trim back to the finished size. The planks were biscuit-jointed – not for strength as the rubbed joint would have been strong enough – but to align the planks to minimise hand planing and finishing. At 500mm wide I cannot use my thicknesser.
The top was glued up using sash clamps and cauls to try to ensure that it remained flat. Once released, it was checked and found to be acceptable. It was then laid on the bench to be finished with my favourite No.5 Stanley plane and cabinet scraper.
Kiln-dried ash can be tricky to finish due to the tear-out of the grain, which is why my preferred method is to use a cabinet scraper. However, in order to reduce the extent of scraping I decided to do some trial and error adjustments of my plane. I found after many attempts, that the closer the chip breaker was set to the edge of the iron, the less tear-out I was getting – to the point where if it was set very close I got virtually none. This allowed for a final few passes of the cabinet scraper to get a satisfactory finish with minimal sanding.
When completed, the top was trimmed to size and the underside of each edge was chamfered using a router and hand plane in order to visually look lighter. I had noticed some slight splitting to the underside of one of the boards during planing – always difficult when selecting longer pieces to get them free of any defect. I thought I would be able to lose the split when routing the chamfer but although it wasn’t deep, it was visible, so I took the decision to add a couple of bow ties to the underside to prevent further spread of the split, just as a precaution.
The top was fitted using handmade ash ‘button’ fixings screwed to the underside of the top and held within a rebate in the back of the aprons, which allows for movement of the top while still remaining secure.
The upstand
The upstand to the rear of the table was a bit more involved. It was made from 15mm-thick ash. This was supported at the sides by the curved timbers. I wanted a gentle curve but also had to allow for the rear part being flat to accept the raised shelf. Several test pieces of this shape were cut out before the final design was selected purely on its visual appearance. Fixing the bottom edge of the curved sides to the table top was done with wooden dowels for alignment and then glued and clamped.
The choice of joint is an important design decision. By using dowels I was able to have much more choice in the positioning of the top section, with cleaner lines to suit this design. Dovetail joints, for example, can restrict the design as the positioning of the components is restricted to the edges. Strength was not an important consideration here.
Clamping anything with a curve presents a challenge and the trick is to always keep the offcut. As can be seen in photo 25, this allowed a vertical pressure from clamps along its length. I decided that I did not want to see any end grain on the raised shelf. As a result, all of the joints between the top and back and also the level part of the side supports were mitred, which was very time consuming. The detail chosen was not the easiest way to build this raised section, and not very Shaker. It was in fact rather conspicuous, unnecessary even.
However, as is often the case I feel the end result was worth the effort. I am sure there are numerous details like this that most people would not even notice, but which contribute to the overall visual simplicity. As I mentioned previously, I do not want to replicate, but to learn and create my own contemporary furniture.
The finish
Both the tables and the drawer unit were finished with a wax oil. The grain of the ash becomes really pronounced and the contrast of the darker to the lighter grain worked well. All that was left then was the delivery and that staircase…
As the table top had been fitted with buttons it was easy to remove and refix in situ, leaving the fairly lightweight subframe as the largest component to manhandle. All went surprisingly well and Pauline has been creating at her table ever since.
