25 March 2013

The 'Double Square' Cabinet

























The latest piece has at last been finished...the 'Double Square' cabinet, aptly named simply for no other reason that I happened to have a few roughly square oddments of English Walnut that were suitable for a few panels but couldn't really be used for much else.  It was difficult to photograph in the workshop as I've only got a narrow grey background...hence the rather skewed pic shown above.  The top and bottom horizontal door rails form a natural curve and on each they door meet exactly...no 'step' between one and the other.

This was bloody tricky...slight understatement!

The pic below is taken at rather a more 'natural' angle:

























...and shows the cabinet installed in it's place in the lounge.  It was always the intention for the two main back panels to mirror the doors, which it does in the pic below:

























...and this can be seen to better effect when the doors are opened and the:

















...interior can be seen.  The vertical stiles have been deliberately made so that they're equal, which looks quite effective.

There are one or two secret compartments as well as three 'Quaker Locks' (previously mentioned):

























...and the shot above shows the hidden keyway slot in the closed position, with the circular ash knob in the centre of the rail,  so that when the pin is removed and the keyway insert slid back:

























...they can be seen.  Looking at the underside, you can see in the pic below:

















...one of the four steel brackets used to hold the stand and cabinet together with the keyway slid open to reveal the 4mm hole, ready for the insertion of the pin to release the Quaker lock on the lower drawer.

An interesting piece to make, together with more than a few challenges, not least of which was the alignment of the doors.

3 comments:

patrick anderson said...

Lovely cabinet mate. Will we be seeing this in F&C?

Chris Tribe said...

You're not St James reincarnated by any chance!!

Woodbloke said...

This one's being written up for F&C this week and should be out in the mag later on in the summer.

Chris - I take it you refer to St James of Krenov? In answer to your question...not really but I like the style of his stuff and some of his methods. Most of my pieces these days seem to either gravitate towards JK or Alan Peters, but it would be nice to try and find a happy medium. Time to get out the sketching pad for another tall cabinet...