Israel Martin makes a small chest of drawers to store a pen collection
At the beginning of my career I used to focus on making complicated pieces, full of details. However, over recent years I’ve realised that I really like simple but well done pieces. This small chest of drawers was a commission from a pen collector who wanted storage for their special pens. I wanted it to be simple, so I designed a plain oak carcass and two drawers. The only ‘extra’ details were the carcass dovetails. I used a nice piece of quartersawn French oak for the carcass; the drawers were made from maple for the sides and walnut for the fronts and then I veneered two pieces of quartersawn oak to the fronts. To keep the pens in place in the drawers, I used some triangular maple pieces; I had already used something similar when making a chest of drawers for cutlery, and they worked just as well in this case.
The quartersawn oak carcass
To prepare the carcass timber, I planed the 50mm oak boards and cut them to 18mm. I then hand planed them again and glued them, book-matched and planed them once again to the desired thickness of 15mm. Next, I dimensioned the boards to length and started working on the joinery. I created a nice pattern for the dovetails and dados and used mortise and tenons to join the drawer dividers and guides. The back was fixed in a groove.
Making the drawers
First, I dimensioned the maple for the drawer sides and fronts. Normally I like these to fit really tight so that after gluing them and planing them smooth I can adjust the drawers perfectly in their place. In this case, the drawer sides were about 8mm and the fronts about 13mm.
The tails were made first; even though I had marked them with a knife, I sawed straight in the line to avoid having to make any further adjustments, although if I had needed to adjust a tail, I would have the knife line there.
Next, I made the pins and then the grooves for the drawer bottoms. I like to make tails with small shoulders so that I can use most of the drawer space after installing the bottom. After gluing the tails in place, I glued the quartersawn walnut veneer to the fronts. Finally, I fitted the quartersawn red cedar drawer bottoms.
Drawer front veneers
I like to make through dovetails when I’m going to veneer the fronts. I planed only one face and the two sides, then glued the planed side. When the glue was dry I planed the external face to the line I had left with the marking gauge. Then I carefully planed the veneer on the long edges and finally the veneer end grain.
Applying shellac
After making the carcass I planed it smooth and cleaned away all the pencil marks, I then applied shellac on to it. I wanted the carcass top and sides to be as perfect as I could finish them, as these will be the more visible parts of the piece. When I applied the finish on the drawers, I used tape to avoid getting any finish on the sides – that way I could make further adjustments if needed. The sides were left with only a marble finish done with the smoothing plane. I used pumice after applying two coats of shellac and then only alcohol until the surface was smooth.
I then finished it with three or four more coats of shellac.
Quartersawn red cedar drawer bottoms
I love using quartersawn red cedar for drawer bottoms. It is the most stable wood I can find in my part of the world, and if the pieces are not extremely wide I can even glue them to the drawer and keep them in using just a pair of screws without slotted holes. The straight pattern of the wood is also really nice. The only two problems I find with red cedar are it’s quite soft (I apply shellac on the drawer bottoms to counter this) and I have to sharpen the tool blades often due to the silica in the wood cells.
Stands for pens
The first time I had to make stands or holders to keep things inside drawers, I tried several methods and I found these triangular ones the best solution. They are very easy to make by hand but they look nice. I can place them at different lengths depending on what is going to be inside, and they keep things in place. I made square sticks and then shaped them using round rasps and finished them with a round file and 1,200 grit sandpaper.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ISRAEL MARTIN
One Response
Lovely pen/pencil display draw case.
The work gone into this project has really impressed me and I would love to try to attempt a good looking piece.
Would the dimensions be available please?