NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1983, No. 43, $3.50 Making ... - Wood Tools

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S.c., Adapted from an original built in Charleston, around 1790, Heisey 's Hepplewhite breakfront is made of solid mahogany. The serpentine doors are coopered, the drawer fronts sawn from 3-in. thick boards . Both are veneered with crotch mahogany. 80 Pho[os: Ed Holdswocch
A Hepplewhite Breakfront One cabinetmaker's mahogany dissertation by Richard L. Heisey When a young Armenian couple visited my shop two years ago, I had assurances from friends that they were good prospective clients. Being from the old country, they had an appreciation for elegance that they'd been used to satisfying with fine antiques. I was therefore surprised and pleased when they commissioned me to build a whole roomful of furnirure, including this Hepplewhite breakfront. The piece S.c. is an adaptation of one in the Hayward-Washington House in Charleston, The original stands almost 11 ft. tall and is more than 8 ft. wide, so I had to scale mine down to fit the ceilings in my clients' home. On a trip to Charleston, I went over the original, recording my observations in great detail so that I could draw a full-size plan before beginning construction. Like the original, my breakfront is made in three sections-the base, the display case and the pediment-which can be separated for moving. Construction called for some familiar joinery: dovetails for the carcases and drawers, mortise-and-tenon for the display case doors. But the inlaid double serpentine shape of the base and pediment proved a stimulating technical challenge. I coopered the doors, veneering over this assembly with crotch-grain and ribbon-stripe FWW mahogany. I made a press just for the job. <strong>No</strong>w I keep hot hide glue on hand, and I realize how much quicker the process would have been if I had used the hammer-veneering technique described by Tage Frid in #10, pp. 52-54. But inlaying the boxwood stringing into the doors and pediment took the most time. After several risky schemes involving a router, I made my own inlay knife by soldering together two X -acto knife blades, separated by the width of the stringing. I steam-bent the inlay around hot forms, and then I glued it in place. The pediment and doors of the original breakfront are embellished with bellflowers made of ivory, a scarce material The breakfront'S pediment is inlaid with boxwood stringing, with curly maple and mahogany carnations. Heisey fashioned the ivor y bellflowers, visible at the corner of each door and in the pediment, from old piano keys. today. After several fruitless searches, I contacted a local piano repairman, who supplied me with some old keys that were just the right thickness. I cut the 35 bellflowers with a jewelers' saw, then gently ftled the edges to shape. Once the ivory was glued in, I worked it flush with a scraper. My dients wanted a dark fmish on the piece. I used a solution of potassium dichromate to darken the wood, followed by shellac and varnish. To more closely match the original, I glazed in old, hand-floated glass that a local business collected for me. It adds an intriguing shimmer to the display doors. All told, I invested some 900 hours of work in the breakfront, calling upon everything I'd learned during 10 years of woodworking, and then some. The piece has kindly been referred to by friends, who have doctoral degrees, as my dissertation in cabinetmaking. 0 Richard Heisey makes custom-designed fu rniture in Winchester, Va . 81
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1 1 1 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1983, No. 4
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FINE WOODWORKING Editor John Kelsey
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Page 38 and 39: · .1: Fig . Proportions · section
Page 40 and 41: 57 Fig. 2: The five parts of a tote
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Page 64 and 65: Adhesive Hide glue (hot)· (Behlen
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1983, No. 43, $3.50 Making ... - Wood Tools

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