Folks,
Does anyone know how the molded edge was made around lipped drawer fronts on period furniture. I Have seen many molding planes over the years, but never one that really suits the profile. Its usaually a flattened roundover or elliptical shape with a fillet or step. 1/4 round isn’t quite right and generally not found that small, and there is no integral fence. Perhaps they were scraped-in?
Thanks for any help.
Dan Santos
Edited 9/16/2007 5:49 pm ET by juglans
Edited 9/16/2007 5:49 pm ET by juglans
Replies
I make a template out of Bristol board, draw the profile on the ends and then work it with a rebate plane and an appropriately sized hollow for the profile. Grinding a cutter for a scratch stock, or a few cutters for differing profiles would work equally as well.
You can also work the roundover part by faceting with a block plane and then smoothing it out with sandpaper. The most important part of the whole process, to me, is drawing the exact desired profile on the stock itself. At that point, it's just removing stock in the most convenient way available to you.
I believe you're describing a half-overlay drawer front and I've done those with two passes on a router table or shaper.
The first pass gives me the curved part of the profile. If I don't want a round curve, I'll use a large round over bit and adjust the height to get the arc I want.
When I have the curve I want, I use a straight cutting bit to cut a rabbet on the back of the drawer front.
If you Google thumbnail molding plane, I think you'll find what you're looking for.
-Steve
I was just looking at period examples of these for a recent article. No clue as to how they were made.
The surfaces are fairly clean. All I saw were refinished 1000 times, no doubt sanded at some point. I saw no tool marks. Many many had been broken. These are very delicate features.
Some of the drawer fronts contained swirly grain. Its hard for me to believe very fair surfaces resulted from using a hollow plane. It seems they must have been scraped to some extent. At least, to get the surfaces I see. But when i use a scraper, I don't get that crisp line at the intersection between the top and the sides.
If I had to guess, I'd say they planed the fillets, then rounded the remainder with some sort of hollow plane and finished any tricky areas with a bit of scraper. The advantage of just worrying these out with a hollow plane is that you can pick or reverse the direction of planing.
Its also possible they left these features considerably rougher than they appear today. There's a general and inaccurate assumption that what we see in the museum is an original finish or something similar to it. That's rarely if ever the case. Even wear from 200 years of dusting will smoothen a surface. But most pieces were refinished 5 years after they were built and every 10 years since then.
Adam
Hi Adam ,
Is it possible a molding plane with an out rigger / fence arrangement was used as the cutters were regularly switched .
There had to be some method of keeping the detail orientated to the edge and such , even a scraping device /scratch bead had some reference or witness.
Unless the sole of the plane was placed against the edge of the wood .
regards dusty
.
Thumbnail profiled planes--all the ones I have seen--are both self-regulating in depth and width.
Like with a pair of rule joint planes, they were made in varying sizes and work the exact same. In fact, I've used one half of a small rule joint pair to lip drawer fronts. The rule joint plane is cutting down into the drawer from the end edge of the stock rather than coming down into a face. When it bottoms out, you're done.
The even line demarcating the ends from the sides are a matter of doing the ends first so that tearout on the ends are taken away when the long grain sides are profiles. Exactly the same as raising a panel with a panel raising plane. As well, I have always saved cutting to final width until the ends are profiled. Sometimes doing a wide enough board I will get two smaller drawer fronts from the same board.
On woods that behave nice such as Mahogany and Maple, there is little left to scrape if the cutters are sharp. I always hone before the end cuts.
Take care, Mike
The trouble I have using a molding plane cross grain isn't so much the tear out of the planed surface but the creation of a nice square shoulder. What I'd like is a molding plane with a nicker like a fillester or dado. Failing that, I try to knife out the shoulder, but somehow that knife line never corresponds to the actual cut of the plane. So my feeling has been that its safer to create the fillet with a tool good at doing that- a moving fillester. Then simply mold what's left. Now I have a similar problem with my panel raiser. So I've been knife or even sawing the shoulder. I feel this is one of those situations where the problem could be with my lack of skill, or I'm using the wrong tool for the job. I'm leaning toward the former as I think I have every tool there ever was!Adam
Edited 9/17/2007 6:53 pm ET by AdamCherubini
I don't have the issue with my panel fielding plane. The leading side of the skewed blade needs to be [nearly] as sharp as the edge of the iron, though. Same with the male DT planes.
For the lipped drawer, coming down into the end grain with a sharp cutter seems to work for me--but--one needs to lessen the cut as it gets closer to the profile being fully developed. That's where, like sash plane pairs, having two of the identical profile would come in handy. One to waste the bulk, the other to refine.
Working from the face of the board, a skewed iron or nicker would work, though. Perhaps I'll ask Phil to make me a couple of these in graduated size which would attack from the face and use a nicker.
My original thumbnail plane was stolen in 1989 or so and I used the rule joint plane until it was recently stolen at a demo. So I picked up a pair of rule joint planes but they both will take a little scraper and iron work to function well.
Really, I have also simply used a MF followed by a block plane, too. There are several ways to create the profile (done that for the "tongue" of rule joints, too). But a dedicated plane is simply faster and ultimately easier.
Take care, Mike
Adam, et al,
Attached is a molding plane that works for drawer lips, but I still find it too "heavy". It is what's known as a casing plane, modified with brass strips to diminish the profile. It would seem to me that a very small casing plane would be ideal as the fence runs along the drawer back and the stop limits the fillet.
You can always either make a more delicate profile yourself or have someone like C&W or Phil Edwards (Philly Planes in England) make it for you.
Phil has made me one plane and is making me another. Both profiles are planes I missed the high bid on from a recent MJD auction. The one I have now is a DT plane, the other is a molding plane style panel raiser that isn't finished yet. Both were made from pictures of the front end out of the MJD listing.
Here's the mini-panel raiser...
View Image
My intention is for this plane to do small raised panels for boxes, smaller cabinets and some drawer bottoms. My other panel fielding planes is on the larger size. So I am looking forward to this plane.
Point is, I cannot make them (time, skill, don't want to) and so am having Phil do it.
Take care, Mike
Mike,
Thanks for the info. Do you have contact info for Phil Edwards. I gave up on Clark & Williams. Their wait times are ridiculous. I've been waiting waiting for a set of table planes for close to three years. How's the response time with Phil?
Dan
Hi Dan, Phil's web site is:
http://www.phillyplanes.co.uk/
The email addy is [email protected]
I don't know what the turn time is from order to delivery. But I suspect it is reasonable. He is a fairly new maker as goes making them commercially. Does a great job from all reports as well as the one I have--and the second is about finished.
Take care, Mike
Dan,
I just hunted up your order trying to figure out why I hadn't notified you about our findings in developing fenced table planes. It's been a while since I was supposed to notify people but I must have screwed up and not gotten to you. It's been a long time and I just don't remember if I left a message or simply failed to call. I apologize for my mistake.
When Don first got here more than two years ago, I asked him if he was up for doing the development on fenced table planes. Good sets are rare and neither of us had experience with them. Because the location of the hinge pin is critical to the function of the joint Don started by researching and ordering a couple hinges. He also located a plane to cut the convex part of the joint which appeared to be the most difficult.
What he found in developing and making the prototype was that there's a reason these planes are rare. At best they're suited for the final fitting of a rule joint. Let me explain but first show the prototypes Don made. Don did a great job but never finished adding details because of what he found.
View Image
The plane for the convex portion of the joint, the one on the left, doesn't have very good cutting geometry. As you can see, the lower portion is nearly parallel to the depth of cut. This means this lower portion is taking a scraping type of cut. This means you can take only a very light cut yet you have to sink this cut a little more than 5/8" into the stock. That makes for a lot of passes and a scraping edge doesn't last very long. The necessary very light cut means the iron must be profiled very accurately to within a thousandth of an inch or so to the profile of the plane body. This makes it difficult to sharpen and you have to be pretty good at sharpening to get the planes to produce an accurate joint. Don found he couldn't produce three feet of this profile without needing to resharpen. As the iron gets dull, the plane tends to balk and this causes some rocking of the plane which would make for a sloppy joint.
Trying to complete a single piece without resharpening, Don found himself thinking it was good he had hollows and rounds to clean up afterward. As he pointed out, if you have to finish up with hollows and rounds, it'd be a lot easier and faster to just produce the whole joint with hollows and rounds. They're a lot easier to use and sharpen with the added advantage of being able to take an aggressive cut.
The only way fenced table planes make sense is to do the final clean up on production runs. Our customers tend to make one-of-a-kind pieces and those that do production runs would use machines to produce a rule joint. To make the usual two joints with fenced table planes would cause more problems than they solve in the vast majority of cases. We decided it doesn't make sense to produce and offer these because they're really not capable of efficiently doing the job most people expect of them.
We did learn a lot in this process though. Enough to make me wonder how anyone could use a table plane to make a drawer lip. A drawer lip ends at the drawer sides. This means the fence of the table plane can't extend as far as the profile so the fence can't be used to start the cut. The only way I can see to do this is to produce a thin false front that's applied to the drawer after profiling.
Larry,
Thanks for your very informative response. Must be why there are more sets of unfenced table planes around. It amazes me that we have lost so much "corporate knowledge" on the use of hand tools during the machine age.
Dan
My first reaction to that plane is that it would produce a longer lip than you want. The lips are no more than 3/8" long, and usually closer to 1/4".Attached is another one of those "country" philadelphia chippendale highboys. You can tell by the variation in the size of the fillet and the poor workmanship and gappy fit of the dovetails.What I thought was interesting about this piece was its lower lip. I thought most of these were flush on the bottom, so I took this picture. The lip is smaller than the top and sides.Adam
Hi Adam,
Another interesting variant in your photo is the lack of a half pin at the bottom of the front. Also, more often than not, the lip's rabbet defines the terminus (termini?) of the pins, whereas in this example, the sockets for the tails are stepped out slightly from the corner of the lip. Diff'rent strokes, as they say.
Other places where lips often vary are on the waist door of tall clocks, where the hinge side lip is usually much less than the other three sides; also the top drawer in the case of a slant front desk-- the lip often must be reduced here, or eliminated altogether (depends on the thickness of the lid , or fall front, and the writing surface to which it is hinged), else the lid will bind against it when it is lowered.
Cheers,
Ray
Ray,
What no insults? Maybe you were too subtle for me.
There's no half pin at the bottom because the front is rabbeted to receive the nailed on bottom, not grooved.
I didn't understand your second point. You lost me at the Italian train station.
I was a little shocked to see so many nailed on drawer bottoms in my survey of drawer construction. I think to some extent we've been sold a bill of goods about this furniture. It looks good in the coffee table books, it may even look pretty good from behind the ropes. But as skilled woodworkers looking for tricky joinery or problem areas, its pretty shocking what you find.
I looked at Goddard drawers, a chair by Affleck, guys this furniture is not that nice. Affleck's carving is fantastic, but he probably sent that out. The magic of this furniture is not its construction. Just read the first chapter in FWW's "Making Period Furniture."
I think it would be fun to publish a book showing all the crappy details I've seen, but what museum or collector would give permission for that? I feel fortunate to have had the access I've had and a little angry that woodworkers with this access, haven't made this point.
That said, I recall seeing really lovely joinery on a Townsend piece at the intersection of the drawer dividers. Just gorgeous work. But the back or underside of the same piece was a mess. I think that's just the nature of hand work. Its the best they could do in the time they had.
Adam
I feel fortunate to have had the access I've had and a little angry that woodworkers with this access, haven't made this point.
What do you mean? In the very same post you refer to Chapter 1 in FW On Making Period Furniture which makes precisely this point. There are any number of references to period drawer construction that show a bottom nailed on to dovetailed sides, back and front. Ditto nailed on, relatively rough backboards, ditto relatively roughly finished secondary surfaces on all kinds of individual components.
None of this is new.
You seem eager to use this information to make some sort of point that you think has never been made before. What point is it?
PB,
I tried to send you some pictures but your email address bounced. Maybe you made a typo when you registered a couple days ago.
Adam
dunno... it's [email protected]
Adam,
My second point, to try again, befora da train leavesa da station: Generally, the end of the sockets for the tails (where the drawer side's end goes) is a continuation of the plane defined by the back side of the lip. In your photo, it appears to be offset about a sixteenth. I've seen this before, but not often, as it would seem to be necessary to have (1) laid out and cut the joint before the lip was cut, or (2) a special marking guage, that wouldn't inpinge on the lip when being used.
In the period drawers I've seen and worked on, perhaps fewer than 10% have had bottoms nailed into rabbets. The balance were in grooves, and many if not most of those were secured with the addition of glue blocks. Many of the nailed in bottoms I've seen, were oriented with grain front to back, which I understand to be a common orientation in British work. Nailed-in bottoms seem more common on light drawer construction, like desk interior drawers, than in larger drawers, in the examples I've examined. It would be interesting to discover from whence the two approaches to drawer bottom installation came: Brit vs German, Scottish vs English, or?
I read a description somewhere, suggesting the Newport drawer construction was superior in that the slips that bear the weight of the drawers are easily replaced when they wear, but nailing in a bottom does smack of simple expediency, as you suggest.
Ray
Philadelphia drawers, Providence drawers, typically run front to back. Both typically have slips after 1740 or so. Pretty sure Newport drawer bottoms are nailed up but feathered on the sides. The slip is beveled to match. Then there's the wierd segmented slips. Don't understand them either.
I get what you are talking about now. I didn't notice that. Not sure why that is except that these types of drawers have reference faces on both sides. Maybe they wanted to keep the lip, gauged off the front for looks, independant of the pin base line, gauged off the back. I'm guessing.
Adam
I had always assumed it was achieved with something like this:
http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=66
You might want to take a look at this from Leevalley
Jack
Dan,
Sorry to be so late coming in.
The drawer lip profile is relatively easy with the proper plane. While we don't have a thumbnail profile available, here are some photos we took of using a Grecian ovolo a year or so ago for a similar thread on SAPFM's web site. The only secret is a well tuned, sharp plane.
You'll have to work to gage lines with the thumbnail profile and the rabbets are cut after the edges are profiled.
Here Don cuts the end grain first. Normally, you'd back up the piece with another piece of the same thickness to avoid problems at the end of the cut. Because Don was just doing this as a demonstration, he just chamfered the far corner.
View Image
After the ends are cut the top and bottom edges are profiled:
View Image
This was curly hard maple. You can see from the shavings in the following photo that Don wasn't coddling the work--he was taking pretty aggressive shavings.
View Image
This is how it would have been traditionally done. There are obviously work-arounds but you asked how it was done in period work.
Could the work around be done with the standard #45/#55 cutters and the special #45 cutters from Clifton? I have a fondness for the edge and would like to use it on a piece for one of my daughters. Thanks, Paddy
I don't think the profile exists even with the #55 cutters (though it's been a while since I had both planes).
However, you could grind the profile in a spare fillister/rabbeting blade. I think that there will be a tear out issue, though.
I do know a guy who has used very thick home-spun cutters and ground them so the leading edge is skewed for use with a #45. Check on the Aussie forum and a username of Appricotripper (Jake). The guy is very inventive. Nice work. There will be a lot of his posts. When you search, use the "posts started by ..." option.
Take care, Mike
Mike, much thanks will speak with you soon, Paddy
Paddy,With mild straight grained wood, very sharp cutters, a light cut and a lot of care you could probably use a #45 with a custom ground cutter. There are a lot of differences between the #45 and the plane shown. The molding plane is York pitch and sprung to optimize the cutting geometry. You can't spring a #45.As to the #55, I suspect they were the primary motivation for invention of the electric router. By the time you get a #55 set up you'll be too old to lift it. The single thing they're good at is showing the difference between theory and reality. But don't underestimate the creativity of woodworkers, someone will probably come along and post instructions for making complex crown moldings with a #55 as proof they have too much time on their hands.
It's something to think about on my next trip in Oct. to the Tenn. house(shop). I have plenty of spare cutters for both and a good friend is going to make me a few spare #5 NC noising cutters(the bottoms are every where but the cutters are like expensive hen's teeth)from carbon plane iron stock in his very big CNC shop.
If he also cut me a special profile for this lip on 45 stock could the bevel be increased to approach the yorkie pitch and it's benefits? Given the 45's lack of bedrock solid cutter support it would have to be a whisper cut and very, very sharp at all times. The CNC can cut any bevel you heart desires.
You are spot on with the 55. Boy o boy how would you like to try making a living using a 55 all day. I have fun with mine and am fond of doing wide chamfers on the corners of bench legs and double beading them, kicking the two fences to 45 degrees and straddling the corner. I WILL NOT be doing crown ha ha. man hour costs per running foot up to 6" , $375 per foot, over 6" $575 per foot. contracted commissions over 1,000 feet must include a pension and benefits agreement.
All the best, Paddy
Edited 9/18/2007 10:25 pm ET by PADDYDAHAT
Paddy ol' Top,
Not meaning to hijack the discussion but I Gotta question for y'all.
How do you sharpen your cutters for the 45/55? Is it necessary to flatten the backs? I use scary sharp and holding them little rascals was a PITA.
I took a piece of scrap 2/4 and ran it partially through the TS to make a heel on one end. I then excavated a spot in front of the heel and put a magnet in the hole to hold the blade. Magnet kept falling out so I embedded a screw in the bottom of the hole, problem solved.
Got both side of the cutters all nice and clean and flat (overkill?). Now on to sharpening the blades. For the bead profiles I'm using a dowel wrapped with sandpaper.
Is there a better way?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob you must flatten and polish the backs. Oftentimes, this is enough to give better than average performance (before even touching the profile itself) on everything up to but not including figured stock. Otherwise, a set of ceramic files, dowels wrapped in sandpaper, or oilstone slips and cones, will work the actual profile.
These planes are not that terribly difficult to set up and will give pretty fair results across the wide variety of cutters. Would a wall full of dedicated, expertly made 18th century molding planes be better? Of course.
Bob, Panbroil has the Rx. I have done backs on water stones, granite block/wet/dry then green on leather. Regular mirrors they are. That's why I ordered the work sharp -it's a PITA.Paddy
Never seen this sort of profile on 18th c lipped drawers. I used this profile on my latest piece and I regret it deeply.
I think it would be great to have a plane that could do this work. It would make sense to own one even for one piece of furniture. All these lips are pretty much the same size regardless of the size of the piece.
I would think that if a plane were used, I'd see more consistent fillet depths though. But that could be caused by subsequent refinishings.
All said, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these lips were done with a single carving gouge. I think a guy can get so good with a gouge that they can just do this and do it quickly. I'll ask my friend Warren what he thinks. He is such a guy.
Adam
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