Assembly of the Top, Etc.

The cabinet top substrate for the mahogany buffet found its way into the vacuum bag last week to apply the finish veneers. The photo below shows the top out of the bag.

Next came sapele edgebands that will frame the pomele sapele of the main surface as it steps down 1/4" to a mahogany frame.

After the first two shorter end edgebands were fitted and glued up, I proceeded to fit the long front and back edges.

Then back to the clamps for a third and fourth time.

And the edge is in place. I flushed the sapele edge with a hand plane.

Then, I squared-up the edges to receive the mahogany edgeband.

Before applying the mahogany, I ran the top through the shaper to create a small lip that transitions to the lower surface.

Below are the rough mahogany boards ready to mill and fit to the top.

I'm using splines, as before. This time they are much longer at the mitered corners.

After the glue had cured on the end edges, I proceeded to fit the front and back edges.

Tonight the top is resting in clamps as the glue sets up on the last of the edges.

As you can see, there are a lot of glue-ups which provide time for other work in-between as the glue cures. The following is some of that work that was done to fill in over the last week. I've started the door and drawer pulls as well as the shelf support pins/consoles. I'll show the pulls in another post when they are completed and for now just show the shelf consoles. Even though this work was done in short bits as time allowed, here is the condensed version without interruption.

I milled the stock to size and then cut it to length. I only need nine of these, but with these small parts, it's easier to carry more through the process than it is to go back and start over if one of the nine goes bad for some reason along the way.

I bored holes to insert brass pins and then cut a wedge shape using the band saw and the jig pictured below.

Then, smoothed off the band saw marks with a block plane.

The curves in these consoles are derived from the geometry of the door and drawer pulls and adapted for this unique application.

I used my drawings as templates and marked each part.

Then, I took each one to the disc sander for a quick shaping. I prefer to hand carve my pulls and shelf supports. This time, I've instead chosen a method that uses a machine for expediency, but which allows me to use my eye to establish the shape.

After a bit of hand sanding, and the application of shellac and beeswax polish, the parts take a break in the morning sun... a seasonal rarity in this basement studio.

I used a hand drill to spin the pins as I brushed them with sandpaper to dress them up, and size them to fit. I've used epoxy to bond the brass to the wood, and padded the top of each console with a small patch of leather.

Here's how they look in the cabinet.

Next time, the cabinet top will be prepared and fitted to the cabinet. Door fitting will follow.

Hej då!

Craig