In his book on solid wood furniture construction Franz Karg’s students frequently employ a technique that I have never seen used in the United States. They create doors and panels by skewering a number of tongue and groove boards with several through splines. These splines are fully concealed within the boards, and the splines unify the boards into a panel.
My question is if anyone knows how they do it? I have always found that deep, slender mortises made with a hollow chisel mortiser will often drift a bit. Slender chisels become very hot when they make deep holes. Also, they tend to blow out the grain on the exit face of the board. Franz Karg, though, has apparently gotten this down to a science. Does anyone know how he does it?
John Kriegshauser
Replies
Are these frame and panel doors? If they are I don't understand why you would need to skewer them toghether. You certainly would not want to restrict the panel from being able to expand and contract, so I would have to guess that the skewer is only there to aid as a flattening brace of sorts. If this is the case and they are frame and panel doors, then the groove that they float in does this very same job. Could you post a picture of what one of these doors would look like?
Hi,
No, they are not frame and panel doors. The doors look like 8 pieces of tongue and groove wood, period. The through splines not only keep the panel flat, they hold the door together and regulate movement as well. As you will recognize, this is a form of construction not practiced in the United States.
Franz Karg's book is available through Taunton Press and there are two articles about him as well in older issues of Fine Woodworking. I point this out because I don't have any images to post, but images and section views of this construction are widely available. However, there is no indication of how the work is produced.
John Kriegshauser
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