Gluing up a table top

knockdown hardware.

Not to mention Thomas Jefferson's bookcases.

Mankind has been making portable furniture for as long as we've been making furniture.

That said, I'm still not sure how I feel about biscuits in fine furniture.

--RC

Reply to
Rick Cook
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OTOH if your definition of 'fine furniture' includes pieces in the early medieval style, you're going to use _lots_ of metal fasteners. (I'm less enamored of their habit of nailing things together.)

Thinking about it a little more, I believe that for me the matter comes down to how I feel about the piece I'm making. If a technique doesn't 'feel' right for the piece, I'd prefer not to use it. Thus, I prefer loose tenons to biscuits and handcut dovetails to routed ones.

Of course I can afford this attitude because I am strictly a hobbyist when it comes to furniture. For me the most valuable product of that sort of woodworking is the time spent working wood. We have so little room in our house that any major pieces I make have to be given away.

--RC

Reply to
Rick Cook

No you're not ! Early medieval nails are few and far between. You'll see more treenails than iron nails.

The ark I did yesterday has no glue nor iron anywhere near it.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

In a sense it's just an extension of the idea of a wedged tenon--instead of expanding it with a wedge it's expanded with the moisture from the glue.

Reply to
J. Clarke

They're a tool, like any tool. You use them where they're the best available solution to the problem, and don't use them where there's another that is better.

Don't get hung up on "this is used in fine furniture and that isn't". Use whatever is most appropriate to the problem at hand.

Reply to
J. Clarke

lol... you guys getting a lot of rain over there?

Reply to
p_j

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 12:05:38 +0100, Andy Dingley calmly ranted:

Hmmm, is it raining heavily over there?

-- Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ---- --Unknown

Reply to
Larry Jaques

in the mists of time,

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

But do foxed (blind wedged) tenons have any place in fine furniture ?

Reply to
Andy Dingley

not that I can see... (pun intended)

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

Why not? If you taper the mortise properly you have a hidden dovetail which gives mechanical hold in addition to adhesive hold.

Reply to
George

Because you can't ever dismantle them. Definite no-no in fine furniture, because a reasonable definition of "fine" is that you're expecting someone to still care about looking after it in 200 years time.

And you don't need either tapered mortices or glue.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Your definition of fine?

I can make KD furniture too. Does that make it "f>

Reply to
George

I was thinking of the strapwork and hinges. In fact it's difficult to do replicas of early medieval chests and most other kinds of furniture unless you have access to a blacksmith shop.

--RC

Reply to
Rick Cook

You mean like this ?

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'd still regard that style as late medieval though. That chest itself is more like typical 18th century work in England, although it's based on a 13th century Baltic example.

Most chests, and almost everything early medieval, were devoid of ironwork. No strapwork, and hinges were often just a nailed leather strip, or a couple of snipe bill hinges (interlocked hairpins).

I took a look around the Red Lodge again last week.

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of chests, almost no metal in any of them. A few had the bases nailed on, but in at least one of those cases that was later repairwork after a grooved side had split out.

The idea of the heavily strapped chest doesn't really show up until the Armada chests (there's a nice example in Abergavenny castle museum). These were the paychests of the Spanish Armada and had hugely complex locks that filled the entire lid, with strapping all around.

16th C though.

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other problem is finding some iron to work. For those helms it's easy enough to cheat with steel, but strapwork doesn't really look right unless you used iron.

I was also working on a chest for LARP-camping last week. An old

1900-ish joiner's chest that I was given, with a bunch of repair work to it, some forged steel drop handles at each end and an upholstered top as a bench seat. Pictures when I've done the upholstery.
Reply to
Andy Dingley

I'm sorry, but I don't quite see your point. You can't dismantle a solid board either so I guess wood has no place in "fine furniture" by your definition.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Actually more like this:

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have a number of examples of this sort of chest with the elaborate ironwork from pre-14th century England. (See also Daniel Diehl's 'Constructing Medieval Furniture' for additional examples of ironwork on furniture, including a chest from Oxford.)

Well, I don't know about 'most chests', but certainly not all of them by a long shot, judging by the examples remaining in cathedrals, colleges, etc. You'll also note that most of the strapwork, hinges, etc. was held on with nails. Undoubtedly there were a lot of chests and other pieces made without ironwork of any sort.

Well, no. In England at least the heavily strapped chest is a design that goes back before 1000 AD

a blacksmith shop. The metalwork is pretty straightforward and mostly bending, drilling and some punching. (The punching is better done hot, but it doesn't have to be.) We made a several of them 30 or so years ago with not much more than hammers and an old stump. (The first one we cut out with cold chisels. The next one we used a saber saw with metal cutting blades. I really envy you with the plasma cutter.)

Unless you're willing to settle for really simple designs for the strapwork, you need the ability to work the metal hot, especially for the splitting and bending. In other words, a blacksmith's shop.

That is a problem indeed. Around here there's just about none to be had because this area wasn't settled until after 1850. (Well, there was one maniac I knew who used to get iron by pulling the spikes out of the supporting timbers in old mines. That takes more -- ah, 'dedication' than I've got.)

Looking forward to seeing it.

BTW: I always understood that an 'ark' was simply a chest with a peaked top, like a roof. Is there something more to the definition than that?

--RC

Reply to
Rick Cook

There are plenty of examples of _elaborate_ ironwork, just not many of simple ironwork. Strapping like the example you showed is like studded iron nails in the door of your castle - it's not for use, it's for decoration. Conspicuous consumption to show that you were rich enough to spend money on expensive ironwork.

Not a very good reference, IMHO. It's OK as a constructional guide to one or two pieces, but it does nothing to put them in a greater context.

I'd also never buy any book that encourages the making of yet another bloody Glastonbury chair ! I know chairs weren't common in period, but there was more than one style.

There's also a certain skewing as to which examples survived.

There are strapped chests back into the Norse period, but I've not seen anything like an Armada chest until then. They're pretty much solid iron - not just strapping to hold it together, but an interlaced close-spaced strapping that would prevent you smashing it with an axe. The entire lid is also filled with multiple locks.

Even though I worked these cold, it's a blacksmith's shop where I did them.

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The metalwork is pretty straightforward and mostly bending,

No punching for these - the breaths were plasma-cut from a stencil. I'm too lazy to punch holes !

Not as far as I know. It's a top that's not flat, but has protruding end plates rather than being coopered.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

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