my first Tall Dresser

[Jerry Strojny]

Well, there may be a couple of you who remember when I cut the plywood panels out of this project. (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=125945)

Cherry wood, 3 coats of amber shellac. Not my design, but I did make some very minor tweaks to the original.

Here it is finished and in use. I finished it up this past weekend.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Tall%20Dresser/P1030126.jpg

New solid cherry side panels replaced the plywood. (Plywood was replaced because color match was not to my liking.)

Here is a view from the side.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Tall%20Dresser/P1030130.jpg

And lastly, I felt this project was worthy of my signature. So I pulled out my branding iron. (The majority of the project was done it 2009, so that is what I used for the date.)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Tall%20Dresser/P1020980.jpg

Comments welcome. I'll start. I think the glued up panels could have better grain matching. My only issue is that the supplier I go to does not have a large section of cherry 4/4 select. I spent at least 2 hours to find what you see there. (That 2 hours is just for the panels...at least another hour for the rest of the wood.) And so sorry for the crappy pictures. I need to take a class or at least learn how to take the best with what you have.

Thanks for the community. I feel like I'm never that far away from some good advice.

Jerry

[Seth Dolcourt]

Jerry,

Nothing more classic than a cherry dresser; well done! I think you've executed the wood selection and build with a high degree of skill.

A suggestion only, colored by my personal biases - perhaps some contrasting doo-dads would go great, e.g., some walnut or mahogany pins in the M&T joints, maybe an ebony "washer" under the knobs. I'm drawn to the streak of sapwood on the right side panel; I like that.

Cheers,

Seth

[gary Zimmel]

Looks like the dresser turned out very well Jerry.
Very worthy of a signature...
Over time she will darken up just beautifully.
And nice save getting those plywood panels out and the solid wood ones in.

[John Keeton]

Jerry, a suggestion for you in the future would be to resaw and bookmatch your panel. If you have a good flat surface on both sides of the cherry board, resaw it in half, and glue the bookmatched pieces to some poplar. Then run them through the planer to get rid of the resaw marks and bring them to a point where you can glue them up. Leave a little for final planing to finish thickness.

I, too, like a little contrast, but that is just personal taste. But, not withstanding, great job on the chest/tall dresser!

[Ken Shoemaker]

Jerry,
I have very little experience with cherry. I mostly work QSWO. Seeing this fine piece makes me want to head to the store TODAY!!!!

You should be very proud of that. It's very well done. Ken

[glenn bradley]

Ohhhh, me likey. John is dead-on about grain matching troubles. My supplier has a lot of great stuff but is always a bit under expectations for consistency on walnut. The solution is to buy thicker and butterfly my own.

[Stan Mitchell]

Excellent, very clean looking. Few people understand how much work goes into a dresser.

I suffer the same situation with the lack of a large selection of wood. You really have to pick through the pile at times.

[Matt Meiser]

Very nice Jerry!

[Mark Ball]

Nice work, very nice. Where did you get the branding iron? I would like something like that.

[Jerry Strojny]

Nice work, very nice. Where did you get the branding iron? I would like something like that.


Rockler (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=701&filter=branding). I bought the date attachment too.

John - Spot on with the advice on resawing. I will keep that technique in my arsenal for future projects. Next on my list is to build a matching bedside table. Hopefully there is no need for that being there are no panels...but I'll just have to really take the time for matching the top boards.

Stan - Yeah, the selection is a beast. The stack of cherry at my supplier is about 3 feet wide and about 1 foot deep. They stand the boards up on end, and most of them are 6 or 7 feet long. Almost every single board has a ton of sap wood on one side, and as you can see, most have some on the "good" side also. This was my first experience with cherry. I like the wood, I just need to factor in more time for wood selection...like I may need to go a few times over a month or 2 to get enough boards that match well and are to my liking.

[John Thompson]

Very nice job Jerry. Yep.. ply is a beast to deal with on grain and the main reason I try to avoid it. But.. you will have to have a good band-saw to do your own book-matching so hopefully you have one. If not.. don't tell mama I suggested you need one to improve your ability! :)

Well done...

[Jerry Strojny]

Very nice job Jerry. Yep.. ply is a beast to deal with on grain and the main reason I try to avoid it. But.. you will have to have a good band-saw to do your own book-matching so hopefully you have one. If not.. don't tell mama I suggested you need one to improve your ability! :)

Well done...

You know what I would really love, is to have someone come to my house, and just go through all my tools to show me how to properly set up and maintain them. I have a bandsaw, but I need to cut fairly thick when resawing. My issue is that it I get uneven cuts vertically. It's thin at top, thicker at the bottom. Do people in a woodworking guilds help each other out like that? Mentoring? And something else that has been bothering me is my workshop. I want to totally rearange it. I don't know where to start...ok, I'm getting of track. I'll leave that for another day.

Thanks for all the comments. I really appreciate them.

[Karl Stowe]

The dresser looks geat. I saved the pictures to give me ideas latter when the wife wants me to make one. I have heard from my father, that read in a wood working journal, that you need to tighten the blade 3 times as much as recomend. My father said if you tap the blade it should make a ringing noise. I have yet to try this.
Book matching cherry is rather difficult. I was in Modesto, CA this last weekend and helped a friend send a whole unit of cherry through a double head planer. Judging from that whole unit it would be very hard to find boards that match.

Karl

[John Thompson]

The answer is yes.. people in both Guilds and WW'ing Clubs are usually more than happy to help out a locak by dropping by and offering their assistance. I would be glad to do just that if you lived within a 25 mile radius of me in the Atlanta area. What I suggest is to do some digging and see what clubs... etc. you do have local in Milwaukee.

Not knowing any circumstances... type.. size of BS.. type of blade you are using.. fence you use.. how well you have the saw adjusted.. type of stock.. etc. etc... I cannot provide any help. You might just simply post the problem and questions in General WW'ing section and give the details I mentioned above along with the technique. Could be as simple as not enough tension (too little would probably not cause the problem you mentioned).. a dull blade.. too fast a feed rate.. too many teeth on the blade.. etc.. etc. which are all common reasons for your problem.

Enough said as the old retiree has a "hot date" awaiting in my shop and the wife is aware of that... doesn't get any better than that! ... :)

[Baxter Smith]

Very pretty. I like the clean lines.

[Michael Peet]

Very nice, Jerry. It looks almost identical to the one in my bedroom. Simple and clean, I like it.

Mike

[Judson Herrig]

Very nice, I love cherry furniture.

About your bandsaw cutting uneven from top to bottom- John is right and in addition to that it could be an issue of not feeding through at the right angle and wedging the blade away from the fence. It could effect the top or bottom more depending on guide spacing and free length of blade. Freehand feed a board through while cutting on a straight line drawn on the board. The angle at which you end up feeding to keep the blade on this line is your feed angle. Set your fence to this and retry. The right angle is often not perpendicular to the table or any other point on the saw.

[Paul Cahill]

Jerry, a suggestion for you in the future would be to resaw and bookmatch your panel. If you have a good flat surface on both sides of the cherry board, resaw it in half, and glue the bookmatched pieces to some poplar. Then run them through the planer to get rid of the resaw marks and bring them to a point where you can glue them up. Leave a little for final planing to finish thickness.

John, could you or someone else elaborate on this technique? I have not done any veneering, but had always thought of it in terms of using a substrate such as plywood where you need to veneer both sides of the panel to avoid warping.
Thanks,
Paul

[Paul Saffold]

Nice job, Jerry. I love cherry.

Is this your design? Someday I'd like to make a dresser. (my someday list keeps growing. :rolleyes:)

Paul

[John Keeton]

John, could you or someone else elaborate on this technique? I have not done any veneering, but had always thought of it in terms of using a substrate such as plywood where you need to veneer both sides of the panel to avoid warping.
Thanks,
PaulPaul, I guess in the true sense, this would be veneer. But, I would have taken a 3/4 cherry board with nice grain, with a good smooth surface on either side. Then, resaw it to 3/8 minus the kerf. Bookmatch it, edge glue it and glue it to a poplar glueup of of similar width - with the sawn surface on the face of the panel.

I would plane the saw marks from the cherry, and bring the whole panel to final thickness by planing the poplar. That would place the glue line close to the center of the panel sandwich - quite a different situation than a veneered surface that effectively seals one side of a board/panel.

There shouldn't be any expansion/contraction issues since both the cherry and poplar have very similar radial and tangential shrinkage factors. Cherry is 3.7 and 7.1. Poplar is 4.6 and 8.2 - not enough difference to matter.

In this application, the poplar would be on the inside of the case and not be seen. That would permit one to have a nicely bookmatched panel, while using available stock.

Just my way of doing it. I am sure others may have better/different thoughts.

[Norman Pyles]

I like it!!!!!!

[Brian Ashton]

You should be very proud of that project

[Neil Brooks]

Like the style.

Like the overall look (species, choice of finishes, knobs).

Like the execution.

Really nice job!

By the way, I bought a used copy of Mastering Woodworking Machines (http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Wdwk-Machines-Fine-Woodworking/dp/0942391985) and have found it to be really helpful in getting my machines properly tuned up.

I also bought Mark Duginske's Band Saw Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/Band-Saw-Handbook-Mark-Duginske/dp/0806963980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265209525&sr=1-1) (also found a used copy). Another really excellent reference for understanding, tuning, and using the band saw.

Though I had my BS pretty well tuned before buying the book (much online research), the biggest (and I mean overwhelming) difference for me was the purchase of the right blades.

When I scrapped the OEM blade for a TimberWolf ... night and day.

For resaw, I've heard uniformly excellent things about Wood Slicer blades.

Really nice job on the dresser ... again !!

[Jerry Strojny]

When I scrapped the OEM blade for a TimberWolf ... night and day.

For resaw, I've heard uniformly excellent things about Wood Slicer blades.

Really nice job on the dresser ... again !!

I never used the OEM blades, went straight to TimberWolf. I think I'm pretty close to a good setup, it's the last 5% that always takes the most time and skill.
Thanks for the nice comments.